ABSTRACT
The main feature of the first Thatcher administration was the Prime Minister's near total dominance over economic policy formation. The initial strategy, the refusal to change course, the Cabinet purges of the wets, the reliance on the key personnel were all at the behest of Mrs Margaret Thatcher's own initiative and reflected her personal political strategy. Outside the Cabinet other power sources in the Conservative party have backed Mrs Thatcher's policy approach. The Thatcher government was the first since the Second World War to remove the unions' position at the policy strategy 'top table', and in doing so rendered as obsolete many myths about trade union power being invincible. Mrs Thatcher's high-profile style of government, involving the continuous leading of opinion from the front, embodied her philosophy of change and a new radical Conservatism. Mrs Thatcher's most far-reaching change has arguably been the change in the nature of contemporary Conservatism.
