That day -- Monday, 25 February 1980 -- unfolded, in the context of British politics, much like any other day. Government, in those days, happened rather like a tree falling in a forest when there was no one there to witness it. For those among the Great British Public who wanted to believe that something was happening, the assumption was that something was indeed most probably happening, while for those who still needed to see it, or hear it, to believe it, there remained a high degree of doubt that anything was happening at all.Graham McCann
About This Quote
It was a Monday, 25 February 1980, and the world was in turmoil. The Cold War had only just begun; the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran was allied to Iraq; Iran and Iraq were fighting each other; the United States was intervening in Afghanistan; France, West Germany, and the Warsaw Pact were fighting in the skies over Europe; and all of this was occurring while the United Kingdom government was making no real progress on its constitutional reform plan. On that particular day, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a walk on Westminster Bridge to meet with her backbenchers. It was an unusually cold but sunny February morning. The same day, London's first smog alert of the winter started to form over the city's air.[1] The meeting on Westminster Bridge would prove to be pivotal.
Two days later, Thatcher stood before parliament to deliver her most politically risky speech since taking power almost exactly three years earlier. Without any formal announcement or prior preparation, Thatcher had decided that Monday would be "Red Monday"—the English equivalent of Ronald Reagan's "Mondays." The prime minister told her tiring backbenchers who were tired of waiting for reform that she would make it happen even if no one else wanted it. She told them she would force her Conservative Party through by its own will power alone.[2] That same day, Thatcher opened parliament with an announcement that was far more controversial than many might have imagined at the time. It wasn't simply that she had decided to move forward with the plan to reform the country's parliamentary system without any of her colleagues—or indeed most members of parliament—being able to agree how best to do that. It was also that she had made it clear that if she didn't get what she wanted then she would be prepared to leave office and refuse to return until she had done so.[3] It is possible that we now look back and see Thatcher as having been decisive and strong-willed and thus a great leader because we no longer see her as thinking outside of the box—as making it up as she went along! Instead we now see her as having been cunning and unscrupulous because we now know how relentless and determined she was when those around her refused to take part in what she called "the greatest political adventure of our generation." How did Thatcher manage such a political breakthrough? And why might we still be looking back at that moment as a decisive moment for Britain rather than one that
Source: A Very Courageous Decision: The Inside Story Of Yes Minister
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