Margaret Thatcher

1. Margaret Thatcher Sean, Samar, Megan & Maheen

2. How she became Prime Minister • Margaret began her career in the 1950 and 1951 general elections, where she was the Conservative candidate for the safe Labour seat of Dartford, where she attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate. She lost both times to Norman Dodds, but reduced the Labour majority by 6,000, and then a further 1,000. • Her luck came when she won the conservative safe seat of Finchley in the 1959 elections, winning 29,697 votes which represent 53.19% with the closest rival Labour having 13,437 = 24.07% of the total vote. The Conservative party under Edward Heath won the 1970 general election, and Thatcher was appointed Secretary of State for Education and Science which saw her enter the cabinet. • With continuous defeat of the Conservative party under the Heath leadership, a growing discontent forced a leadership election in 1974 which she narrowly won with 130 votes making a 49.1% of the count while the leader Edward Heath achieved only 119 votes, 44.9%. She then became leader of the opposition. • As Leader she attended voice coaching lessons as a way to cause the opposition and fellow party members to take her more seriously, and On the 19th January 1976 she made a speech in Kensington Town Hall in which she made a attack on the Soviet Union, who reacted by dubbing her “Iron Lady”. • The Labour government was faced with many problems as a minority government and lost a vote of no confidence in 1979 causing a general election to be held where Conservatives won 53.4% of the vote, Britain had its first female Prime Minister.

3. Her style of leadership particularly in regard to her cabinet. Is she seen as presedential and if so, why? • Thatcher ran the party and cabinet with similar authority to how she ran the country, where she had the first and final word in matters. She enforced strict discipline were fellow party members would follow her orders without question or hesitation fearing the consequences. • Her Presidential like status came from how she was capable of commanding around leading members of the Cabinet who held key responsibilities in running the country. Also was the fact that she had close ties to American President Ronald Reagan, and the various key issues she dealt with when in office, which kept her continuously in the media spotlight giving her large amount of influence.

4. Major policies associated with her • Margaret Thatcher developed a controversial figure through her policies; she relied very much on her right-wing political ideology when she developed her policies. In fact, her policies were so ideology-filled that a faction in political parties was named after her, called ‘Thatcherism’ that continue to influence politics in many countries around the world. She had very classical liberal economic views and shared the views of the economist Adam Smith in terms of sharing the belief that the economy can flourish in a free market. Keeping in line with this economic view, Thatcher sold off state-owned enterprises to the public as she wanted to keep state intervention in the economy to a minimum in an attempt to swing UK from a mixed economy to a free market economy. As she climbed her way up from being a grocer’s daughter to Prime Minister, she had the view that those on low incomes that do not go on to earn high incomes in their life were lazy. For this reason she respected those on higher incomes as she believed they had worked hard to reach where they are in life; this was shown as Thatcher reduced income tax on highest earners from 83% to 60% but only reduced the basic wage tax from 33% to 30% in her first budget. • Thatcher went on to change the taxing system in UK from the rates being based on the value of the taxpayer’s property to being based on the number of people living in the house; this was called the poll tax. This taxing system was deeply unpopular as it seemed to burden the poor and not the rich as council house members found themselves having to pay more than many thought they deserved. There were many riots across the UK in response to her decision and it made her very unpopular. The tax was implemented in Scotland in 1989/1990, one year before it became law in the rest of UK. This decision made her hated in Scotland, in fact, she was known as “that bloody woman” all over Scotland. To this day the effect of her poll tax in Scotland is shown as the Conservative party remain deeply unpopular in that region, winning only one seat in the 2010 general election.

5. Her image as leader • Thatcher was seen as a strong woman, she was considered an autocratic leader, so much so that her cabinet was criticised as being afraid of her. Conservative member of the House of Lords John Biffen said “She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters”, stating that she commanded those working with her. Being the first woman prime minister, she was seen as a role model for all women who wished to pursue a career and was considered influential to all women around the world. She even topped AOL UK’s poll of the top influential women with 31% of votes. • Margaret Thatcher was seen as a leader that was caring to her people and wanted to preserve their rights. She showed that she was a powerful leader when she went to war with Argentina to defend the Falkland Islands despite the Islands being the region being economically insignificant. She was a respected prime minister from countries around the world and many leaders of the world had close ties with her.

6. Her relationship with Parliament • In the start of her career, many people in Parliament looked down on her as she was from a poorer background than the majority of the rest of Parliament, and because she was a woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. • Her poor relationship with Cabinet caused her to stand down as prime minister after her Cabinet refused to back her in a second round of leadership elections.

7. Her relationship with her party • As we can see from Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with fellow MP Geoffrey Howe, tensions rose frequently in the party due to major disagreements over policies, or simply the way she treated them- she was very bossy and liked to be in total control. This made many members of her own party dislike her, and in the end caused her resignation.

8. Relations with her political colleagues • Margaret Thatcher was known to be a very dominating woman by her political colleagues. • Her relationship with Geoffrey Howe was a topic that was under constant discussion. • With pressures mounting on Thatcher, Howe resigned from the Cabinet on 1 November 1990 in the aftermath of the Prime Minister's position at the Rome European Council meeting the previous weekend, at which she had declared for the first time that Britain would never enter a single currency — writing a cautiously worded letter of resignation in which he criticized Thatcher's overall handling of UK relations with the European Union. • After largely successful attempts by Number 10 to claim that there were differences only of style, rather than substance, in Howe's disagreement with Thatcher on Europe, Howe chose to send a powerful message of dissent. In the famous resignation speech in the Commons on 13 November, he attacked Thatcher for running increasingly serious risks for the future of the country and chastised her for undermining the policies on EMU proposed by her own Chancellor and Governor of the Bank of England.

9. How she lost office • In the 1989 leadership election Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative party by backbench MP Sir Anthony Meyer. • 314 voted for Thatcher however only 33 voted for Meyer. • During her Premiership Thatcher had the second lowest average approval rating. • Polls consistently showed that she was less popular than her party. • Opinion polls in September 1990 reported that Labour had established a 14% lead over the Conservative, and by November the Conservatives had been trailing Labour for 18 months. • 1st November 1990 Geoffrey Howe resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister. • The next day, Michael Heseltine mounted a challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Opinion polls had indicated that he would give the Conservatives a national lead over Labour. Although Thatcher won the first ballot, Heseltine attracted sufficient support (152 votes) to force a second ballot. • Thatcher started that she intended to ‘fight on and fight to win’ however after consultation with her Cabinet she was persuaded to withdraw from the second ballot. • She left Downing Street in tears and regarded her ousting as a betrayal. • Thatcher was replaced as Prime Minister and party leader by her Chancellor John Major.