From the moment that Margaret Thatcher defeated Willie Whitelaw to become leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975 she was making history. Then, she was the first woman ever to lead a political party in Britain. Four years later, she became the country’s first woman prime minister. By the time she left office in November 1990 she had changed the face of the country for ever, and become one of the most famous world statesmen of the 20th century.
Her achievement lay in breaking a post-war consensus between politicians, management and the trade unions about how our country was to be run. That consensus, as Mrs Thatcher well knew, had led to inexorable decline as Britain lagged behind her main trading partners in Europe and America.
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Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, pictured at the 1982 Tory conference, died today at the age of 87She made Britain respected again in the world as a result of her economic achievements. Also, though, she won a reputation abroad for toughness and resolution in the face of threats from the Soviet Bloc - though, famously, she eventually charmed Mikhail Gorbachev - and terrorist groups such as the IRA.
She became Prime Minister because the winter of discontent in 1979 finally caused the patience of the British public to snap. No longer would they tolerate unelected trade unionists effectively running the country, nor would they support the inflationary printing of money by governments too cowardly to impose rigid economic discipline. By taking on the trade unions, enforcing a spirit of entrepreneurialism and competitiveness on management, and by enforcing tight control over the supply of money in the economy, Mrs Thatcher turned the ship round after almost 35 years of drift.
More... Former prime minister Baroness Thatcher dies peacefully at the age of 87 after suffering a massive stroke 'Tramp the dirt down': George Galloway's extraordinarily crass tweet leads sickening 'celebrations' just minutes after Baroness Thatcher’s death Her final years: How Baroness Thatcher battled ill health, family crises and the loss of husband Denis who was the 'golden thread running through her life' 'A towering political figure': Prominent Britons pay their respects to an iconic figure who shaped an entire generation World mourns the Iron Lady: Thatcher's death leads news across the globe as even Argentina bids fond farewell 'The quintessential suburban matron and frightfully English': What Washington thought of Margaret Thatcher revealed in WikiLeaks 'Kissinger cables'As a result, she became both one of the most revered and loathed politicians of modern times. The effect of the straightjacket that she imposed on the British economy was a severe rise in unemployment, at one stage to well over three million, as inefficient industries laid off workers or went to the wall. However, for the first time in decades, hard work was seen to be rewarded by higher real incomes, as she cut the burden of taxes and allowed people to decide more how they spent their own money.
Mrs Thatcher’s determination to fight such battles extended to more than just economics. She made a reputation as a European statesman from the moment, in 1980, that she secured a rebate for Britian on what she considered to be the excessive contributions the country paid to Europe. And when the world saw the unflinching resolve with which she prosecuted the war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the spring of 1982, her reputation became international.
Childhood: Three-year-old Margaret Roberts, left, with her elder sister Muriel at home in Grantham in 1929 Young adult: Margaret Roberts, right, with Muriel, left, and her parents Alfred and Beatrice, centre, when Mr Roberts was Mayor of Grantham Birthplace: Alfred Roberts' grocery business in Grantham, Lincolnshire where his daughter Margaret was born in 1925; it is pictured after being converted to a post office
Margaret Hilda Thatcher was born on 13 October 1925 in the Lincolnshire market town of Grantham. Her father, Alfred Roberts, was a shopkeeper who subsequently became mayor of the town. He and his wife Beatrice were devout Methodists and had met through the church: together they became an embodiment of lower-middle class respectability, saving to buy the shop that was their livelihood and working long hours with few holidays to make a living.
When Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher would often refer to her father’s example of thrift and financial responsibility - something not always accurately described as ‘Victorian values’ - as an inspiration for her own views. Certainly, she was made very much in the mould of her father, with a complete devotion to her family and the values of the family, a straightforward patriotism and a simple Christian faith.
A clever girl, she acquired at an early age a love for poetry, and especially that of Kipling, whom she would often quote in later life. She won a scholarship to the Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School, and there became a gifted scientist and joint head girl. In October 1943 she won a place at Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied chemistry.
Political: Margaret Roberts pictured during her first unsuccessful campaign for a seat in Parliament in 1950; on the left, she is shown arriving at a garden party at Buckingham Palace Scientist: Margaret Roberts working as a young chemist in 1950, while also standing for Parliament; she was part of a team which helped develop the first soft-serve ice cream Canvassing: The young candidate accompanies voters on the piano in The Bull Inn in Dartford during her 1950 campaign for the safe Labour seatAs soon as she reached Oxford, she joined the university’s Conservative Association. She had lessons in public speaking and helped rally and canvass at the 1945 general election. The following year she became President of the association, and had firmly set her sights on a career in politics.
With a second-class degree in chemistry she left Oxford in 1947 to take up a post in research and development at a plastics factory in Essex. She found the work unrewarding, but threw herself into politics in her spare time as a consolation. Through the contacts she had made in the party she found herself invited, in the early part of 1949, to fight the Labour seat of Dartford, despite being then only 23.
She failed to win the seat at the 1950 election, but met a local businessman, Denis Thatcher, through the party. They married in December 1951, after the election of that autumn in which the Tories had won power, but Miss Roberts had failed again to win Dartford, though reducing Labour’s majority. Settling in London she worked for a time as a food scientist, but had also begun to study for the Bar in the evenings, feeling that the law would be a more exciting profession.
Her decision to go to the Bar, and to start a family, meant her political career had to take a back seat for several years. She remained active in the party, but fought no seat at the 1955 election. Hoping to re-activate her career she found, as others like her have since, that being a woman and a mother did not always endear her to selection committees, and she had a struggle to find a winnable seat.
