Premiership of Margaret Thatcher the June 1983 general election, the Conservatives won 42.4% of the vote, the Labour Party 27.6% and the Alliance 25.4% of the vote. Though the gap between Labour and the Alliance was narrow in terms of votes, the Alliance vote was scattered and they won only a fraction of the seats that Labour held, with its concentrated base. The Conservatives' share of the vote fell slightly (1.5%) since 1979. Labour's vote had fallen by far more (9.3%) and the Conservatives now had an overall majority of 144 MPs. Thatcher was Prime Minister during what "The Guardian" described as "the worst
Third Thatcher ministry Inflation, which the first Thatcher government had conquered by 1983, was touching 10% for the first time in eight years. Then, on 1 November 1990, came the first of a series of events which would spell the end of Margaret Thatcher's years in power. Sir Geoffrey Howe, the deputy prime minister, long resentful of being ousted as Foreign Secretary, resigned from the cabinet over its European policy. Soon afterward, in his resignation speech in the House of Commons, he publicly denounced Thatcher, having once been one of her closest allies, personally and for her hostility towards the programmes of the