Margaret Thatcher the Conservatives attracted voters from the NF, whose support almost collapsed. In a meeting in July 1979 with Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Home Secretary William Whitelaw she objected to the number of Asian immigrants, in the context of limiting the total of Vietnamese boat people allowed to settle in the UK to fewer than 10,000 over two years. As Prime Minister, Thatcher met weekly with Queen Elizabeth II to discuss government business, and their relationship came under close scrutiny. Her biographer John Campbell writes: Michael Shea, the Queen's press secretary, had reportedly leaked anonymous rumours of a rift, which
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