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For the first time in five years, Britain has a majority government that appears capable of ruling the country for a full five-year term. That electoral stability allows Thatcher to confront the unions head on—if she so chooses. The big question facing Britain now is whether the determined Iron Lady, having gained the pinnacle of political success, will act according to the sharp words that sometimes marked her campaign rhetoric, or the conciliatory ones of St. Francis that she quoted so movingly on the doorstep of No. 10.
* Last Parliament: Labor 307, Conservatives 282, Liberals 14, others 29. New Parliament: Conservatives 339, Labor 268, Liberals 11, others 16.
* Neave, later shadow spokesman for Northern Ireland, was assassinated last March by an offshoot of the Irish Republican Army; a bomb planted in his car exploded as he drove out of the Parliament garage.