Margaret Thatcher

The Right Honourable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October, 1925), is a British stateswoman and was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, also Leader of the Opposition from 1975, and the only woman to date to hold the former position. She is also the only woman to be in the latter position officially, though another has been the Acting Leader. She won 3 successive general elections and was the last person to do this until Tony Blair in 2005. However, although she had strong support from most voters for most of her reign she was eventually elected out of leadership by her own party and replaced by John Major in 1990 who went on to be re-elected himself in 1992. She is an elder stateswoman of the Conservative Party and the figurehead of a political philosophy that became known as Thatcherism, which involves reduced public spending, lower direct taxation, de-regulation, a monetarist policy, and a programme of privatisation of government-owned industries. Even before coming to power she was nicknamed the Iron Lady in Soviet media (because of her vocal opposition to communism), an appellation that stuck.

In Heath's Cabinet

When the Conservatives won the 1970 general election, Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education and Science. In her first months in office, forced to administer a cut in the Education budget, she decided that abolishing free milk in schools would be less harmful than other measures.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nevertheless, this provoked a storm of public protest, earning her the nickname "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher", coined by The Sun. Her term was marked by many proposals for more local education authorities to abolish grammar schools and adopt comprehensive secondary education, of which she approved, even though this was widely seen as a left-wing policy. Thatcher also defended the budget of the Open University from attempts to cut it.

Related Topics:
The Sun - Grammar school - Comprehensive secondary education - Open University

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After the Conservative defeat in February 1974, she was promoted again, to Shadow Environment Secretary. In this job she promoted a policy of abolishing the rating system that paid for local government services, which proved a popular policy within the Conservative Party.

Related Topics:
February 1974 - Rating system

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

However, she agreed with Sir Keith Joseph that the Heath Government had lost control of monetary policy. After Heath lost the second election that year, Joseph and other right-wingers declined to challenge his leadership, but Thatcher decided that she would. Unexpectedly she outpolled Heath on the first ballot and won the job on the second, in February 1975. She appointed Heath's preferred successor William Whitelaw as her deputy.

Related Topics:
Keith Joseph - Monetary policy - Second election that year - Right-wing - William Whitelaw - Deputy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~