Bang!: A History of Britain in the 1980s (96 page)

32
 
The Guardian
, 30 December 2008;
The Times
, 1 January 2009.

33
 Philip Whitehead,
The Writing on the Wall
(1985); quoted in Faith,
A Very Different
Country
, p. 218.

34
 Lord Lever (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) to Lord Elwyn-Jones (Lord Chancellor) in Tony Benn,
Conflicts of Interest:
Diaries 1977–80
(1990), p. 448.

35
 Morgan,
Callaghan
, p. 679.

36
 Michael Heseltine,
Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography
(2000), p. 172.

37
 Recollection of Joe Ashton (Government Whip 1976–7),
The Night the Government Fell: A Parliamentary Coup
, broadcast on
BBC Parliament channel, 28 March 2009.

38
 Morgan,
Callaghan
, p. 679.

Chapter 2

1
 Chris Horrie, ‘“Epoch-making” poster was clever fake’, BBC News website, 16 March 2001.

2
 Horrie, ‘“Epoch-making” poster was clever fake’; John Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher
,
Vol. 1: The
Grocer’s Daughter
(2000), p. 413.

3
 MORI had the Conservatives on 51 per cent and Labour on 38 per cent on 1–2 April 1979, while Gallup had them on 50 and 40 per
cent, respectively, between 6–9 April. With some fluctuations, this had slid to 45 and 37 per cent according to MORI on 2 May, and a knife-edge 43 to 41 per cent on 1–2 May according to
Gallup. The actual result on polling day was Conservatives 43.9 per cent, Labour 37.7 per cent. David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
(1980), p. 264.

4
 Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 274.

5
 When Thatcher pressed Callaghan in the Commons on the details of the IMF bail-out, he went so far as to offer the put-down: ‘one
day the Right Honourable Lady will understand these things a little better’. 8 June 1976, 912 HC Deb. cols 1192–3.

6
 Thatcher to Michael Cockerell, interview for BBC
Campaign ’79
, 27 April 1979, quoted in Dominic Sandbrook,
Seasons in
the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979
(2012), p. 783.

7
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher
,
Vol. 1
, p. 436.

8
 Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 265.

9
 Stephen Coleman, ‘The Televised Leaders’ Debate in Britain: From Talking Heads to Headless Chickens’,
Parliamentary Affairs
, 51 (1998), pp. 183–4; Graham Stewart, ‘Past Notes’,
The Times
, 5 September 2009.

10
 Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 168; Campbell,
Margaret
Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p.
427.

11
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, pp. 439–40.

12
 
Times
diary, 11 September 1974.
The Times
concluded that ‘her accent is unremarkable enough, and I think it is
probably the pitch of her voice which irritates Mr Powell. It is a decibel or so too high for comfort. She speaks with undue deliberation and too little expression, having a rather mesmeric
effect.’

13
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 441.

14
 Ronald Millar,
A View from the Wings
(1993), pp. 228, 227.

15
 Michael Cockerell,
Live from Number 10: The Inside Story of Prime Ministers and Television
(1988), p. 234.

16
 Thatcher’s speech to Conservative rally in Cardiff, 16 April 1979, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

17
 Cockerell,
Live from Number 10
, pp. 251–2.

18
 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1983
(1984), p. 5.

19
 Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, pp. 148–9.

20
 Quoted in Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 150.

21
 Nigel Lawson,
The View From No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical
(1992), p. 199.

22
 Quoted in Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 183.

23
 Conservative Party 1979 general election manifesto.

24
 Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative local government conference, 2 March 1979, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

25
 Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, pp. 273–4.

26
 BBC Gallup surveys 21–26 March and 3 March 1979, in Butler and Kavanagh,
The
British General Election of 1979
,
p. 342.

27
 Quoted in Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 188.

28
 Quoted in Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 195.

29
 Graham Stewart,
The History of The Times
, vol. 7:
The Murdoch Years
(2005), p. 43

30
 James Callaghan, election broadcast, 1 May 1979, in Butler and Kavanagh,
The British
General Election of 1979
, p.
196.

31
 Thatcher’s speech to Conservative rally at Bolton, 1 May 1979, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

32
 Bernard Donoughue,
Prime Minister: The Conduct of Policy under Harold Wilson and James
Callaghan
(1987), p. 191;
quoted in Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 443.

33
 MORI, in Butler and Kavanagh,
The British General Election of 1979
, p. 343.

34
 
Guardian
, 5 May 1979.

35
 There had, of course, been female prime ministers elsewhere in the world, like Golda Meir in Israel and Indira Gandhi in India. Two
months after Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, Maria da Lourdes Pintasilgo served as prime minister of Portugal for five months, but she was appointed rather than serving as the result of an
election. As distinct from head of government, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was elected Iceland’s head of state (with minimal political power) in 1980. Isabel Perón had been
appointed, rather than elected, Argentina’s head of state in 1974–5.

36
 Quoted in Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 446.

37
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 446.

38
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 1.

39
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 29.

40
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, p. 19.

41
 Margaret Thatcher,
The Path to Power
(1995), p. 28.

42
 Campbell,
Margaret Thatcher, Vol. 1
, pp. 79, 84.

43
 Dennis Walters,
Not Always with the Pack
(1989), p. 104.

44
 Alfred Sherman,
Paradoxes of Power: Reflections on the Thatcher Interlude
, ed. Mark Garnett (2005), pp. 20–1.

45
 Margaret Thatcher, interviewed by Margaret Howard on
The World this Weekend
, Radio 4, 16 May 1971.

46
 Geraldine Bridgewater,
Ring of Truth
(2007), pp. 101–4.

47
 Keith Joseph, speech to the Edgbaston Conservative Association, 19 October 1974; quoted in Andrew Denham and Mark Garnett,
Keith
Joseph
(2001), pp. 267–8.

