Fartsniffage wrote:Ostroeuropa wrote:He's hardly a Thatcherite and was Thatchers right hand man in the sense that if she didn't give some of the Wets power, they would oust her. He was a wet tory and one of the reasons she was brought down. He's always been on the left of the party.
He wasn't even in government when they ousted Thatcher. He got kicked out over helicopters, not his support for Maggie.
... Do you not know how Thatcher was ousted?
Hestletine issued the challenge to her leadership and pulled down 43% of the vote, necessitating a second round. Leaks and so on indicated that since it became apparent Thatcher could actually lose the second round, rebel MPs and careerists were emboldened to break rank and would back Hestletine in the second round and lead the Wets to victory and the marginalization of the Thatcherite faction. Thatcher declined to participate and withdrew from the race in order to knife Hestletine and the wets, because the only reason he did so well was as a compromise anti-thatcher candidate everyone could broadly tolerate.
Without Thatcher as a uniting force, his support balkanized into the various factions again (Communitarians, one nation tories, traditionalists, blairite types, and so on). He was nobodies favorite, but somebody people would tolerate to get rid of Thatcher. This allowed all the factions to pretend they had nothing to do with it and blame Hesltetine, meaning they could court the Thatcherite faction.
Major eventually won because he was a compromise between anti-thatcher and pro-thatcher factions of the party, the actual middle ground, whereas Hesltetine was the middle ground for anti-thatcherism.