Wedding: Denis and Margaret Thatcher on the day they got married in London, December 13 1951; the couple had met 10 months earlier at a Conservative dinner Birth: The 28-year-old Mrs Thatcher holding her twins on the day of their birth in 1953 Family: Mrs Thatcher aged 33 in 1959 with her children Carol and Mark, soon after being elected as an MP
In the summer of 1958, however, she was selected to fight Finchley, and won it by a large majority in the October 1959 election. Ambitious from the start, she soon made a name for herself as a competent and determined backbencher. Winning the ballot for private members’ bills, she introduced one to make effective the right of the Press to attend council meetings. It passed triumphantly.
In 1962 she was given a junior post at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, where she acquitted herself well.
In opposition after the 1964 General Election she held a series of middle-ranking spokesmanships in heavyweight areas such as economic affairs, housing and power. In 1967 Edward Heath, who even at that stage found her hard to empathise with, nonetheless recognised her undeniable talent and promoted her to the Shadow Cabinet as education spokesman. Education was not then a priority for the Tories, and nor did it play much of a part in the 1970 election campaign. However, once the party had (to most people’s surprise) won that election, Mrs Thatcher found herself in the Cabinet as Education Secretary.
She is remembered now for two acts in that role. First, her slowing-up of the process of comprehensivisation, though for many people she acted too slowly to save some much-prized grammar schools; and second, the abolition of free school milk that won her the nickname of ‘Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher’.
However, she introduced some other far-reaching reforms in her three and a half years in office, notably the raising of the school leaving age to 16 and the expansion of nursery schooling, consequent upon her 1972 White Paper on education.
Fun: The youthful MP on a ski run in Battersea Park with instructor Joe Hoki in 1962Photo op: The MP with a nurse washing dishes in front of the Press cameras
But all this was done against a background of growing strife and unrest as the Heath government lost control of inflation, and was harried by guerrilla warfare from the trades unions.
Although Mrs Thatcher later said that she and her colleague Keith Joseph were both deeply worried by the direction the Government was taking, both kept their counsel.
After the Tories’ defeat in the February 1974 election she became housing spokesman, but a more spectacular promotion came after the second, and for Heath fatal, defeat of October 1974. She was made shadow chancellor, and a series of fine forensic performances against Denis Healey - not an easy man to get the better of - helped put her in the frame as a possible successor to Heath, about whom there was growing discontent.
Two other possible contenders had ruled themselves out - Enoch Powell by joining the Ulster Unionists, and Keith Joseph after a barrage of bad publicity over a speech advocating birth control for the lower social classes. So, almost by default, she became the candidate of the right. Airey Neave, a lawyer who had escaped from Colditz and was a sworn enemy of Heath’s, masterminded her campaign.
Career: The young MP on the day she was appointed an education minister in 1970 Mother: Mrs Thatcher made sure to devote time to her duties as a parent to Carol and Mark
Power: Margaret Thatcher in 1975, the year she was elected leader of the Conservative Party
With great reluctance, Heath was prevailed upon to call a leadership election in February 1975. To Mrs Thatcher’s great surprise she polled more votes than he did in the first ballot, and he withdrew. Various other Heath loyalists, notably Willie Whitelaw, then entered the race, but Mrs Thatcher won comfortably.
Her first priority on winning was to try to unite the party. She called on Heath to offer him a senior shadow cabinet post, but he refused rudely. Unable to come to terms with his own failure, he would remain deeply critical of her throughout the rest of her leadership and beyond, seldom if ever acknowledging her conspicuous successes.
Although Heath would not serve, many loyal to him would, following the lead of the defeated Whitelaw. Not too burdened by any ideology himself, he was to be an indispensable deputy leader to Mrs Thatcher until his retirement through ill health in 1988. Not only did he use his superior political antennae to keep her out of trouble, but he also mollified those centre-left Tories who deplored the direction in which she was taking the party.
Campaigning: The Conservative leader meets voters at a farm in Willisham in April 1979 Victory: The Thatchers wave from the window of Tory headquarters after the 1979 election win - the night that Mrs Thatcher became Britain's first female Prime Minister
Nonetheless, a group of other former Heathites - notably Jim Prior, Ian Gilmour, Francis Pym and Peter Walker - were consistent thorns in her side, and earned the epithet ‘wet’ because of their cautious approach to policy. Although in time several such men fell by the wayside, it was a key to Mrs Thatcher’s survival that she retained so many unlike minds around her for so long. It helped hold the Tory party together at a time of fundamental change, and helped her avoid charges of sectarianism.
Some of the Heathites’ beliefs, however, simply had to go. What pained them most of all was Mrs Thatcher’s commitment to monetarism - the creed espoused in the wilderness by Enoch Powell, who argued that governments caused inflation by printing money. This meant that public spending as well as the printing of money had to be drastically scaled down, with serious effects on many under-employed British workers and the businesses that hired them.
She spent her four years as leader of the opposition not merely developing the new policies, but also winning over a party that, at the grass roots, was still remarkably loyal to Heath. She spent a great deal of time meeting constituency workers, particularly in Scotland, where her efforts helped defeat the 1979 referendum on devolution.
She was also keen to show her interest in foreign affairs, not least her admiration of America and her hatred of the Soviet system. She dismissed the fashion for detente as merely appeasement of a brutal regime, which impressed American conservatives - to whom she became a heroine - enraged the left in Britain, and caused the Russians to christen her ‘the Iron lady’.
Homework: Mrs Thatcher reading ministerial papers in 10 Downing Street in 1983Falklands: The Prime Minister visiting a minefield during a 1983 tour of the islands in the aftermath of the war Warrior: Mrs Thatcher rides in a tank during a visit to British forces in Germany 70 miles
