Leaders and Reason for Divisions (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes

Leaders and Reason for Divisions

Context: the 1997 election defeat

Following the 1997 election defeat, John Major resigned immediately as Conservative leader. The scale of the defeat produced a crisis within the Conservative Party, though this was not immediately apparent to everyone. Major's long premiership remained, particularly in Europe, and the wound of Thatcher's fall remained unhealed, with bitter recriminations continuing against those accused of betraying her. The crisis became increasingly focused on the future direction of the party.

The defeat generated competing interpretations. Some believed that accepting Labour's reforms, particularly privatisation, meant the Conservative Party could wait for the electorate to return to its senses, viewing the Conservatives as the natural party of government. Others recognised that the 1997 election, like the 1979 election, marked a turning point. They argued the Conservative Party would need to change fundamentally to become electable again, just as Labour had been forced to change in the 1980s.

William Hague 1997–2001

Party composition after 1997

The Conservative Party after the 1997 election was only half the size of the party that had chosen John Major in 1990. The party had become more Eurosceptic and Thatcherite than previously. One estimate suggests that 145 of the remaining 165 Conservative MPs were Eurosceptic, meaning the party had lost some of its prominent pro-European figures, such as Chris Patten.

The leadership contest

Major's immediate resignation meant a new leader would be elected quickly. Michael Heseltine had suffered ill health during the election campaign and decided not to stand in the leadership contest. He would likely have been unsuccessful anyway, being both pro-European and having not been forgiven for challenging Thatcher in 1990. Ken Clarke remained well regarded by the broader electorate for his success as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1992 and 1997, and because of his professed love of jazz, cigars and whiskey, he was seen as down to earth. However, he was pro-European and had been one of Thatcher's cabinet members who advised her to resign in 1990. The obvious candidate from the Right, and the more Eurosceptic wing of the party, was Michael Portillo, but he had surprisingly lost his seat. The candidates from the Right were therefore Michael Howard, John Redwood, Peter Lilley and William Hague.

Key Figure: William Hague

William Hague (b. 1961) first gained notice at age 16, making an assured speech at the 1981 Conservative Party conference. He became a popular and effective MP for Richmond, known for his Eurosceptic views and skill as a debater. As party leader, Hague attempted, at least initially, to make Conservative policies more socially inclusive, but after 1999 concentrated on the Conservative core vote. He later became foreign secretary in the coalition government after 2010.

Hague's leadership and policies

After 1997, the Labour Party enjoyed an extended honeymoon period with the electorate, but this was not simply due to Tony Blair and New Labour's popularity. The Conservatives remained far behind in polls. Even when William Hague had largely unified the party on Europe by ruling out entry into a single currency in the foreseeable future, the Conservatives remained unpopular. Some in the party started identifying that the Conservative Party needed to change both its policies and its image. They argued the Conservative Party was seen as uncaring, intolerant, old-fashioned and obsessed with Europe, but this proved extremely controversial.

In 1999, Peter Lilley, previously an arch Thatcherite, delivered a speech which seemed to criticise some elements of Thatcherism. He warned that although the public had accepted that Thatcherite economic reforms were necessary to tackle the issues Britain faced in the 1980s, they were suspicious of further such reform. The public was cautious about further privatisation, as Major had discovered when the possibility of Royal Mail being sold was discussed. The electorate were even more resistant to greater private involvement in public services such as education and health, preferring them to be run and delivered by the State. They had voted for the Labour Party in 1997 partly because they thought Labour would better protect these public services, and they tended to believe the Conservatives wanted a smaller State for ideological reasons, rather than because it would provide better public services.

Ann Widdecombe on party divisions

Ann Widdecombe (b. 1947) was a Conservative politician who served as a minister under John Major and was shadow Health Secretary and shadow Home Secretary under William Hague. She was on the right of the party, Eurosceptic and socially conservative. She stood down from Parliament in 2010.

Writing in the left-wing periodical New Statesman shortly after the 2001 election defeat, Widdecombe looked back at the problems the Conservative Party had faced. She stated:

"To fill the gap left by Euro wars, the press invented a new division: mods versus rockers. Initially, I gave little credence to such classifications. There had always been a mix of views, in all parties, over moral issues such as abortion, the age of consent or divorce laws, and there for ever would be. There is no inherent contradiction in appealing to a core vote and reaching out to a broader electorate. An emphasis on law and order, for example, will especially benefit those trying to live decent lives in deprived inner-city areas. A wide range of views is beneficial, not detrimental, because it indicates a party with a broad base. But throughout my time in the shadow cabinet, we argued endlessly about whether we could seize the high ground from Labour on the issues of health and education, never reaching a conclusion, and that policy stagnation, not factionalism, was our biggest single weakness."

