Following two Election defeats in 1974 Tory leader Ted Heath called a Tory leadership contest. In those days only Tory MPs could vote.
Margaret Thatcher, regarded as an outsider, got 130 votes to 119 for Heath in a ballot held on 4th February 1975. He then resigned as Tory leader.
She did not get 50% of the votes cast so a second ballot, where Willie Whitelaw, Jim Prior and Geoffrey Howe also stood, was held on 11th February 1975. Thatcher got 52.9% of the vote, became Tory leader and four years later PM. The first woman to hold these positions.
Below is an extract from a speech she gave to Finchley Conservatives between the two ballots on 7th February 1975. What became known as Thatcherism was now under construction
“In the desperate situation of Britain today, our party needs the support of all who value the traditional ideals of Toryism: compassion and concern for the individual and his freedom: opposition to excessive State power: the right of the enterprising, the hardworking and the thrifty to succeed and to reap the rewards of success and pass some of them on to their children: encouragement of that infinite diversity of choice that is an essential of freedom; the defence of widely distributed private property against the Socialist State; the right of a man to work without oppression by either employer, or trade union boss.”
Leave a Reply