Conservative women triumphant

Posted by Helen Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Not only the first woman MP to take her seat but the first woman Prime Minister in this country and one who undoubtedly left her mark on the whole world was, as every school child knows (or ought to know), a Conservative.

Today is the anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979. Despite Jim Callaghan’s later self-serving account of that day, few of us outside the circle around the lady knew that this would be a mould-breaking government in more senses than just the obvious: that it was led by a woman.

Our readers must have memories of that day and night.

3 comments

  1. Lexington Green Says:
    3:22 pm

  2. I remember that we conservative Yanks were glad to see her win. We were in dire need of good news in the fading light of the late-period Jimmy Carter presidency.

     
  3. The TaxCutter Says:
    12:48 pm

  4. As a 7 year old, my memory was how adults told us how novel it was that we had a female Prime Minister + the subsequent rise in VAT.

    Its easy to forget how many things that were gospel in 1979 were overturned in the next 11 years. UK 1979 was slovenly - remember bread strikes, 6 month waits to get a phone, exchange controls, no Sunday shopping, pubs shut in the afternoon etc

     
  5. Tory Historian Says:
    5:12 pm

  6. VAT had more to do with the European Community than with the first female PM. As for the rest of it, you are right. Despite everything that has happened since, this country is different from the one in 1979. Mostly for the better.

     
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