ABSTRACT
John Major was elected Leader of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister in November 1990 immediately upon the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. The Conservatives had said to the first woman prime minister in the UK, ‘enough is enough’. Thatcher had been Tory leader for 15 years and Prime Minister for the previous 11 years. As she was driven away in the official car from 10 Downing Street on that cold autumnal morning with tears in her eyes, there was widespread admission in politics, in the media and in society that Britain was now a different place compared to 1979, thanks to her ideologies, her policies, and her style of leadership. To some, she was a figure of hatred; to others, she was the saviour of the British economy. The legacy she provided to her successor was a totally changed economic and social order, a completely overhauled central government and local government, and an upturned town and country planning system.
