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Arrange these events into the correct sequence:

....... The first ballot of Tory MPs was held.

....... A second ballot of Tory MPs was held.

....... Geoffrey Howe madę a public attack on the party leader.

....... Messrs Hurd and Major decided to stand against Mr Heseltine.

....... Mr Heseltine announced that he would stand for election as party leader.

....... Mr Heseltine became environment secretary in the cabinet.

....... Mr Heseltine denied that he would stand for election as party leader.

....... Mr Major became PM when Messrs Hurd and Heseltine stood down.

....... The deputy prime minister resigned.

....... The ex-PM announced that she was standing bchind the new PM.

....... The PM announced her intention to stand again.

....... The PM announced her intention to stand her ground.

....... The PM announced that she would stand down.

....... The PM defendcd her stand on her European policy.

....... The PM got morę votcs than Mr Heseltine, who was standing against her.

C Now read this article, which appeared on 28 November 1990. Notę down your answers to the questions that follow.

To Margaret and the Tory party: a son and heir

Andrew Rawnsley

AFTER a prolonged and painful labour, the Con-servative Party last night 1 announced that it had given birth to a new Prime Minister - a baby boy called John.

His mother, Margaret, was reported to be “thrilled”. It was the son and heir she had always wanted.

When the new-born leader emerged in Downing Street

to utter his first words, he blinked at first, unac-customed to the glare of the photographers’ flashlights.

By his side, First Lady Norma clutched his hand.

The Prime Minister-elect was excited by his victory.

Not that his famously grey exterior expressed much 4 excitement. We only knew he had felt a bit of a thrill because he told us so.

“It is a veiy exciting thing to be leader of the Conservative Party,” he said in such a fiat voice that he 5 might have just come first in the school egg-and-spoon race.

When they heard the result in committee room 14, Tory backbenchers banged their desks, and then flooded into the lobbies and corridors of Westminster calling his name. “Major! Major!, MAJOR!”, they shouted, the traditional ery that declares the party is

now as totally united behind its new leader as it was behind the last one, and will remain so until the time comes to knife him in the back.

Tory backbenchers reeled with astonishment that they had elected somebody so 7 unknown and untested, replacing the longest-serving Prime Minister this century with the youngest.

They had chosen as their leader somebody who grew up in a family of circus entertainers and then, at the age of 16, ran away to join a firm of accountants.

It will take some getting used to one particularly amazing fact about the new Prime Minister. She is a 9 man. Though so little is known about John Major, everybody will have to take that, as so much else, on trust.

Posterity will want to record the words used by the new Prime Minister on his day of triumph.

In an effort to prove that his greyness is only skin deep, sources close to Mr Major had earlier revealed that, at breakfast, the Boy Prime Minister had cracked _n his first joke. History will remember that the suc-cessor to Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, and Churchill told the world: “I had two shredded wheat this morning, and I hope to have three tomorrow.”

By lunchtime, that appeared to have exhausted Mr Major’s humour reserves. “I am patient,” he said, when asked how he thought the vote was going. 12 “We will have to wait and see.” That use of the Royal We so soon confirmed him as the natural successor to Mrs Thatcher.

Both his rivals put a brave face on it. Michael Heseltine gamely offered his “eon-gratulations” and confirmed that he was taking his hairdrier out of the ring. 13 Douglas Hurd also madę a graceful withdrawal having been exposed, true to Foreign Office tradition, as the Third Man.

In Downing Street last night, Mrs Thatcher was seen with her boy inside No ₁₄ 11, no doubt handing over the front door keys to Number Ten.

And almost certainly reminding him of her ₁₅ declared intention to be “a veiy good backseat driver”.

Mr Major can expect to hear a familiar voice shouting directions over his 16 shoulder: “Right! Right! Right! No U-turns!”

There’s this consolation for the new Prime Minister - he doesn’t have very far to move. But once inside Number Ten, Mr Major will 17 have to prove that the Conservative Party has not sent a boy to do a woman’s job.

1    How did the new PM show his excitement at bcing clected?

2    How did he show he had a sense of humour?

3    How loyal are the party members likely to be to the new PM?

4    What was the delayed reaction of the MPs who had elected him?

5    What kind of family background did he come from?

6    What profession did he first take up?

7    What colour does the writer use to describe the new PM?

8    How would you describe the tonę of the article and the writefs motive?

"Bi-k. SIL r

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