What-if?
May 30th, 2006
How’s this for a what-if: Did this slip-up give us Thatcher?
Mrs Thatcher might never have become prime minister - with all that that implies for all of us - but for a hiccup in communication on January 9 1974 when the chancellor, Anthony Barber, summarily dismissed a unique offer by the TUC to prevent a miners’ overtime ban from turning into a full-blown strike. […]
It’s easy to forget just how unlikely a potential prime minister Mrs Thatcher seemed in the early/mid 1970s. As things turned out, disarray among the ‘Heathmen’ (and, in fairness, her boldness in declaring her candidacy earlier than her rivals) let her build up real momentum, but if Heath had managed to safely navigate his way through the labour relations problems of the early 1970s who’s to say that Willie Whitehall or Francis Pym or Jim Prior might not have stepped up to the top job in more favourable circumstances and left Mrs Thatcher and Keith Joseph marooned on the Powellite fringe of the Tory cabinet?