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The Downing Street Years
''The Downing Street Years'' is a memoir by Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, covering her premiership of 1979 to 1990. It was accompanied by a four-part BBC television series of the same name. History Thatcher's close friend Woodrow Wyatt recounted in his diary on 3 February 1989 a conversation he had with Rupert Murdoch who wanted Thatcher to write her equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev's ''Perestroika'', explaining her philosophy and that John O'Sullivan could do all the "donkey work" for her. Wyatt countered this by stating that the chairman of the publishing house Collins had tried to get him to persuade Thatcher to publish her memoirs with Collins and Thatcher herself seemed favourable to this option. The next day Wyatt put Murdoch's idea to Thatcher but she claimed she did not have the time. On 29 November 1990, the day after Thatcher's resignation as Prime Minister, Wyatt told her of Murdoch's suggestion of O'Sullivan as a helper, to which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist, before becoming a barrister. She was List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election, elected Member of Parliament for Finchley (UK Parliament constituency), Finchley in 1959 United Kingdom general election, 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster. The CRD has been described as a training ground for leading Conservative politicians. Former CRD advisers to have served in the Cabinet include former Prime Minister David Cameron, former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Letwin and former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. After 1945, Enoch Powell, Iain Macleod, Reginald Maudling and Chris Patten passed through it. History Neville Chamberlain The CRD was established by Neville Chamberlain in 1929, to undertake detailed policy work for the leader of the Party (then Stanley Baldwin) and his principal colleagues. It was the first real think-tank on the right in British politics. For 50 years it occupied its own premises in Old Queen Street overlooking St J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, (20 December 1926 – 9 October 2015) was a British Conservative politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990. Howe was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, and finally Leader of the House of Commons, deputy prime minister and Lord President of the Council. His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated the leadership challenge that led to Thatcher's resignation three weeks later. Early life Geoffrey Howe was born in 1926 at Port Talbot, Wales, to Benjamin Edward Howe, a solicitor and coroner, and Eliza Florence (née Thomson) Howe. He was to describe himself as a quarter Scottish, a quarter Cornish and half Welsh. He was educated at three independent schools: at Bridgend Preparatory School in Bryntirion, followed by Abberley Hall School in W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Archer
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist, life peer, convicted criminal, and former politician. Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–1974), but did not seek re-election after a financial scandal that left him almost bankrupt. Archer revived his fortunes as a novelist. His 1979 novel ''Kane and Abel'' remains one of the best-selling books in the world, with an estimated 34 million copies sold worldwide. Overall his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide. Archer became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86), before resigning after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a prostitute. In 1987, he won a court case and was awarded large damages because of this claim. He was made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently became Conservative candidate to be the first elected Mayor of London. He resigned his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breakfast With Frost
''Breakfast with Frost'' is a Sunday morning BBC current affairs programme hosted by Sir David Frost. It covered the main political news of the day, with Frost interviewing key figures in the world of politics, and celebrity guests reviewing the Sunday papers. The programme was broadcast on BBC One from 1993 to 2005. History TV-am Frost was one of the original 'Famous Five' presenters and shareholders of the TV-am consortium, the first ITV breakfast franchise holder. Originally, Frost had promised 'sexual chemistry' as the co-presenter of the daily magazine programme '' Good Morning Britain'' with Anna Ford. However, its serious tone meant that within weeks of the station launching in February 1983, it faced poor ratings against the BBC's competing, lighter '' Breakfast Time'', which resulted in a major shakeup of TV-am's programming, management, and presenting line-up. After being dropped from the weekday morning slot, Frost was chosen to host the Sunday morning edition of ''Go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Frost
Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer. He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme ''That Was the Week That Was'' in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with US president Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into Frost/Nixon (play), a stage play and Frost/Nixon (film), film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008. Frost was one of the people behind the launch of ITV (TV network), ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US news magazine programme ''Inside Edition''. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme ''Breakfast with Frost'' for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Back To Basics (campaign)
Back to Basics was a political campaign announced by British Prime Minister John Major at the Conservative Party conference of 1993 in Blackpool. Though it was intended as a nostalgic appeal to traditional values such as "neighbourliness, decency, courtesy", the campaign was widely interpreted in the media as a campaign for socially conservative causes such as the traditional family. It became the subject of ridicule when a succession of Conservative politicians were caught up in scandals. Context The previous year of Major's premiership had been beset by infighting within the Conservative party on the issue of Europe, including rebellions in several Parliamentary votes on the Maastricht Treaty. He was also dealing with the fallout from the Black Wednesday economic debacle of September 1992. John Major's speech Major's speech, delivered on 8 October 1993, began by noting the disagreements over Europe: Major then changed the subject to "a world that sometimes seems to be ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001, and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and served as Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State under Major. Heseltine entered the Cabinet in 1979 as Secretary of State for the Environment, where he promoted the "Right to Buy" campaign that allowed two million families to purchase their council houses. He was considered an adept media performer and a charismatic minister, although he was frequently at odds with Thatcher on economic issues. He was one of the most visible "wets", whose "One Nation" views were epitomised by his support for the regeneration of Liverpool in the early 1980s when it was facing economic collapse; this lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Jenkins
Sir Simon David Jenkins (born 10 June 1943) is a British author, a newspaper columnist and editor. He was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' from 1976 to 1978 and of ''The Times'' from 1990 to 1992. Jenkins chaired the National Trust from 2008 to 2014. He currently writes columns for ''The Guardian''. Early life Jenkins was born , in Birmingham, England. His father, Daniel Thomas Jenkins, was a Welsh professor of divinity at Princeton University and a Minister in the Congregational and then United Reformed Church. He was educated at Mill Hill School and St John's College, Oxford, where he earned a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Career Journalism After graduating from the University of Oxford, Jenkins initially worked at '' Country Life'' magazine, before joining the ''Times Educational Supplement.'' He was then features editor and columnist on the ''Evening Standard'' before editing the Insight pages of ''The Sunday Times''. From 1976 to 1978 he was editor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', which do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1966. In general, the political position of ''The Times'' is considered to be centre-right. ''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, such as ''The Times of India'', ''The New York Times'', and more recently, digital-first publications such as TheTimesBlog.com (Since 2017). In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as , or as , although the newspaper is of nationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print circulation of 716,923 in December 2016, dropping to 587,803 the following year. Its Sunday sister paper is the '' Sunday Mirror''. Unlike other major British tabloids such as '' The Sun'' and the '' Daily Mail'', the ''Mirror'' has no separate Scottish edition; this function is performed by the '' Daily Record'' and the '' Sunday Mail'', which incorporate certain stories from the ''Mirror'' that are of Scottish significance. Originally pitched to the middle-class reader, it was converted into a working-class newspaper after 1934, in order to reach a larger audience. It was founded by Alfred Harmsworth, who sold it to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1963 a restructuring of the media interests of the Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon (UK Parliament constituency), Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire (UK Parliament constituency), Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Prior to becoming prime minister, he served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the third Thatcher government. Having left school a day before turning sixteen, Major was elected to Lambeth London Borough Council in 1968, and a decade later to parliament, where he held several junior government positions, including Parliamentary Private Secretary and Whip (politics), assistant whip. Following Margaret Thatcher's resignation in 1990, Major stood in the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election to replace her and emerged victorious, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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