Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (136 page)

31. Ted Heath called an emergency Cabinet to discuss President Nixon’s anti-inflation economic measures in August 1971, hence Mrs Thatcher’s almost holiday wear in Downing Street.

32. With a portrait of Ted Heath in 1973. Her part in his downfall was yet to come.

33. As environment spokesman offering a cap on mortgage rates, Mrs Thatcher played an unexpectedly large part in the general election campaign of October 1974. Beside her at an election press conference are Lord Carrington (party Chairman) and Ted Heath.

34. ‘My cupboard is not a hoard in any sense of the word’: ‘Maggie’ the housewife fends off accusations of hoarding by showing her larder to the cameras during the leadership challenge to Heath, December 1974.

35. A head start: Mrs Thatcher at the hairdresser Chalmers of Mayfair, 31 January 1975. Eleven days later, she became leader of the Conservative Party.

36. Round-one knock-out: Mrs Thatcher tries to calm the press after defeating Heath in the first ballot of the leadership election, 4 February 1975.

37. Wife, mother, Leader: the Thatchers celebrate her victory in the second ballot, 11 February 1975, outside the house of William Shelton, one of her campaign managers.

38. The victor on
The Jimmy Young
Show
on BBC Radio 2. Young gave her just the right platform.

39. This is the only known example of Mrs Thatcher holding the torch for Europe. She is wearing a jersey carrying the flags of all the member states of the EEC during the campaign for a Yes vote in the referendum on whether Britain should stay in the Community, March 1975. Winston Churchill presides.

40. Friendship off the cuff. The first meeting between Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, April 1975. From their rapport when both were out of office much later success flowed.

41. ‘Dad did hold a soft spot for Auntie Margaret’: Willie and Muriel Cullen and their elder son, Morton, receive the Thatchers at their farm Foulton Hall, Essex, in the late 1970s.

42. Never off duty: Mrs Thatcher consults her watch while on holiday with the Morrison family on the isle of Islay in August 1978. Beside her is Peter Morrison, who would become her parliamentary private secretary at the end of her time in office. She is dressed more for work than for the Scottish islands: she could never see the point of holidays.

43. The famous Saatchi poster often supposed to have appeared during the election campaign of May 1979 was actually launched in the late summer of 1978. Here Mrs Thatcher speaks vehemently above it at a local government conference in March 1979.