Thatcher

The 20 Prime Ministers of the 20th Century
By Clare Beckett

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first woman Prime Minister and the longest serving head of government in the 20th century (1979-90), but also the only one to be removed from office in peacetime by pressure from within her own party. Her victory in the general election of 1979 began an era which became synonymous with her name. 'Thatcherism' and 'Thatcherite' became part of the language, referring to her own brand of aggressive 'conviction' politics which rejected the broad consensus (characteristic of British attitudes since World War II), promoting instead the free play of market forces and dismantling the restrictive practices of the trade unions.

'Beckett makes a convincing case for Margaret Thatcher as Britain's outstanding prime minister of the century.'

Sunday Times

Dr Clare Beckett teaches social policy at Bradford University, where she also conducts research on sexuality and identity and on social policy and communities. She has written several academic studies in these areas, as well as a short life of Aneurin Bevan (2004) and Race, Gender and Sexuality: The Oppression of Multiculturalism (2001). She approaches the life of Margaret Thatcher from two distinct standpoints: from that of a social policy expert, looking at Thatcher's huge impact on British social policy; and from the standpoint of a writer about gender and feminism, the meaning and effect of the only female British Prime Minister.