She is over-innocent about her attitudes to her own fortunes at this time.””If that time comes and people thought I was that woman, I would accept the challenge and do the job-as I have tried to do everything in my life- to the utmost of my ability.” I was 11 when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979. She was without doubt the most divisive figures in British postwar politics,and I wanted to find out for myself why she attracted such strong feelings.

Biography | Margaret Thatcher Foundation Biography | Margaret Thatcher Foundation

The electorate was impressed. Few British or European leaders would have fought for the islands. By doing so, Margaret Thatcher laid the foundation for a much more vigorous and independent British foreign policy during the rest of the 1980s.When the General Election came in June 1983, the government was re-elected with its Parliamentary majority more than trebled (144 seats). She brought that totally un-hypocritical sense of virtue, energy and hard work into her view of political life” I wonder whether he’ll do a second edition in a few years’ time. I think there were some cabinet papers he was unable to access under the 30-year rule. That’s the only thing that’s missing from the book, simply because when he was writing the first volumes not everything was out. Everything’s out now. It’s certainly one of those rare books that, if more information arises, it should be updated. I think almost certainly in dealing with the trade unions. We’ve had very little industrial action since. The country’s never been held to ransom since. There’s been the odd strike, of course, but people’s lives have not been damaged, nor has the productivity of the country. Trade unions now have virtually no power at all. They’re like friendly societies. Even the Labour party don’t take them seriously—well, Corbyn did, but he wasn’t serious either. But I don’t think you’ll see Keir Starmer paying much attention to the trade union movement. And in that sense she really shifted the consensus. Blairism was a tribute to Mrs T and how far she had moved the goalposts.I was thinking of her the other day when Des O’Connor died. She wrote a piece about the Maastricht Treaty in The European that caused huge trouble with John Major. This would have been in 1992, probably, and the paper was owned by the Barclay brothers. She asked me to write the article for her. So I wrote it and took it round to Chesham Place, where she worked after leaving office. We were going through it when one of her secretaries came in and said, ‘Major’s said something this afternoon. It’ll be on the news at 5:45 on ITN’—in about five minutes. Oh, I suppose you’re right,’ she said. And then, just as the adverts ended and the news was about to begin, up came a trailer for Des O’Connor Tonight. She looked at me and said, ‘Who’s Des O’Connor?’

The Downing Street Years - Wikipedia The Downing Street Years - Wikipedia

In foreign policy, she got on well with American President Ronald Reagan. They often met and talked of a ‘special relationship’ between the US and the UK. Mrs Thatcher also expressed respect for Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev. She famously said of Gorbachev, that ‘he was a man who we could do business with’ She served in Heath’s cabinet, I think for the duration of that government, 1970-74. Was she close to Enoch Powell in the 1960s, or was she just quietly sympathetic, or was she actually not converted at that stage?

Beginning with her upbringing in Grantham, she goes on to describe her entry into Parliament. Rising through the ranks of this man’s world, she led the Conservative Party to victory in 1979, becoming Britain's first woman prime minister. This is not just one of the great libertarian texts, but it’s one of the great counter-cultural texts of all time”

Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography - Google Books

The details of her life in Grantham where he father was a shop-keeper and servant of the town through his work on the council to her successful time at Oxford, studying science/chemistry, to war work teaching step the first third of the book off well. The start of her political life, romances with a number of men and eventual marriage to Denis Thatcher follow and show a well-liked woman who is determined with an eye for detail. We then move from the early days of her election as a MP to placements in the shadow-cabinet and standing as a leadership candidate to replace Edward (Ted) Heath. The latter part of the book then covers the period from election as party leader to success at the 1979 General Election replacing Jim Callaghan and his Labour Government, to early years in office to the end of 1982. I remember Ralph Harris saying to me—and he got this from Hayek—’If you pay people to be unemployed, you’ll have unemployment. If you stop paying them to be unemployed, jobs will turn up.’ She lost both times, but cut the Labour majority sharply and hugely enjoyed the experience of campaigning. Aspects of her mature political style were formed in Dartford, a largely working class constituency which suffered as much as any from post-war rationing and shortages, as well as the rising level of taxation and state regulation. Unlike many Conservatives at that time, she had little difficulty getting a hearing from any audience and she spoke easily, with force and confidence, on issues that mattered to the voters.The final chapters on the Falklands were especially interesting as they reveal how close it all came to going horribly wrong. In the process, Margaret Thatcher became one of the founders, with Ronald Reagan, of a school of conservative conviction politics, which has had a powerful and enduring impact on politics in Britain and the United States and earned her a higher international profile than any British politician since Winston Churchill. The book sheds light on controversial episodes in Mrs. Thatcher's political career and attempts to present what really happened, rather than how Mrs. Thatcher preferred to present it. These are mainly situations where Mrs. Thatcher felt she had no choice but to compromise her principles, particularly in regard to budget and monetary policy, the IRA hunger strikers, and negotiations over the Falklands.