ABSTRACT
Thatcher's first Cabinet had 22 members, compared with 24 in the outgoing Labour Cabinet. She re-organized some of the ministries. Prices and Consumer Protection (set up in 1974) was merged with Trade. The Thatcherites were simply following the American New Right as well as their own gut feelings. Since the 1960s the Republican Right in America had been on the offensive against what Richard Nixon called, 'the professional welfarists, the urban planners, the day-carers, the social workers, the public housers'. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, which eventually brought the Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini to power, brought greater instability in the Middle East. In March 1979 the Irish Republican Army struck down one of Thatcher's closest associates, Airey Neave, in London. Howe's 1981 Budget was, according to the polls, the most unpopular since the war. Opposition to it mounted in the Cabinet as the fears grew that Thatcher and Howe were digging the party's grave.
