Mrs Thatcher’s Instincts

Barbara Wootton

  • Mrs Thatcher’s First Year by Hugh Stephenson
    Jill Norman, 128 pp, £6.50, June 1980, ISBN 0 906908 16 7
  • A House Divided by David Steel
    Weidenfeld, 200 pp, £6.50, June 1980, ISBN 0 297 77764 5

What have Margaret Thatcher and David Steel in common, apart from holding the leadership of their respective political parties? Both are highly intelligent and educated persons with academic qualifications – Thatcher in chemistry and law, Steel in arts and law. Both have been called to the bar, and for both politics has been the main preoccupation of their adult lives. Thatcher entered Parliament at the General Election of 1959 at the age of 34. Steel followed six years later at a by-election three days before his 27th birthday. Both are married: Thatcher has one son and daughter (twins) and Steel also has one son and one daughter.

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