Thatcher in office

During her tour of the United States in 1977 Margaret Thatcher had met with Jimmy Carter, when she clearly did not endear herself to the president. Such was the tone of the meeting Carter left with the impression that Thatcher was both hot-headed and ‘overbearing’. Overbearing or not, US policy makers understood that Thatcher was likely to be the next British prime minister. Events would bear out such an assessment as Callaghan's political predicament was made increasingly untenable as he faced mounting industrial crisis throughout the country. In January 1979 the oil tanker drivers of Texaco Oil Company voted to go on strike, which was followed by further strikes from the road haulage union and then union strikes from public transport and water works employees. In an effort to preserve resources, the British government announced a ‘three-day week’. Callaghan's visit to Guadeloupe in February 1979 and his handling of the waiting press at Heathrow, where the prime minister brushed off suggestions that Britain faced a ‘crisis’, hardly helped matters. When asked by one reporter, what was his view on the ‘mounting crisis in the country at the moment?’ Callaghan responded by stating that ‘you're taking a rather parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos’. Bernard Donoughue far better understood the political implications. As he privately recognised at the time, a picture of Callaghan ‘basking in the Caribbean sun’ would not ‘look good when Britain is frozen and coming to halt’. This was indeed how one newspaper interpreted matters as it exclaimed on its front page: ‘Crisis, What Crisis?’ Callaghan's inability to solve these mounting challenges led to the passing of a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons which forced the prime minister to dissolve Parliament and call for an immediate general election. For Callaghan the result was a political disaster as Margaret Thatcher swept into office on 4 May 1979 with a solid forty-three-seat parliamentary majority.