DBWI: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Seeing Britain has yet to elect a female Prime Minister (or even a female Leader of the Opposition), I was kind of curious about when this could be achieved and achieved the earliest. No, this is not another of the cliched and utterly implausible Nancy Astor-becomes-Tory leader-and-leads-Britain-through-WWII, but I was inspired by those. Could the first woman to be a British Prime Minister actually be a Tory, or is it like many commentators believe a paradigm shift that has to come through Labour? Granted, Shirley Williams was close to getting the leadership back in 1992, but there hasn't actually been a single credible woman candidate for that post within the party since.

So, to pursue this course, I was looking through what leading women there were in the Tory Party back 40-50 years ago, and I think I've found a proper candidate:

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Margaret Thatcher:
MP for Finchley 1959-1981, Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Macmillan's government and Secretary of State for Education and Science in Heath's government. She was apparently a close political ally to Keith Joseph who challenged Heath for the Tory leadership back in 1975.

So my idea is this: In 1975, for one reason or another, Keith Joseph decides not to run for the leadership, but encourages Thatcher to do so. Will she come any closer than Joseph to winning it? And if she wins it, could she become Prime Minister?

Discuss.
 
Unlikely. Even as a junior cabinet minister she had already developed a nasty reputation after killing the school milk programme. If she shows such bad political skills at a junior level she's bound to screw up royally as Opposition Leader. And besides, if push comes to shove will her tough rhetoric mean anything or will it be just bluffing? If it's the latter, she doesn't stand a chance.
 
Unlikely.

:(

Even as a junior cabinet minister she had already developed a nasty reputation after killing the school milk programme. If she shows such bad political skills at a junior level she's bound to screw up royally as Opposition Leader.

Well, she will certainly have a tough time as Opposition Leader, if she wins the leadership, but surely there's got to be a limit to which you can push the school milk debacle?

And besides, if push comes to shove will her tough rhetoric mean anything or will it be just bluffing? If it's the latter, she doesn't stand a chance.

I can definitely see her being able to match Callaghan (at least pre-Falklands Callaghan), but Wilson... Oooh that'll be a tough one. And for Callaghan, that is assuming that if she becomes Tory leader, Wilson will actually still resign in 1976 and hand over to Callaghan. If Thatcher doesn't play her cards right enough and fail to perform at the dispatch box, there's actually the possibility that Wilson will stay on for another three years or so to lead the Labour Party to another victory. He was a surprisingly shrewd man with good knowledge of timing and manipulation. Is it possible that Thatcher would completely butterfly away Callaghan?

However, the economy was actually going downhill in the late 70s, and the public was beginning to distrust Wilson. Plus, if it's the old political manipulator Wilson versus the relatively new Thatcher, I can definitely see the Tories actually winning the 1978 election. Main reason Heath didn't win was because people distrusted him when it came to handling the economy from 1970-74 and preferred to stick with Callaghan. As later on with Galtieri, Callaghan was very lucky when it came to his enemies...
 
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