Electoral failure 2001

The Conservative Party failed to make any progress in the polls. Hague felt his leadership was even more threatened after 1999 when Portillo was elected to Parliament in a by-election. To some on the right, Portillo was the man who should have become leader in 1997, and Hague felt obliged to appoint him as shadow chancellor. After the Conservatives suffered another crushing defeat in 2001, Hague resigned the leadership immediately.

Iain Duncan Smith 2001–03

Leadership contest

After Hague's resignation in 2001, the strongest candidates for the Conservative leadership were Kenneth Clarke and Michael Portillo. Clarke had remained popular with the broader electorate but was still viewed with suspicion by many Conservatives because of his European views, particularly after appearing with Tony Blair at a pro-European event in 1999. Michael Portillo, still a strong Eurosceptic, had reinvented himself as a social liberal and promised to make the party more modern and inclusive, but this made him unpopular with many traditional Conservatives.

Duncan Smith's approach

Iain Duncan Smith won in 2001 because of negative voting against Clarke and Portillo. It appeared as if the Rockers had defeated the Mods. However, Duncan Smith had little charisma and was no match for Tony Blair. The Conservatives remained behind in the opinion polls, and within a few months of his emergence as leader, some Conservative MPs were plotting to remove him.

Duncan Smith made some efforts to introduce compassionate conservatism. This political philosophy was characterised by awareness of the social implications of economic policy. Promoted by the Republicans in the USA in the 2000s, it tends to support strong families and reformed welfare systems as ways of mitigating poverty. It has influenced Conservatives in the UK both from the socially conservative wing, such as Iain Duncan Smith, and from the socially liberal wing, such as George Osborne. Duncan Smith's visit to the deprived Easterhouse estate in Glasgow convinced him that the Conservative Party needed to do more to tackle poverty.

Continued divisions

However, Duncan Smith was also aggressively Eurosceptic and reopened divisions over Europe. Under his leadership, the Conservative Party remained socially conservative, voting against both the repeal of Section 28 and against allowing unmarried couples to adopt. These issues demonstrated the divisions in the party, as modernisers such as David Cameron and George Osborne refused to follow the party line. As Duncan Smith had been such an architect of the rebellions that Major had faced over Maastricht, he now found it difficult to demand loyalty from his backbenchers as leader.

Theresa May's 2002 speech

Theresa May (b. 1956) worked in the banking industry before becoming MP for Maidenhead in 1997. She held various posts in the shadow cabinets of Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard before becoming home secretary in the coalition government after 2010.

At the 2002 party conference, Theresa May, the chair of the Conservative Party, highlighted the problems the party faced in making itself attractive to the electorate. She stated:

"The Conservative Party, its principles, its people, have been let down in recent years by the failure of some to represent faithfully the best in Conservatism. Some Tories have tried to make political capital by demonising minorities instead of showing confidence in all the citizens of our country. Some Tories have indulged themselves in petty feuding or personal sniping instead of getting behind a leader who is doing an enormous amount to change a party which has suffered two massive landslide defeats. Never forget this fact. Twice we went to the country unchanged, unrepentant, just plain unattractive. And twice we got slaughtered. Soldiering on to the next election without radical, fundamental change is simply not an option. There's a lot we need to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the nasty party. I know that's unfair. You know that's unfair but it's the people out there we need to convince."

Iraq War and downfall

Duncan Smith also supported British entry into the Iraq War. This was heavily criticised by some, including Kenneth Clarke, as it made it difficult for the Conservatives to criticise the Labour government for this unpopular decision, especially as the war dragged on. Instead, the Liberal Democrats emerged as the anti-war party to challenge Labour.

Finally, amid press speculation about the salary he paid to his wife to act as his secretary, Duncan Smith faced a vote of no confidence. Despite the fact that subsequently no wrongdoing was found, the damage was done. Duncan Smith was ousted from power and Michael Howard was installed as leader, unopposed.

