Old Newscast: Margaret Thatcher Announces Her Resignation, 1990 (Part 1)

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Old Newscast, we look at the day that Margaret Thatcher announced she would stand down as prime minister, 22 November 1990.

Jim Naughtie, BBC special correspondent joins Adam with Caroline Slocock, who was Thatcher’s private secretary.

They go through how the day unfolded publicly and behind the scenes, and what led to the decision.

You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere

Get in touch with Newscast by emailing [email protected] or send us a whatsapp on +44 0330 123 9480.

New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Rufus Gray and Chris Flynn. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:04.7	Hello, this is the last in the summer series of old newscasts.
0:08.5	And thank you if you've messaged us about previous episodes of old newscast,
0:12.5	especially if it brought back memories or experiences that you had of that period.
0:17.9	Or if we are now helping you with your school and university work. That's great to
0:22.5	hear. This one might help you if you're studying politics because we're taking you back to November
0:26.7	the 22nd, 1990, the day the Thatcher era ended because it's when Mrs. Thatcher announced her resignation
0:34.0	as Prime Minister. We will go through how that unfolded throughout the day.
0:39.0	And you also hear that it's as much a story about those men she chose to be in her cabinet
0:43.6	to serve around her, like John Major, Douglas Hurd, David Waddington and Ken Clark, as it is
0:50.1	about her decisions. And also there's lots of policy issues bubbling away under the surface and
0:55.9	actually at the surface as well. Things like Margaret Thatcher's attitude to Europe, which was changing
1:02.0	and evolving, and also the so-called poll tax, which was the predecessor to the council tax, which actually
1:10.3	saw riots on the street when it
1:12.7	was introduced. So that's just some of what you will hear on this episode of old newscast.
1:18.1	Newscast from the BBC.
1:20.4	I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying this.
1:23.2	You've come over as being someone in one of your backbenchers said is slightly off her trolley.
1:28.8	And she got up to leave, she turned to me and she said, I never thought he'd do it.
1:32.0	For 10 years we've been fighting to get rid of her.
1:34.7	No, no, no.
1:38.5	Hello, it's Adam in the old newscast studio, and I'm joined by a friend of newscastcast and Radio 4 legend Jim Nocti. Hi Jim.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.