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
Premiership of Margaret Thatcher 1989, Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree to the circumstances under which she would join the Exchange Rate Mechanism. At the meeting, they both threatened they would resign if their demands were not met. Thatcher responded by moving Howe to Leader of the House of Commons (despite giving him the title Deputy Prime Minister he was now effectively removed from decision-making over Europe) and by listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October, feeling that Thatcher had undermined him. Thatcher continued to be the leading international advocate of a