Margaret Thatcher is political career and achievements Every thing about him Part 2

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00:00prime minister of the united kingdom iron lady margaret thatcher his political career and

00:08achievements everything about the minister of the united kingdom margaret thatcher her life

00:13and everything about him part two roberts married at wesley's chapel and her children were baptized

00:20there but she and her husband began attending church of england services and would later convert

00:26to anglicanism in the 1950 and 1951 general elections roberts was the conservative

00:32candidate for the labor seat of dartford the local party selected her as its candidate because

00:38though not a dynamic public speaker roberts was well prepared and fearless in her answers

00:44a prospective candidate bill deeds recalled once she opened her mouth the rest of us began to look

00:50rather second rate she attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate

00:55in 1950 she was the youngest conservative candidate in the country she lost on both occasions to

01:02norman dodds but reduced the labor majority by 6 000 and then a further 1 000. during the campaigns she

01:09was supported by her parents and by her future husband dennis thatcher whom she married in december 1951

01:16she trained at the ins of court school of law now part of the city law school and qualified as a

01:21barrister in 1953 specializing in taxation dennis funded his wife's studies for the bar later that same

01:29year their twins carol and mark were born delivered prematurely by cesarean section in 1954 thatcher was

01:37defeated when she sought selection to be the conservative party candidate for the orpington by

01:42election of january 1955 she chose not to stand as a candidate in the 1955 general election

01:50in later years stating i really just felt the twins were only two i really felt that it was too soon

01:56i couldn't do that afterwards thatcher began looking for a conservative safe seat and was

02:02selected as the candidate for finchley in april 1958 narrowly beating ian montagu frazier she was

02:08elected as mp for the seat after a hard campaign in the 1959 election benefiting from her fortunate result

02:15in a lottery for backbenchers to propose new legislation thatcher's maiden speech was unusually

02:21in support of her private members bill the public body's admission to meetings act 1960

02:26requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public the bill was successful and

02:31became law in 1961 she went against the conservative party's official position by voting for the

02:37restoration of birching as a judicial corporal punishment thatcher's talent and drive caused her to be

02:43mentioned as a future prime minister in her early 20s although she herself was more pessimistic stating

02:49as late as 1970 there will not be a woman prime minister in my lifetime the male population is too

02:56prejudiced in october 1961 she was promoted to the front bench as parliamentary secretary to the ministry

03:03for pensions by harold mcmillan thatcher was the youngest woman in history to receive such a post

03:09and among the first mps elected in 1959 to be promoted after the conservatives lost the 1964

03:16election she became spokeswoman on housing and land in that position she advocated her party's policy

03:23of giving tenants the right to buy their council houses she moved to the shadow treasury team in 1966

03:29and as treasury spokeswoman opposed labor's mandatory price and income controls arguing they would

03:35unintentionally produce effects that would distort the economy jim prior suggested thatcher as a shadow

03:40cabinet member after the conservatives 1966 defeat but party leader edward heath and chief whip william

03:47whitelaw eventually chose mervyn pike as the conservative shadow cabinet's sole woman member at the 1966

03:54conservative party conference thatcher criticized the high tax policies of the labor government as being

04:00steps not only towards socialism but towards communism arguing that lower taxes served as an incentive to

04:06hard work thatcher was one of the few conservative mps to support leo abse's bill to decriminalize male

04:13homosexuality she voted in favor of david steel's bill to legalize abortion as well as a ban on hair

04:20coursing she supported the retention of capital punishment and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws

04:26in 1967 the united states embassy chose thatcher to take part in the international visitor leadership

04:33program then called the foreign leader program a professional exchange program that allowed her to

04:39spend about six weeks visiting various u.s cities and political figures as well as institutions such

04:45as the international monetary fund although she was not yet a shadow cabinet member the embassy

04:51reportedly described her to the state department as a possible future prime minister the

04:56description helped thatcher meet with prominent people during a busy itinerary focused on

05:01economic issues including paul samuelson walt rosto pierre paul schweitzer and nelson rockefeller

05:08following the visit heath appointed thatcher to the shadow cabinet as fuel and power spokeswoman

05:14before the 1970 general election she was promoted to shadow transport spokeswoman and later to education

05:21in 1968 enoch powell delivered his rivers of blood speech in which he strongly criticized commonwealth

05:27immigration to the united kingdom and the then proposed race relations bill when heath telephoned

05:33thatcher to inform her that he would sack powell from the shadow cabinet she recalled that she really

05:39thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis she

05:44believed that his main points about commonwealth immigration were correct and that the selected

05:49quotations from his speech had been taken out of context in a 1991 interview for today thatcher

05:55stated that she thought powell had made a valid argument if in sometimes regrettable terms around this

