WORLD : Howe Quits Thatcher’s Cabinet
Deputy Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned from the government today after a growing rift with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over her objections to a common European currency.
Howe had been a member of the Cabinet since Thatcher came to power in 1979.
Thatcher said she accepted his resignation “more in sorrow than in anger,” according to the Press Assn., Britain’s domestic news agency.
The resignation came two days after Thatcher sidestepped a challenge from opposition Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock to defend Howe. “The deputy prime minister is too big a man to need a little man like you to stand up for him,” Thatcher told Kinnock.
But she said nothing about Howe’s evident disagreement with her about joining in a common European currency. Thatcher is adamantly opposed.
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