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Margaret Thatcher

Prime Minister 1979 – 1990

Question: Who was the longest serving British Prime Minister during the 20th century?

Answer: Margaret Thatcher  

Question: It was well known that Margaret Thatcher was the daughter of a Grocer and that they lived above their shop.  But in what town was that shop?

Answer: Grantham in Lincolnshire

Question: With which US President was Margaret Thatcher closely associated?

Answer: Ronald  Reagan   

Question: What was the nickname attributed to Margaret Thatcher by the Soviet press that she embraced likening herself to the nickname of the Duke of Wellington when the Russian’s had used it disparagingly to compare her with Germany’s Otto von Bismark?

Answer: The Iron Lady The Duke of Wellington was the Iron Duke; Bismark was the Iron Chancellor  

Listen to the passage from Margaret Thatcher’s famous speech, The Lady’s Not for Turning

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Under pressure from the Press, Thatcher makes this famous speech to the Conservative Party Conference in 1981

Question: What position did Margaret Thatcher hold in Ted Heath’s government between 1970 and 1974?

Answer: Secretary of State for Education 

Question: Who, on the 11 February 1975, did Margaret Thatcher defeat in the final ballot for the Conservative Party leadership?

Answer: Willie Whitelaw

Question: Where, in 1984, did Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped injury in an IRA assassination attempt?

Answer: Grand Hotel, Brighton  

Question: Which Argentinian ship did Margaret Thatcher controversially sanction the sinking of during the Falklands War?

Answer: The General Belgrano  

Question: What was the name given to Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies that were heavily influenced by Milton Friedman’s thinking which opposed traditional Keynesian policy?

Answer: Thatcherism  

In typical combative form, watch Thatcher at Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons.

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Parliament in Britain was first televised during her time as Prime Minister.

Question: Name the policy of the Thatcher government whereby state-owned businesses were sold off?

Answer: Privatisation    

Question: Who arranged for Margaret Thatcher to have voice coaching at the National Theatre in order to improve her pitch, delivery and accent?

Answer: Laurence Olivier 

Question: What was the Conservative Party slogan in the 1979 General Election which saw Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister?

Answer: Labour Isn’t Working This was a reference to the Winter of Discontent in 1978/79 when strikes had curtailed many public services with, for example, rubbish left uncollected on the streets.  

Question: What collective name did Margaret Thatcher attribute to those members of her Party that were opposed to some of her more hard-line policies?

Answer: The Wets  These included Jim Prior, Peter Walker, Sir Ian Gilmour, Lord Carrington, Norman St John-Stevas, Francis Pym, Michael Heseltine and Lord Hailsham.