They wrote off Margaret Thatcher in 1981 when the SDP – like Reform today – was ascendant. They were wrong about her; they could also be about Starmer
Party conference time is when British politics goes berserk. Leaders soar and crash in a morass of cliches. Polls go mad and cataclysm always delivers the best copy.
Thus, back in 1981, Margaret Thatcher was at her Blackpool conference, two years into office. Brixton was rioting, inflation was 11% and the Tories were polling at 23%. The Labour opposition was faring as badly, also at 23%. Meanwhile, a third force, the Social Democratic party (SDP), in alliance with the Liberals, was running at more than 50% and dominating the news.
Conference talk that year was unanimous. Thatcher would be gone by Christmas. Her conference speech was awful, receiving the “shortest standing ovation” any leader had received for years, according to Charles Moore’s biography. Rivals roamed fringe meetings, publicly manoeuvring for her job. The Guardian’s Peter Jenkins wrote that “a brief political obituary of Thatcherism [was] now in order”. All bets were on the SDP leader Roy Jenkins becoming prime minister – and soon.
Whenever I recall 1981, I wonder how commentators got it so wrong. The answer: hysteria. Conferences are when the Westminster club steps down to flirt with the mob and usually loses its way. That year, Blackpool’s vipers’ nest was so vicious it seemed as if Thatcher could not dare return to Downing Street. Yet, she not only returned, but by the time of the Falklands war the following spring, she was on her way to total command of her party and to two more election victories.
