In June Labour won their first national electoral victory since 1974 in the elections to the European Parliament, beating the Conservatives.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, had resigned in October over Thatcher's determination to follow the advice of her advisers, specifically Sir Alan Walters.

Sir Anthony Meyer was critical of the recently introduced Community Charge (which was seen by many as the key factor in the government's declining popularity), Thatcher's leadership style and her Euroscepticism.

[1] Thatcher, whose campaign was organised by former Cabinet minister George Younger, won the contest overwhelmingly and said afterwards: I would like to say how very pleased I am with this result and how very pleased I am to have had the overwhelming support of my colleagues in the House and the people from the party in the country.However, a total of 60 Conservative MPs did not support Thatcher by either voting for Meyer, spoiling their ballot papers, or abstaining.

The total result I think is rather better than I'd expected and not quite as good as some of my friends were hoping for.According to the next day's Glasgow Herald Heseltine's supporters predicted that unless the Prime Minister changed "her style of leadership", she would "be on her way out next year".