The Real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard

Author:Gillian Shephard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781849545624
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2013-11-10T22:00:00+00:00

From the very start, she had steadily built up an enviable reputation among colleagues from all parties. Her maiden speech was unique, for she used it to introduce her own Private Member’s Bill. She was able to do this because she had gained a top place in the annual ballot for Private Members’ Bills, What made her speech doubly memorable was that she went from start to finish without a note.

She was constantly reported in the Evening Standard, doing radio and television interviews, being asked about her clothes, her home, her children, her views on anything and everything. One can only imagine how her fellow male colleagues felt about it all. But her charisma was undoubted. The brown girl of the Oxford days had gone, and in her place was a woman whose presence made itself felt as soon she walked onto a platform or into a room. She was full of fervour and passion. Politics had turned her on.

Everyone who has worked with Margaret Thatcher knows how much she relished the challenge and excitement of elections, the long days packed with activity and change, the hourly need for decisions, great or small, and the thrill of campaigning out on the street. There was not a moment to be wasted, she would note with satisfaction, urging everyone, ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Jean Lucas was a Conservative Party agent, eventually becoming Chairman of the National Society of Agents in 1980. She has kept a record of some of the events in her long and successful professional life, including the by-election in 1975 that saw the Conservative Peter Bottomley elected in West Woolwich. She believes that ‘Margaret Thatcher was the first leader to see it as her job to support candidates in by-elections.’

Virginia Bottomley, Peter’s wife, also has memories of that by-election and the electrifying part played in it by Mrs Thatcher.

My first encounter with Margaret Thatcher was in 1975 as the dutiful wife of the by-election candidate in West Woolwich. Peter had fought the seat on two previous occasions in 1974. The MP, Bill Hamling, died. Peter had hung on assisting the constituency in the aftermath of the two defeats. Suddenly he found himself fighting the first by-election since Margaret Thatcher’s election as party leader. Her arrival in the constituency was full of anxiety and excitement. I walked with her round the streets as a 27-year-old ingénue. She was formidable, intimidating and impressive. The Conservatives, Peter, and Margaret won the by-election.

Sarah Joiner describes Mrs Thatcher’s first campaign as leader of the Conservative Party in 1979. She gives a vivid picture of the details of a political campaign and of the powerful leadership given by Mrs Thatcher to every aspect of it.

I was appointed as personal assistant to Roger Boaden, the European Elections Officer at Conservative Central Office (CCO) in February 1979. I was just nineteen. We were co-ordinating the national activities of the candidates for the first direct elections to the European Parliament. A few weeks after we started working together,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.