Its only popular measure was the sale of council houses to tenants. The government faced a succession of wearily familiar challenges: strikes turmoil in Ulster and on Britain’s inner-city streets a tottering economy and a struggle to curb expenditure. Her cabinet was densely populated with ‘wets’ - traditionally consensual Tories such as James Prior, Ian Gilmour and Peter Walker.
WESTLAND SURVIVAL BOUNTY BODYGUARDS FREE
But few colleagues inside her government, far less outside it, understood the strength of her determination to quell inflation and restore sound money to Britain, while also allowing market forces free reign in a host of areas previously tightly controlled by the State. Thatcher gained the Tory leadership in 1975 because she dared to challenge Edward Heath when mere men - the 'big beasts' of the Party - flinchedįor the first time since World War II, the British people could spend and invest abroad as they chose.įor two years, however, the prime minister held her own radicalism in check. Her first Chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, adopted one immediate dramatic initiative by abolishing currency exchange controls. When Thatcher won the 1979 election, she was 53. Her stridency and Right-wing ideology won warm admirers, but also many enemies. Her years as Opposition leader were characterised by chronic Westminster scepticism about her credibility as a prospective premier. She then aspired to influence rather than power.Īll that changed, and she gained the Tory leadership in 1975, because she dared to challenge Edward Heath when mere men - the ‘big beasts’ of the Party - flinched.
At a Woman of the Year lunch at the Savoy in 1960, asked who she would like to be if not herself, implausibly she named Anna Leonowens, the governess at the court of the King of Siam, who created the legend of The King And I. In her years as a young Tory and junior minister - she entered parliament in 1959 - it seemed unthinkable that a woman should reach Downing Street. Thatcher herself had never expected to be prime minister. Almost every Briton travelled abroad bearing a flag of apology for our society. It must be content with managing decline with top rates of tax over 90 per cent, with industry incapable of building a decent car. The Conservative Party resigned itself to the expectation that, even if it regained office, it could never breach Britain’s socialist consensus. When I afterwards asked one of his ministers to explain how a future Tory government might hope to beat the unions, he answered ruefully: ‘We shan’t make the mistake of taking on the miners again.’
Heath lost the 1974 general election amid power cuts and industrial anarchy. Just five years earlier, Edward Heath’s government had challenged the miners, the storm troops of the TUC. Many of us perceived ourselves as citizens of a failing state which had languished since World War II, with scant prospect of regaining dignity or momentum. Grossly inefficient state industries dominated the economy. Trade union tyranny was institutionalised. To grasp the impact of Margaret Thatcher, it is necessary to recall this country’s condition in 1979. She inspired love in her admirers, hatred in her foes, and fear among many of her own ministers Thatcher was Britain's greatest peacetime prime minister of the modern era, perhaps of all time.
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