Margaret Thatcher scored a tremendous victory, far greater than she or the Conservative Party managers had dared to expect. Not for 160 years had a British prime minister been elected for a third successive term: and Mrs. Thatcher was not merely re-elected but given another landslide, 376 seats out of the 650 in Parliament, for a 102-seat majority. Two questions, then: Why? and, What does her victory portend?
The vote divided substantially on geographical lines. London and the southeast, indeed most of southern England, voted solidly Conservative; eight years of Thatcherite government, with inflation and trade-union power curbed, income tax down, and a huge increase in the number of houseowners and shareholders, had given people something to confirm. But in Scotland, Wales, and much of northern England, where the old heavy industries are in irrevocable decline, the Socialist vote was almost equally solid. The Liberal/ Social Democratic Alliance did badly everywhere, because the wishy-washy middle-of-the-road vote was too evenly distributed across the country.
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