06:01time she gave her first common speech as a shadow transport minister and highlighted the need for

06:06investment in british rail she argued if we build bigger and better roads they would soon

06:11be saturated with more vehicles and we would be no nearer solving the problem thatcher made her first

06:17visit to the soviet union in the summer of 1969 as the opposition transport spokeswoman and in october

06:25delivered a speech celebrating her 10 years in parliament in early 1970 she told the finchley press

06:31that she would like to see a reversal of the permissive society the conservative party led by edward

06:37heath won the 1970 general election and thatcher was appointed to the cabinet as secretary of state for

06:43education and science thatcher caused controversy when after only a few days in office she withdrew

06:49labor's circular 10 65ths which attempted to force comprehensivization without going through a

06:54consultation process she was highly criticized for the speed at which she carried this out

07:00consequently she drafted her own new policy circular 10 70ths which ensured that local authorities were not

07:07forced to go comprehensive her new policy was not meant to stop the development of new comprehensives

07:13she said we shall expect plans to be based on educational considerations rather than on the

07:18comprehensive principle thatcher supported lord rothschild's 1971 proposal for market forces to

07:26affect government funding of research although many scientists oppose the proposal her research background

07:32probably made her skeptical of their claim that outsiders should not interfere with funding the department

07:37evaluated proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and to adopt

07:43comprehensive secondary secondary education although thatcher was committed to a tiered secondary

07:48modern grammar school system of education and attempted to preserve grammar schools during her

07:53tenure as education secretary she turned down only 326 of 3612 proposals roughly nine percent for

08:02schools to become comprehensives the proportion of pupils attending comprehensive schools consequently rose from 32

08:09to 62 to 62 percent nevertheless she managed to save 94 grammar schools during her first months in office she attracted

08:17public attention due to the government's attempts to cut spending she gave priority to academic needs in schools while

08:23administering public expenditure cuts on the state education system resulting in the abolition of free milk for

08:29school children aged 7 to 11. she held that few children would suffer if schools were charged for milk but agreed to provide

08:36younger children with 0.3 imperial pints 0.17 l daily for nutritional purposes she also argued that she was

08:45simply carrying on with what the labor government had started since they had stopped giving free milk to

08:50secondary schools milk would still be provided to those children that required it on medical grounds

08:55and schools could still sell milk the aftermath of the milk row hardened her determination she told the editor

09:01proprietor harold creighton of the spectator don't underestimate me i saw how they broke keith joseph but they

09:08won't break me cabinet papers later revealed that she opposed the policy but had been forced into it by

09:14the treasury her decision provoked a storm of protest from labor and the press leading to her being

09:19notoriously nicknamed margaret thatcher milk snatcher she reportedly considered leaving politics in the aftermath

09:26and later wrote in her autobiography i learned a valuable lesson i had incurred the maximum of

09:32political odium for the minimum of political benefit the heath government continued to experience

09:38difficulties with oil embargoes and union demands for wage increases in 1973 subsequently losing the

09:44february 1974 general election labor formed a minority government and went on to win a narrow majority

09:50in the october 1974 general election heath's leadership of the conservative party looked

09:56increasingly in doubt thatcher was not initially seen as the obvious replacement but she eventually

10:02became the main challenger promising a fresh start her main support came from the parliamentary 1922

10:08committee and the spectator but thatcher's time in office gave her the reputation of a pragmatist

10:13rather than that of an ideologue she defeated heath on the first ballot and he resigned from the leadership

10:19in the second ballot she defeated whitelaw heath's preferred successor thatcher's election had a

10:25polarizing effect on the party her support was stronger among mps on the right and also among those

10:31from southern england and those who had not attended public schools or oxbridge thatcher became

10:37conservative party leader and leader of the opposition on the 11th of february 1975 she appointed

10:43whitelaw as her deputy heath was never reconciled to thatcher's leadership of the party

10:48television critic clive james writing in the observer prior to her election as conservative

10:53party leader compared her voice of 1973 to a cat sliding down a blackboard thatcher had already begun

11:00to work on her presentation on the advice of gordon reese a former television producer by chance reese met

11:07the actor lawrence olivier who arranged lessons with the national theater's voice coach thatcher began

11:13attending lunches regularly at the institute of economic affairs iea a think tank founded by hayekian

11:21poultry magnate antony fisher she had been visiting the iea and reading its publications since the early

11:281960s there she was influenced by the ideas of ralph harris and arthur selden and became the face of

11:35the ideological movement opposing the british welfare state keynesian economics they believed was weakening

11:42britain i stop at this point today until next time stay curious stay informed and keep exploring the

11:49world's incredible stories soon we will publish part three if you have any comments please leave us your

11:57comments because they are important to us thank you for watching

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