ABSTRACT
These years saw Margaret Thatcher in her pomp. She achieved absolute dominance within the Conservative Party, which she proceeded to transform (see Chapter 4). Her Cabinet reshuffles consolidated that dominance. Only true believers of her version of politics were promoted to the highest offices and particularly to those concerned with the economy. Some thought that the criterion for promotion was the answer to the simple question: ‘Is he one of us?’ This gendered question was unintentional but significant. The first woman prime minister did little to advance the political cause of women. Minimal progress was made during the 1980s. Thatcher did appoint Emma Nicholson, a plummy-voiced left-winger who later defected to the Liberals, as vicechairman of the party charged with advancing the cause of women. Actual advances oscillated between snail-like and imperceptible. Thatcher opposed Nicholson’s suggestion that women should be taxed independently. At the 1983 general election, women Conservative MPs numbered thirteen. In 1987, only 46 of the 633 Conservative candidates (7.3 per cent) were women. This paltry proportion – considerably lower than Labour’s (14.6 per cent) and the Liberal/SDP alliance (16.6 per cent) – was nevertheless larger than ever before. However, only seventeen female Tory candidates were elected, representing a mere 4.5 per cent of the parliamentary party.1 Nicholson was bitter: ‘Had the Conservative Party really wanted it, the pattern could have been changed. The Conservative Party is … an army led from the top.’2
