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Edward Heath became Prime Minister when Labor was upset in the 1970 election, and Thatcher was soon named Secretary of State for Education and Science, where she gained a reputation for toughness. While demanding more money for her department, she cut out free milk for elementary school children, thus earning the cruel sobriquet "Thatcher the Milk Snatcher." Heath had agreed to her appointment only because he felt it was good politics to have a woman in the Cabinet. "The chemistry between them was not good," recalls a Cabinet colleague.
After Labor twice defeated the Tories in the 1974 elections, Heath's leadership came under sharp attack, especially from his party's right wing. The two leading rightist candidates, Sir Keith Joseph and Edward Du Cann, declined to run for the leadership, while Heath could not make up his mind whether to fight or resign. Backed by Joseph, Norman St. John-Stevas, a Tory intellectual, and Airey Neave, who became her campaign manager and one of her closest advisers,—Thatcher stepped boldly into the arena. At a party caucus on Feb. 11, 1975, she defeated the acknowledged favorite, William Whitelaw, 146 to 79, thus becoming the first woman in history to lead a major British political party.
Thatcher immediately made it clear that there would be nothing demure or retiring about her leadership. In her words: "I am not a consensus politician. I am a conviction politician." Before Thatcher's victory last week, onetime rival Whitelaw declared: "She is a brilliant leader of the opposition, the best in a long, long time." Privately, however, some of her colleagues are more critical. Says one senior Tory: "She can be very petulant when up against criticism. When she gets into an argument she talks all the time. Talk. Talk. Talk. Because of this she is not a very good chairman." She can be scornful of those who are not tough in either performance or philosophy, reserving for them her ultimate pejorative, "wet," which in her lexicon is an accusation of gutlessness.
Unlike a U.S. President, a British Prime Minister is the first among supposed equals in the Cabinet. Cajolery is as vital a quality as conviction, and some Tories wonder whether Thatcher has the skills necessary to keep dissident ministers in line. Because of her authoritarian air, she sometimes appears to be rather like a headmistress dealing sternly with rowdy students. In discussions around the shadow cabinet table, says one associate, "she can be very sharp, steely in cutting somebody short if she has lost interest in what is being said."
Despite the rhetorical force of her convictions, some Tory colleagues accuse her of inconsistency. Says one prospective Cabinet appointee: "You cannot predict from one set of convictions what her views would be on another series of topics. Often her views do not add up to a single position. She tends to keep her opinions in separate compartments." And, he adds, "there is an element of impetuousness of judgment, which might result from being a woman."