48
 Thatcher,
The Path to Power
, p. 266.

49
 
The Economist
, 30 November 1974; quoted in Alan Clark,
The Tories: Conservatives and the Nation State
(1998), p.
383.

50
 Thatcher,
The Path to Power
, p. 269.

51
 Richard Vinen,
Thatcher’s Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the Thatcher Era
(2009), p. 74.

52
 Margaret Thatcher, interview for Scottish Television, 21 February 1975, Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Those who worked with her in
opposition, such as George Gardiner, also noted her enduring admiration for Macmillan. George Gardiner,
Margaret Thatcher: From Childhood to Leadership
(1975), pp. 67–8.

53
 Transcript of Thatcher interview with Hugo Young, 22 February 1983, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

Chapter 3

1
 Nigel Lawson,
The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical
(1992), p. 64. The credit for inventing the term
‘Thatcherism’ is generally given to the journal
Marxism Today
.

2
 Christopher Johnson,
The Economy Under Mrs Thatcher, 1979–90
(1991), p. 38.

3
 Jeff Rooker, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, Budget Debate, 12 June 1979, 968 HC Deb. col. 252.

4
 Denis Healey in the House of Commons, 23 October 1979; quoted in the
Daily Telegraph
, 24 October 1979.

5
 Edmund Dell,
The Chancellors
(1996), p. 464.

6
 Eric Helleiner,
States and the Re-emergence of Global Finance, from Bretton Woods to the 1990s
(1994), p. 150.

7
 Lawson,
The View from No. 11
, p. 32.

8
 Minimum Band 1 Dealing Rate (the discount rate) (August
2012).

9
 Margaret Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
(1993), p. 122.

10
 
The Times
, 30 March 1981.

11
 John Ranelagh,
Thatcher’s People: An Insider’s Account of the Politics, the Power and the Personalities
(1991),
p. 227.

12
 Lawson,
The View from No. 11
, p. 98.

13
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, p. 138.

14
 Patrick Minford,
The Times
, 7 April 1981.

15
 Ian Gilmour,
Inside Right: A Study of Conservatism
(1977), p. 118.

16
 Alan Sked and Chris Cook,
Post-War Britain: A Political History
, fourth edition (1993), p. 329.

17
 Margaret Thatcher,
News of the World
, 20 September 1981.

18
 Andrew Marr,
A History of Modern Britain
(2007), p. 386.

19
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, p. 104.

20
 Norman St John Stevas,
The Two Cities
(1984), p. 83.

21
 Lord Ryder of Wensum to the author.

22
 Michael Heseltine,
Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography
(2000), p. 232.

23
 Lawson,
The View from No. 11
, p. 127. John Nott summarized her as ‘aggressive’ rather than ‘dominant . . .
On all sorts of issues there was a pretty good ding-dong discussion . . . Nobody kowtowed to Margaret Thatcher’, while John Hoskyns believed she argued in order ‘to satisfy herself that
the thinking she was being given was good’. Nott and Hoskyns, interviews for
The Thatcher Factor
. The strengths and weaknesses of her arguing style are discussed by Cecil Parkinson,
Right at the Centre: An Autobiography
(1992), p. 21; George Walden,
Lucky George: Memoirs of an Anti-Politician
(1999), p. 191; and Alan Clark,
Diaries
(2000), p. 215 (14 June
1988).

24
 Ronald Millar,
A View from the Wings
(1993), p. 327.

25
 Paul Hirst, ‘Miracle or Mirage? The Thatcher Years, 1979–1997’, in
From Blitz to Blair
:
A New History
of Britain since 1939
, ed. Nick Tiratsoo (1997), p. 193.

26
 Ranelagh,
Thatcher’s People
, p. ix.

27
 Margaret Thatcher to Friedrich von Hayek, 18 May 1979, Thatcher MSS, THCR 2/4/1/8.

28
 Peter York and Charles Jennings,
Peter York’s Eighties
(1995), p. 11.

29
 Recollection of Bruce Anderson,
The Times
, 31 August 2006.

30
 Denis Healey,
The Time of My Life
(1989), p. 488.

31
 Maurice Cowling,
The Times
, 4 February 1984.

32
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, p. 109.

33
 Thatcher on
Weekend World
, London Weekend Television, 1 February 1981, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

34
 David Parker,
The Official History of Privatisation
, vol. 1 (2009), p. 70.

35
 Parker,
The Official History of Privatisation
, vol. 1, p. 70.

36
 Jim Prior,
A Balance of Power
(1986), p. 122.

37
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, p. 132.

38
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, p. 52.

39
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, pp. 129–30.

40
 Thatcher to the
Guardian
Young Businessman of the Year lunch, 11 March 1981, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.

41
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, pp. 151, 28–9.

42
 John Junor,
Listening for a Midnight Tram
(1990), p. 263.

43
 Thatcher,
The Downing Street Years
, p. 149.

Chapter 4

1
 Andrew Glyn obituary,
The Times
, 8 January 2008.

2
 Nigel Lawson,
The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical
(1992), p. 195.

3
 R. E. Rowthorn and J. R. Wells,
Deindustrialization and Foreign Trade
(1987), pp. 180.