Look up ira, Ira, or IRA in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

IRA most commonly refers to:

• Irish Republican Army, which has existed in various forms since 1916
  • List of organisations known as the Irish Republican Army
  • Provisional Irish Republican Army
• Individual retirement account, a private retirement account or annuity in the United States, normally resulting in tax benefits

Ira or IRA may also refer to:

Names[link]

• Ira (name), a Hebrew language personal name
• Irina or Ira, a given name

Places[link]

• Eira, Messenia or Ira, a municipality in northern Messenia, Greece
• Ira, Tehran, a village in Tehran Province, Iran
• Lielirbe or Īra, Latvia

United States[link]

• Ira, Iowa
• Ira Township, Michigan
• Ira, New York
• Ira, Texas
  • Ira Independent School District
• Hopewell, Red River County, Texas, formerly Ira
• Ira, Vermont

Mythology[link]

• Ira (mythology), a goddess in Polynesian mythology
• Sarasvati or Ira, the Hindu goddess of wisdom, also for the wind-god, also meaning 'Earth'

Music[link]

• I.R.A. (band), a Colombian punk band
• IRA (Polish band), a Polish heavy metal band
• Ira!, a Brazilian rock and roll band

Other uses[link]

• Indian Rationalist Association, a member of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations
• Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 secured certain rights to Native Americans
• Indian Rights Association, an advocacy and lobbyist group for the rights of Native Americans
• Intercollegiate Rowing Association, the national championship for USA men's collegiate rowing
• Internal Revenue Allotment, the local government's share of revenues from the national government of the Philippines
• International Reading Association, a membership organisation of literacy professionals
• International Reference Alphabet as defined by ITU-T T.50
• Inverness Royal Academy, a secondary school in Scotland
• Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
• Íslenskir Radíóamatörar, an amateur radio organization in Iceland

See also[link]

• Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology, Brigham Young University
• Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University
• Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
• Ida

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Irish Catholic Martyrs were dozens of people who have been sanctified in varying degrees for dying for their Roman Catholic faith between 1537 and 1714 in Ireland.

Causes[link]

Religious persecution of Catholics in Ireland began under King Henry VIII (then Lord of Ireland) after his excommunication in 1533. The Irish Parliament adopted the Acts of Supremacy, establishing the king’s supremacy over the Church. Some priests, bishops, and those who continued to pray for the pope were tortured and killed. Other acts caused any act of allegiance to the pope to be considered treason. Many were imprisoned on this basis.

Relations improved after the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary in 1553-58, and in the early years of the reign of her sister Queen Elizabeth I. However, Elizabeth did not submit herself to the church as desired, and was then excommunicated by the papal bull "Regnans in Excelsis" in 1570. This was a part of a new round of conflicts, in which Roman Catholics were obliged to repudiate Elizabeth's laws and the status of her officials, or to overthrow them if possible. In Ireland the First Desmond Rebellion was launched in 1569, at almost the same time as the Northern Rebellion in England.

From the Peace of Augsburg (1555) the doctrine Cuius regio, eius religio was adopted, whereby people had to take their ruler's religion. This was acceptable to Queen Mary and the Papacy, at the time, but not following Elizabeth's enactments.

The trial of the Wexford Martyrs at the time of the Second Desmond Rebellion (1579–83) was held as much for political as religious reasons, given the part played by Viscount Baltinglass in the English defeat at the Battle of Glenmalure.

Investigations[link]

There was a long delay in starting the investigation into their causes.^{[clarification needed]} Further complicating the investigation is that the records of these martyrs were destroyed, or not compiled, due to the danger of keeping such evidence. After Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the cause for Oliver Plunkett was re-visited. As a result, a series of publications on the whole period of persecutions was made.

The first to complete the process was Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI. Plunkett was certainly targeted by the administration and unfairly tried.

Seventeen martyrs were beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 27, 1992. They are known as Dermot O'Hurley, Margaret Bermingham Ball, Francis Taylor and their fourteen companions.^[1] Among them are:

• Patrick O'Hely, bishop (d. August 31, 1579)
• Wexford Martyrs (d. July 5, 1581) – Patrick Cavanagh, Matthew Lambert, and fellow sailors found guilty of aiding in the escape of Viscount Baltinglass
• Conor O'Devany, bishop (d. February 11, 1612) with Patrick O'Loughran, priest
• Terence Albert O'Brien, bishop (d. October 31, 1651)
• William Tirry, priest (d. May 12, 1654)

None were included subsequently on the List of saints canonised by Pope John Paul II.

