John Smith doesn't have his heart attack in 1994, and later word ofJohn Major's extramarital affair with Edwina Currie breaks in The Daily Telegraph shortly after the 1995 leadership election is called. The era of Back to Basics and Sleaze comes back into the spotlight, and in addition to John Redwood Michael Heseltine throws his hat into the ring. Michael Portillo meanwhile sits comfortably at home waiting to swoop in like the Thatcherite in a flamboyant jacket he is during the second round. However, when the results came in it was found by the narrowest of narrow margins John Redwood had won the vote of a majority of the MPs with 165 votes - he also found himself with the need 15% above the next ranked candidate, John Major with 114 votes. Only 16 MPs voted for Heseltine; there were more who spoilt their ballots than voted for the man who put the knife in Margaret Thatcher, 17, along with 12 abstentions and 5 who did not vote at all. Thus John Redwood became leader of the Conservative Party, and threw the UK government into chaos.
The ever present rift between the two wings of the party becomes more pronounced following the election of a leader on a Euroscpetic Thatcherite platform; and before the year is out a series of defections has robbed him of his Parliamentary majority. Announcing to the country he intends to "seek his own mandate" the nation goes to the polls in November 1995 - three days after the Princess of Wales gave a candid interview to Martin Bashir on Panorama on her personal life and the future of the monarchy. What part this played in the election results that followed has been debated in the decades since; with some even going so far as to suggest had Redwood held off for another week the return of James Bond to cinemas might have seen the Conservatives emerge as the largest party.
The election was also notable in seeing the first televised debates between the major party leaders, Prime Minister John Redwood of the Conservatives, Leader of the Opposition John Smith of the Labour Party, and Paddy Ashdown of the Liberal Democrats. They were knocked off the tabloid headlines by the Diana interview the next night, but it was a watershed moment.
In the end Smith's Labour Party would wind up just two seats short of a Parliamentary majority on 326 seats, the Conservatives on less than a percentage point less than Labour returned 260 MPs, but the biggest surprise of election night was how well the Liberal Democrats performed returning 40 MPs and gaining their best national result since the Liberal Party had merged with the SDP in 1988. Many credit Ashdown's performance in the debates as playing a key role in the party's fortunes that night; many polls rated him as having performed better than both Redwood and Smith. Tony Blair of the Labour Party threw himself into coalition negotiations at Smith's instructions, something both he and Ashdown did with aplomb.
On the Conservative side, Redwood immediately dispelled any notion that he would resign the party leadership, claiming that any Labour/Lib-Dem government would collapse within a year. He also reiterated his desire to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union and would fight tooth and nail against any proposals towards a currency union with the rest of Europe. While the coalition discussions continued between the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties those on the pro-European wing, leading amongst them Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine, signed a letter calling for Redwood's resignation or they would resign the whip. Redwood was steadfast in his refusal to stand down, and so some nine Conservative MPs - including Clarke, Heseltine and former Prime Minister Edward Heath - left to form their own group of Conservatives, alternatively called the Independent Conservatives, the One Nation Conservatives, the Pro Euro Conservatives, the Progressive Conservatives, or pretty soon the Coalition or National Conservatives. More jokingly one tabloid went with the headline The Fellowship of the Left Wing.
Blair had secretly confided in Smith that he feared a left-wing rebellion could collapse any Coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and now that the Conservative splinter had presented itself he suggested that with them they could secure their majority and present themselves as a Ministry of All the Talents or National Government. Both he and Ashdown felt there was little in their planned agreement that the Conservative splitters would disagree with, and Ashdown also hoped they could be absorbed into the Liberal Democrats. At HM Treasury a programme of government was unveiled by Smith and Blair representing the Labour Party, Ashdown and Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrats, and Clarke from the Conservatives. They outlined a programme of government outlining their support for British membership in the EU and working towards the goal of a single currency; constitutional reform including devolution to Scotland, Wales, and parts of England; commitment to the peace process in Northern Ireland; and a Commission examining electoral reform followed by a referendum on implementing its findings within the parliamentary term.
Meanwhile, on the Labour backbenches, something rumbled...