Jeremy Thorpe
The Liberal leader was obliged to quit his post in 1976 after some papers exposed his alleged involvement in the murder of former lover Norman Scott. The hitman hired by Thorpe managed to shoot a dog instead of the target. Eventually, the hitman wanted to rig the trial by whispering answers to his alibi witness. He was acquitted of attempted murder, but his own private life was entirely exposed.
Geoffrey Howe
This was the resignation that brought down Margaret Thatcher. Back in 1990, the former Commons leader had an excoriating speech to the House, denouncing Thatcher’s policies and personality.
According to former chancellor Nigel Lawson, it was simply the most devastating speech he had ever witnessed. After being eleven years in office, Thatcher lasted no more than fifteen days as Prime Minister after Howe’s resignation.
The Duchess of Atholl
Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, the Duchess of Atholl, is a heroine few know about. In 1924, she descended from her seat at Blair Castle in Perthshire, so she can enter the parliament as the first female MP of Scotland.
She immediately started railroading her male colleagues into all kinds of important reforms. In 1938, she decided to quit the parliament, as a protest against her government’s decision to satisfy Adolf Hitler.
Edwina Currie
The fisty Edwina Currie is probably remembered for her affair with John Major. However, she was once tipped as a rising Tory star. Her frontline career ended abruptly in 1988, because of her chronic tendency to fight with everybody.
After a very dangerous outbreak of salmonella, she said during the lunchtime news that most egg production was entirely infected, which sparked a war with Britain’s voting farmers that eventually obliged Margaret Thatcher to throw her out.
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