Various churches have been dedicated to the martyrs, including:

• Church of the Irish Martyrs, Ballyraine, Letterkenny ^[2]
• Church of the Irish Martyrs, Ballycane, Naas^[3]
• Church of the Irish Martyrs, Cromwell, Otago, New Zealand.

See also[link]

• English Reformation
• List of Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Irish Confessors and Martyrs". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 
• New Catholic Dictionary: Irish Martyrs

External links[link]

• Catholicireland.net

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2010)

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (October 2010)

Alan James Ryan, FBA (born 9 May 1940) was Warden of New College, Oxford, and Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford and currently a lecturer at Princeton University.

Biography[link]

He was educated at Christ's Hospital, Balliol College, Oxford, and University College, London. Elected a fellow of New College in 1969, he returned in 1996 to take up the Wardenship. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1986.

Ryan is a recognised authority on the work of John Stuart Mill, having contributed directly to the ‘Reversionary’ school, which led to a re-examination of Mill’s work from the 1970s. His academic work also takes in broader themes in political theory, including the philosophy of social science, the nature of property, and liberalism of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ryan has held positions at the Universities of Oxford, Essex, Keele, Princeton University, as well as the University of Virginia School of Law. He was also a Visiting Professor of Political Science at The New School.

Ryan is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement. Ryan can be heard here giving a brief account of Mill's philosophy, and a defence of him as the greatest British philosopher, on the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time.

Books[link]

• The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (1970): an examination of Mill's philosophy of science, its relation to his ethical thought, and a defence of the view that Mill's work is largely coherent, concentrating on Mill's A System of Logic.
• The Philosophy of the Social Sciences (1970): an introduction to the philosophy of social science.
• J.S. Mill (1975): a guide through the important works of Mill, and the themes to be found therein.
• Property and Political Theory (1984)
• Property (1987)
• Russell: A Political Life (1993)
• John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (1995)
• Liberal Anxieties and Liberal Education (1998): given as a lecture series at the University of California, Berkeley, contains autobiographical material.

Sources[link]

• Prospect magazine
• New York Review of Books
• Alan Ryan: CV
• Department of Politics and International Relations
• Debrett's People of Today (12th edn, London: Debrett, 1999), p. 1715

External links[link]

• Booknotes interview with Ryan on the Introduction to Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, February 26, 1995.

This biography article of a United Kingdom academic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Ira Glass
Born	(1959-03-03) March 3, 1959 (age 53) Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Show	This American Life
Station(s)	WBEZ[1]
Network	Public Radio International
Time slot	Syndication
Style	Presenter
Country	United States
Website	thisamericanlife.org

Ira Glass (born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life.

Personal life[link]

Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, to Barry Glass, an accountant, and Shirley Glass, a psychologist, infidelity researcher, and author whom the New York Times called "the godmother of infidelity research."^[2][3] He attended Milford Mill High School in Baltimore County where he was active in student theater. He attended Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois,^[4] but transferred to Brown University, where he concentrated in semiotics and graduated in 1982.^[5] He is the first cousin once removed of composer Philip Glass, who has appeared on Ira's show and whose music can often be heard on the program. Glass stated on This American Life that he is a staunch atheist.^[6]

Glass married Anaheed Alani, a writer and editor, in August 2005.^[7]

Career[link]

Radio broadcasting[link]

Glass has worked in public radio for some 30 years. At 19 he began as an intern at National Public Radio's headquarters in Washington, D.C.^[8] He was a reporter and host on several NPR programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation. Glass wrote,

"The very first National Public Radio show that I worked on was Joe Frank's. I think I was influenced in a huge way... Before I saw Joe put together a show, I had never thought about radio as a place where you could tell a certain kind of story."^[9]

From November 1990 until September 1995, he co-hosted, with NPR producer Gary Covino a weekly, local program on Chicago Public Radio called The Wild Room. In 1993, Glass said,

“I like to think of it as the only show on public radio other than Car Talk that both Daniel Schorr [NPR news analyst] and Kurt Cobain [lead singer/guitarist of Nirvana] could listen to. I think it’s appropriate that the show [which aired on Friday evenings] is on a station that most people don’t listen to at a time when most people won’t hear it. And the fact that public radio never puts a new show on the air or takes any off is definitely to our advantage.”^[10]

During this time, he spent two years reporting on the Chicago Public School System—one year at a high school, and another at an elementary school. The largest finding of his investigations was that smaller class sizes would contribute to more success in impoverished, inner-city schools.^[11]

In 1995, the MacArthur Foundation approached Torey Malatia, general manager of Chicago Public Radio, with an offer of $150,000 to produce a show featuring local Chicago writers and performance artists. Malatia approached Glass who countered that he wanted to do a weekly program with a budget of $300,000. In 1998, Covino told the Chicago Reader, "The show he proposed was The Wild Room. He just didn't call it The Wild Room."^[12] Covino continued to produce The Wild Room until February 1996.

