Margaret Thatcher that Foreign Secretary James Callaghan warned his fellow Labour Cabinet members in 1974 of the possibility of "a breakdown of democracy", telling them: "If I were a young man, I would emigrate." In mid-1978, the economy began to recover and opinion polls showed Labour in the lead, with a general election being expected later that year and a Labour win a serious possibility. Now Prime Minister, Callaghan surprised many by announcing on 7 September that there would be no general election that year and he would wait until 1979 before going to the polls. Thatcher reacted to this by branding
Premiership of Margaret Thatcher her opposition to greater economic integration into the European Community. She also alienated many Conservative voters and Members of Parliament with the imposition of the local poll tax. As her support fell away, she was challenged for the party leadership and persuaded by her Cabinet to withdraw from the second round of voting, ending her eleven-year tenure as Prime Minister. Though she remains a domestically polarising figure, historians and political scientists generally rank Thatcher as an above-average Prime Minister. Biographer John Campbell reports that in July 1978 when asked by a Labour MP in Commons what she meant by socialism: