Westland Helicopters factory Yeovil Somerset during the Michael Heseltine 'Westland' affair. 1985 wikipaedia:The Westland affair in 1985–86 was an episode in which the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Defence Minister Michael Heseltine went public over a cabinet dispute with questions raised about integrity and which senior politician was not telling the truth. The argument was over the future of Westland Helicopters, Britain's last helicopter manufacturer, which was to be the subject of a rescue bid. While the Defence Secretary Heseltine favoured a European solution, integrat
Westland Helicopters factory Yeovil Somerset during the Michael Heseltine 'Westland' affair. 1985 wikipaedia:The Westland affair in 1985–86 was an episode in which the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Defence Minister Michael Heseltine went public over a cabinet dispute with questions raised about integrity and which senior politician was not telling the truth. The argument was over the future of Westland Helicopters, Britain's last helicopter manufacturer, which was to be the subject of a rescue bid. While the Defence Secretary Heseltine favoured a European solution, integrating Westland with a consortium including British Aerospace (BAe), Italian (Agusta) and French companies, the Prime Minister and the Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan, while ostensibly maintaining a neutral stance, wanted to see Westland merge with Sikorsky, an American company. Heseltine refused to accept Thatcher's choice and claimed that Thatcher was refusing to allow a free ministerial discussion about the matter, even suggesting she had lied about cancelling a scheduled meeting. He eventually, when ordered to cease campaigning for his European consortium, resigned and walked out of a Cabinet meeting in January 1986. Brittan was then forced to resign for having (on the orders of Thatcher's aides, he admitted some years later) previously ordered the leaking to the press of a confidential legal letter critical of Heseltine, and for his lack of candour to the House of Commons about his efforts to persuade British Aerospace to withdraw from Heseltine's consortium. Thatcher's survival as Prime Minister briefly appeared to be in question, although she rode out the crisis. The episode embarrassed the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1986 and dented her reputation.[
Size: 4329px × 6452px
Location: Yeovil, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © BRIAN HARRIS / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1985, affair, brian, defense, factory, goverment, harris, helicopters, heseltine, manufacturer, michael, somerset, thatcher, westland, works, yeovil
