ABSTRACT
Thatcher's background has an important impact in the way that it instilled notions of industry and ambition throughout her career. By applying herself diligently to the administrative work of the association in her final year at Oxford, she became the third woman to serve as its president. Thatcher felt strongly about the direction of policy at the time and it is hard to understand her initial reaction to the leadership contest which took place when Douglas-Home stepped down the first in which Conservative MPs formally voted, rather than the leader emerging through backroom machinations. Thatcher was not his first choice when it came to appointing the shadow cabinet's so-called 'statutory woman'. Margaret Robert's energies are absorbed by membership of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA). OUCA by no means provided an automatic entry into national politics, but it gives Margaret Roberts a valuable experience of arranging meetings and of 'networking' with well-known Conservative politicians as guest speakers.
