Conservative Politicians

  • Profile: Baroness May of Maidenhead

    Baroness May, the former Prime Minister and now Peer in the House of Lords, grew up in Oxfordshire and went to St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She has experience in finance, having worked at the Bank of England, and in politics, having served as Maidenhead’s MP for 27 years.

    Her tenure as Prime Minister followed her appointment as Home Secretary, during which she had control over much of the policy that affected the UK state. Her entrance to Number 10 therefore was on the back of a greater understanding of the social makeup of the nation.

    It led to her agenda-setting policy initiatives while in office. She’s also particularly known for sponsoring the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It helped frame the criminal acts over the English Channel by traffickers to transport people illegally into slavery here.

    She’s known for her outspoken politics and tendency to speeches that helps to communicate her ideas and values. She believes in opportunity in particular and understands challenges as obstacles society can overcome by state-led intervention and personal initiative.

  • Profile: Margaret Thatcher

    Margaret Thatcher began her political career in 1959 as an MP for Finchley in Barnet, London. It was twenty years later when she became Prime Minister aged 53 and served in two subsequent terms until 1990.

    In her lifetime she was lauded as the first female Prime Minister and yet her tenure took on a genderless tone as she battled foes at home and abroad.

    The key features of her time as Prime Minister included The Falklands War, the Poll Tax Riots, and miner’s strikes. These were startling times of uncertainty.

    In the politics of this era and later a notable characteristic is a high expectation that leads to a huge disappointment, and the UK went through many of these periods.

    Margaret Thatcher lead by her voice but in spite of her speeches found herself in the midst of serious disagreements with journalists and members of the public. Her press was often negative at the time and it weighed on her and broke her Premiership.

    In the event of her resignation in 1990 she felt bitter because she had to leave her party behind. Afterwards she said it felt like it was the end of a “relationship” with a party she had served for so long.

    Her mainstay was Denis Thatcher, her husband, who was a sort of companion and advisor to her personally.