Britain in the 70s: The Rise of Thatcher (Part 1)

**Tom** (0:12)
The first Conservative Party conference I attended was in 1946
You will understand I know the humility I feel at following in the footsteps of great men like our leader that year, Winston Churchill. Oh, a man called by destiny who raised the name of Britain to supreme heights in the history of the free world.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:35)
We are coming, I think, to yet another turning point in our long history. We can go on as we have been going and continue down, or we can stop, and with a decisive act of will, we can say enough.
Let us, all of us here today, and others far beyond this hall who believe in our cause, make that act of will. Let us proclaim our faith in a new and better future for our party and our people. Let us resolve to heal the wounds of a divided nation, and let that act of healing be the prelude to a lasting victory.

**Tom** (1:10)
So that was Margaret Thatcher, and it was her first speech to the Conservative Party Conference as leader, and she delivered it on the 10th of October, 1975 Astute listeners will have recognized that Mrs. Thatcher there did not sound like she did later with her deep masculine voice and her slow, steady elocution because at this point she hadn't actually had the elocution lessons that gave her that voice. At this point, and I think I'm right, aren't I, Dominic, in saying this, she had a much shriller, faster, less controlled voice. And so through the medium of vocal impression, I have conveyed the transformation that was to come later in Mrs. Thatcher's career.

**Dominic** (1:55)
Do you know why I really take my hat off to you there? Because I had anticipated you would do it in husky voice. It had never occurred to me that you wouldn't, and you brought to it a level of nuance that I had not anticipated.

**Tom** (2:05)
Thank you. And what makes that even better is actually I've got a really violent cold. So my voice is naturally more deep than it is. And it's a great speech, isn't it? Because you've got complete Thatcher bingo there. You've got the invocation of Winston.
You've got the patriotism. You've got the apocalyptic sense of national decline. You've got the talk of faith. You've got the talk of healing, of victory. And that's what she is. This kind of colossal figure in whose shadow all of us who grew up through the late 70s and 80s spent our childhood and our youth.

**Dominic** (2:40)
Yeah, you're not wrong. I mean, she became Tory leader when I was not yet one. And she left us Tory leader and prime minister when I was 16
So she was there for a ridiculously long time. She was, as anybody knows, who grew up in Britain in those years. She was this sort of transcendent figure. Everybody had heard of her. Everybody knew what they thought of her. They either loved her by and large or they absolutely hated her.

**Tom** (3:05)
The Marmite Prime Minister.

**Dominic** (3:07)
More than Marmite. I mean, all the political and social changes of the 80s and 90s, somehow came to be embodied in her or attributed to her, weren't they? So whatever happened, it was assumed that she had a finger in it in one way or another.

**Tom** (3:21)
Even if people hated her, they thought that she was doing things, that she was pulling levers and changes were being affected. And I suppose that is a massive contrast with the leaders that we have now.

**Dominic** (3:34)
You're not wrong.

**Tom** (3:34)
Where it doesn't matter who they are, they just come in, they're completely useless and nothing changes.

**Dominic** (3:39)
Yeah. And the funny thing is, it's a sign of how much shadow endures.
That of the Tories' recent leaders, Theresa May basically tried to turn herself into a Thatcher Tribute Act. Liz Truss, you may remember when she was debating Rishi Sunak, trying to become Tory leader, she actually dressed as Margaret Thatcher, put on a Thatcher costume, which is insane. And even today, Kemmy Badenock, people who are sort of trying to talk Kemmy Badenock up, will say, well, Margaret Thatcher was poorly thought of when she was first leader of the opposition. Maybe she will change, maybe it'll be the same story and all this kind of thing.

**Tom** (4:12)
I suppose, I mean, the comparison with Kemmy Badenock is better than the previous two, because Kemmy Badenock has become leader as leader of the opposition, whereas May and Truss became Prime Minister straight away. So that's kind of cheating.

**Dominic** (4:25)
Yes. And in fact, for people who are questioning the comparison, we're meeting Thatcher today before she entered her imperial pomp, when a lot of people were writing her off too.