Read Online The Real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard - Free Book Online
Authors: Gillian Shephard
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âSelfish greedâ was the mindless accusation against Margaret and her policies. Nothing was further from the truth.
These conclusions came from my encounters with her over the two stages of my work with her. I was overwhelmed by the evidence of the love and care she had shown to constituents over the years, extending from the local special school for children with autism to the many dozens of constituents I met.
Before the election, Margaret briefed me on the needs of the Greek Cypriots and the Jewish community. She took a judicious stand on the latter group, very properly avoiding backing any one political party in Israel, and stressing that the country should observe UN rulings with regard to its neighbouring states.
The constituency party members revered her. One man was papering a wall in his house with her written replies to his questions. (He continued with mine until I put a stop to it.) People told me how she would organise her arrivals to be exactly on time. They would say, âPrime Minister Thatcher was a wonderful MP. We could always rely on her punctuality. If the car bringing her was early, we would see it go round the block, and park. Then on the dot, her driver would stop outside the hall or wherever, and out she would step. We thought she was royalty really.â
Harvey Thomas was Director of Presentation at Conservative Central Office for thirteen years from the late 1970s onwards. He writes, âMy relationship with Mrs T. not only crossed between government and party,â as he puts it,
but as it happened, by the time Marlies and I were married in 1978, we were also Margaretâs constituents in Finchley, and remained so throughout her time in power. This gave us, of course, yet another perspective. I doubt if her many friends in the constituency would claim it for themselves, but Mrs T. was enormously strengthened by the total loyalty and support from her constituency leaders, together of course with her constituency secretary, Joy Robilliard. The support from the constituency was superb, led in later years by her agent, Mike Love. I remember many times in Downing Street or some other official location in different parts of the world, when her eyes would relax and you could sense her pleasure as she referred to constituency friends and what, in many ways, she regarded as her ârealâ foundations in Finchley.
Sir Donald Stringer, the senior Conservative agent responsible for the London area for much of the whole period Mrs Thatcher was a London MP, recalls how he would receive phone calls from her from all over the world, if word had reached her that something was not going well in Finchley.
Finchley played an important part in Margaret Thatcherâs first election as Leader of the Conservative Party in 1979. Doreen Miller explains:
The first occasion I had any connection with her was when, as the new Leader of the Party, she was preparing for her first general election, in 1979. Mr Callaghan was deferring it for as long as he could. As an activist in the constituency adjoining hers, I was asked to secure contributions and to edit a pre-election (and pre-election expenses!) leaflet which was produced with the considerable assistance of a local journalist, Dennis Signey, in the form of a newspaper which we grandly called
The Finchley Leader.
Its first headline read âWe will be the next government.â Mrs Thatcher was able to make considerable use of this paper in the run-up to her historic victory in 1979.
She certainly did. The paper gave regular reports of her activities as opposition leader, of her speeches in the Commons and her policy announcements, and national journalists came to regard it as authoritative enough to repeat and quote in their newspapers on a regular basis.
Cynical political commentators almost invariably ignore the constituency element of a politicianâs life. But there is no truism more certain that you get back from a constituency
These conclusions came from my encounters with her over the two stages of my work with her. I was overwhelmed by the evidence of the love and care she had shown to constituents over the years, extending from the local special school for children with autism to the many dozens of constituents I met.
Before the election, Margaret briefed me on the needs of the Greek Cypriots and the Jewish community. She took a judicious stand on the latter group, very properly avoiding backing any one political party in Israel, and stressing that the country should observe UN rulings with regard to its neighbouring states.
The constituency party members revered her. One man was papering a wall in his house with her written replies to his questions. (He continued with mine until I put a stop to it.) People told me how she would organise her arrivals to be exactly on time. They would say, âPrime Minister Thatcher was a wonderful MP. We could always rely on her punctuality. If the car bringing her was early, we would see it go round the block, and park. Then on the dot, her driver would stop outside the hall or wherever, and out she would step. We thought she was royalty really.â
Harvey Thomas was Director of Presentation at Conservative Central Office for thirteen years from the late 1970s onwards. He writes, âMy relationship with Mrs T. not only crossed between government and party,â as he puts it,
but as it happened, by the time Marlies and I were married in 1978, we were also Margaretâs constituents in Finchley, and remained so throughout her time in power. This gave us, of course, yet another perspective. I doubt if her many friends in the constituency would claim it for themselves, but Mrs T. was enormously strengthened by the total loyalty and support from her constituency leaders, together of course with her constituency secretary, Joy Robilliard. The support from the constituency was superb, led in later years by her agent, Mike Love. I remember many times in Downing Street or some other official location in different parts of the world, when her eyes would relax and you could sense her pleasure as she referred to constituency friends and what, in many ways, she regarded as her ârealâ foundations in Finchley.
Sir Donald Stringer, the senior Conservative agent responsible for the London area for much of the whole period Mrs Thatcher was a London MP, recalls how he would receive phone calls from her from all over the world, if word had reached her that something was not going well in Finchley.
Finchley played an important part in Margaret Thatcherâs first election as Leader of the Conservative Party in 1979. Doreen Miller explains:
The first occasion I had any connection with her was when, as the new Leader of the Party, she was preparing for her first general election, in 1979. Mr Callaghan was deferring it for as long as he could. As an activist in the constituency adjoining hers, I was asked to secure contributions and to edit a pre-election (and pre-election expenses!) leaflet which was produced with the considerable assistance of a local journalist, Dennis Signey, in the form of a newspaper which we grandly called
The Finchley Leader.
Its first headline read âWe will be the next government.â Mrs Thatcher was able to make considerable use of this paper in the run-up to her historic victory in 1979.
She certainly did. The paper gave regular reports of her activities as opposition leader, of her speeches in the Commons and her policy announcements, and national journalists came to regard it as authoritative enough to repeat and quote in their newspapers on a regular basis.
Cynical political commentators almost invariably ignore the constituency element of a politicianâs life. But there is no truism more certain that you get back from a constituency
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