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00:30Her political opponents sneered at Margaret Thatcher for being a grocer's daughter.
00:34But as well as owning a grocery shop, Elf Roberts was active in local politics.
00:39His daughter followed her father's example and impressed Conservative Party officials with her articulate and persuasive manner.
00:46She became the party's youngest ever female candidate, unsuccessfully challenging a safe Labour seat in 1950 and 51.
00:54The young research chemist married fellow Conservative Dennis Thatcher in 1951 and qualified as a barrister two years later.
01:02The couple's twins, Carol and Mark, were born the same year.
01:06In 1959 she was elected to the British House of Commons as the member for Finchley, a seat she held for the next 33 years.
01:15Thatcher's exceptional political skills were recognised early in her career and she was quickly promoted to the front bench.
01:22When the Heath government was defeated in 1974, Thatcher became Shadow Environment Secretary, but she had her eyes on a bigger political prize.
01:32The previous year she had told a television audience that she didn't think there would be a woman Prime Minister in her lifetime.
01:39But following Heath's defeat in the second general election of 1974, Thatcher made her move.
01:46She won two leadership ballots to become the first woman to lead a British political party.
01:51To me it's like a dream that the next name in the line Harold Macmillan, Anna Douglas-Hughes and Edward Heath is Margaret Thatcher.
02:01It is important to me that this prize has been won in open electoral contest with four other potential leaders.
02:11Thatcher's victory was a shock to most observers.
02:15At a press conference following the vote she highlighted her conservative credentials and showed the poise and confidence that became her trademark.
02:23I would like to think it was merit, a conservative philosophical quality, a distinctive conservative philosophy.
02:31Thatcher had strong views on the direction in which she wanted to lead her party and was staunchly opposed to socialism.
02:39But let's not mince words. The dividing line between the Labour Party programme and communism is becoming harder and harder to detect.
02:52She saw socialism as overtaxing and wasteful and told Britons that the class struggle is withering away.
03:00Thatcher pledged to reduce state interference and favoured private enterprise as the major economic driver.
03:08In 1976 Thatcher gave a particularly powerful speech warning that the Soviet Union was still bent on world domination and that socialism weakened Britain's defences.
03:19The Soviets dubbed her Iron Lady, a subrogate that stuck much to Thatcher's amusement.
03:261978 and 79 saw Britain enduring a winter of discontent, crippled by strikes and suffering economic problems from the devaluation of the pound.
03:36The Labour government seemed unable to cope with the scale of the catastrophe and events seemed to bear out what Thatcher once declared to her colleagues.
03:44Oppositions did not win elections. Governments lost them.
03:51Can we have a little word about tactics before you go? Mr Callaghan is off today in Scotland starting his campaign.
03:58May we perhaps ask you why you aren't doing the same?
04:02Because we're just taking a little bit longer to plan. This is the longest campaign we've ever had.
04:07In February 74, in October 74, we wouldn't even have had an election announced yet.
04:12And I'm just a little bit fearful that people might get fed up with us before the end of the campaign.
04:17And I think what's important is that you finish strongly.
04:20Support for the government collapsed and the Conservatives surged ahead in the opinion polls.
04:25On the 4th of May 1979, Margaret Thatcher led the Tories to a 44 seat majority in the House of Commons and became Britain's first female Prime Minister.
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