Castle v. Thatcher

Have Barbara Castle and Margaret Thatcher contest a UK general election with a 1973 POD. Bonus if Castle is the Lab PM, double bonus if Castle beats Thatcher.
 
Just a rough idea.

Edward Heath calls a general election for 6 December 1973. Labour wins with an overall majority of around 30 seats in the House of Commons, and Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister.

January or February 1974 Margaret Thatcher challenges Ted Heath for the Conservative Party leadership. She wins on the second ballot.

After the inconclusive first ballot of Labour MPs in the Labour Party leadership election on 5 April 1976 to choose a successor to Harold Wilson, in which James Callaghan comes first but without an overall majority, Michael Foot and Tony Benn withdraw as candidates of the left in favour of Barbara Castle. She wins on the second ballot and becomes Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister.

Thatcher calls a general election for May 1978 which Labour wins with an increased majority of around 65 seats. She is generally regarded as having more appeal than Thatcher to women voters.
 
I think you mean Castle calls an election though after "In place of Strife" she's not going to get the support of the hard Labour Left so Benn probably won't pull out in her favour.
 
She is generally regarded as having more appeal than Thatcher to women voters.
I'm not sure that was so. OK, Thatcher became PM and was more closely known to the female general public than Castle which, IMHO, means that more would know her faults than those of Castle. I also think that quite a lot of women voted for Thatcher over 3 General Elections and would have done so had she remained Tory Leader in a 4th.
 
I'm not sure how women viewed Castle but Thatcher pre-1979 wasn't a liked figure, she constantly lost 'personality' polls to Callaghan despite Labour's wavering performance.
 
I'm not sure that was so. OK, Thatcher became PM and was more closely known to the female general public than Castle which, IMHO, means that more would know her faults than those of Castle. I also think that quite a lot of women voted for Thatcher over 3 General Elections and would have done so had she remained Tory Leader in a 4th.

Apparently one of the women who voted for her in 1979 was Mary Wilson. :D
 
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