Michael Howard, 2003–05

When Michael Howard took over the Conservative Party leadership, he did so as a unifying figure, having support from both Mods and Rockers. This had less to do with Howard himself and was more the result of the party's realisation about the state it was in. One MP said: "Many of us who like everything Michael Howard stands for politically will back him because we are tired of being embarrassed."

Michael Howard (b. 1941) was an experienced and able politician but had become something of a hate figure as an extremely unpopular home secretary in the 1990s. As leader, Howard performed strongly against Tony Blair in the Commons and improved party organisation and morale. The party that Howard led, however, was still obsessed with Europe, and did not alter its policy direction substantially.

Howard's leadership

However, like Hague and Duncan Smith, Howard struggled to compete with Tony Blair in the opinion polls. Much of the work that Duncan Smith had done on social justice was abandoned, and the Conservatives remained distrusted on policy areas such as health and education. However, Howard did bring stability to the party. Despite the fact that he was on the right of the party and was socially conservative, Howard promoted modernisers in his cabinet. After the election defeat in 2005, David Cameron became shadow education secretary and George Osborne shadow chancellor. Howard made it clear that his preference was for his successor to be a moderniser.

David Cameron, 2005–2016

In the leadership contest held in the autumn of 2005, David Cameron defeated David Davis, the right-wing candidate, partly due to an impressive note-free speech at the Conservative Party conference.

Cameron's vision

In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank in 2002, Cameron had set out his vision for the Conservative Party's future direction. He stated:

"A dynamic economy. A decent society. A strong self-confident nation. These goals are forward-looking, inclusive, and generous. I am absolutely clear that the Conservative Party is and will always be passionately concerned not just with individuals but with society. Conservatives believe profoundly that there is a 'we' in politics as well as a 'me'. I am absolutely clear that the Conservative Party has always stood for and will always stand for aspiration and equal opportunities. I am a Conservative. I am also a moderniser. I don't see any contradiction between these two statements. Now I know what you're thinking. 'He's mentioned the "m" word. I know what's coming next.' Here comes the bit of his speech where he's going to talk about the need to respect diversity in society. The importance of having women in leading roles. The need to be less confrontational. The need to be more informal and personal. Well, of course we need to do each and every one of these things to be relevant in the modern world. It's just common sense."

This speech encapsulated the modernisation agenda that Cameron would pursue as leader.

Key Figure: David Cameron

David Cameron (b. 1966) came from a wealthy background and was educated at Eton and Oxford. His early career was in public relations; he was also a policy adviser to Norman Lamont at the time of Black Wednesday in 1992 and later to Michael Howard. Cameron was elected MP for Witney in 2001, only four years before he became party leader. He became prime minister leading the coalition government in 2010.

Key Figure: David Davis

David Davis (b. 1948) came from a working-class background. He became the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden in 1987. He is socially conservative but a strong supporter of civil liberties, resigning from the shadow cabinet in 2008 to force a by-election where he stood as an opponent of policies which, he believed, eroded these.

Key Figure: George Osborne

George Osborne (b. 1971) was elected as the Conservative MP for Tatton in 2001. Previously he had worked for the Conservative Party both during the 1997 election campaign for Major and as a speech-writer for William Hague. He was a moderniser, socially liberal though economically Thatcherite, and was influenced by George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the coalition government after 2010.

Modernisation and detoxification

As leader, Cameron set about detoxifying, or modernising, the Conservative Party. Cameron and his fellow modernisers understood that it was essential to reach out beyond the narrow core support for the Conservatives to make the party more tolerant and inclusive, no longer hostile to all kinds of social groups including ethnic minorities, gay people, single mothers, and young people.

Making the Conservatives electable

The Labour Party found it more difficult to attack Cameron than his predecessors. This was partly because the Labour Party's popularity was in decline by this point, but it was also because the Conservative Party had started to look electable again. For the first time since 1997, the Conservatives seemed to offer a credible alternative.

Many on the right wing of the Conservative Party remained sceptical of this shift, and some such as Norman Tebbit were openly critical of what they perceived as a rejection of Thatcherism. However, by and large, the party seemed more united than it had been for over a decade. Perhaps this was because many Conservatives hoped for victory at the 2010 election against an increasingly unpopular Labour government and realised that only a united party could achieve this. Certainly, by the time Tony Blair left office in 2007, Cameron's Conservative Party seemed to have recovered much of the ground lost since 1992.