Glass invited David Sedaris to read his essays on NPR, which led to Sedaris's success as an independent author; Glass also produced Sedaris' commentaries on NPR.^[13]

Since 1995, he has hosted and produced This American Life, from WBEZ. The show was nationally syndicated in June 1996 by Public Radio International and has been national ever since. PRI was eager to take on the program, even as NPR passed on it.^[14]

This American Life reaches over 1.7 million listeners on over 500 stations weekly, with an average listening time of 48 minutes. Glass can be heard in all but four episodes.

On November 17, 2005, This American Life celebrated its 10th anniversary. The following week, as a special show celebrating the anniversary, the first episode, "New Beginnings", was re-broadcast. Prior to this, the first episode had never been aired outside of Chicago. When the first episode was broadcast in 1995, the show was known as Your Radio Playhouse. That first episode includes interviews with talk-show host Joe Franklin and Ira's mother, as well as stories by Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired, and performance artist Lawrence Steger.

In May 2009, the This American Life radio show episode "Return to the Scene of the Crime" was broadcast live to over 300 movie theaters.^[15]

In 2009, Glass was named the recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Radio.^[16][17]

In 2011, Ira Glass earned the George Polk Award in Radio Reporting for "Very Tough Love," an hour-long report that showed alarmingly severe punishments being meted out by a county drug court judge in Georgia. Drug courts were set up to emphasize rehabilitation instead of incarceration, but Glass’ investigation revealed that Judge Amanda Williams strayed far from the principles and philosophy by routinely piling on jail sentences for relapses. One 17-year-old girl, initially in trouble for forging two small checks on her father’s account, was facing more than 10 years in jail. Following the airing of "Very Tough Love," Georgia’s Judicial Qualifying Commission filed 14 ethical misconduct charges against Williams. Within weeks of the filing of charges, Williams stepped down from the bench and agreed never to seek other judicial offices.^[18]

In 2012, Glass received a Doctorate of Humane Letters honoris causa from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD.

Other works[link]

While in high school, he wrote jokes for Baltimore radio personality Johnny Walker.

In September 1999, Ira collaborated on a comic book, Radio: An Illustrated Guide, with Jessica Abel. The book showcases how This American Life is produced, and how to produce your own radio program.

In 2006, he served as one of the executive producers of the feature film Unaccompanied Minors. It is based on the true story of what happened to This American Life contributing editor Susan Burton and her sister Betsy at an airport on the day before Christmas. Burton had already produced a segment on This American Life about the same experience before the story was adapted to film.

In October 2007, he published the anthology The New Kings of Nonfiction.

On March 22, 2007, Glass and company began airing a television version of This American Life as half-hour episodes on the Showtime network. During an interview with Patt Morrison on 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, Glass said that he lost 30 lb (13.5 kg) for this venture.^[19] The show aired for thirteen episodes over two seasons, and ended in 2009 because of the heavy workload required to produce it.^[20]

Appearances[link]

On April 25, 2008, Glass again appeared on The Late Show.^[21] On April 22, 2009, Glass appeared as the featured guest on The Colbert Report. He also was on TBTL on September 18, 2009. Glass served as the monologist for ASSSSCAT at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York on February 21, 2010. He appeared in a green motion capture suit in a John Hodgman segment on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Thursday, November 4, 2010 where he acted as the main character of the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City video game. Glass appeared on the June 24th, 2011 edition of Adam Carolla's podcast, where they discussed The Adam Carolla Podcast claiming the title of "Most Downloaded Podcast" from the Guinness Book of World Records. On September 17, 2011, Glass participated in the Drunk Show at the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival,^[22][23] during which Glass became so drunk he blacked out and vomited backstage.^[24] On September 19, 2011, Glass appeared on WTF Live with Marc Maron^[25], which aired as Episode 213^[26] of WTF with Marc Maron, on September 26, 2011. Ira Glass guest co-hosted Dan Savage's sex advice podcast, Savage Love, on January 31, 2012.^[27] He also lent his voice to The Simpsons in Season 22 in the episode entitled "Elementary School Musical."

On May 18, 2012, Glass gave the commencement address for Goucher College class of 2012 graduation ceremony.^[28] where he also received an honorary degree.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Ira Glass at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by Ira Glass on Open Library at the Internet Archive
• The Onion A/V Club's interview with Ira Glass, November 5, 2003

The Right Honourable The Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC FRS
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 4 May 1979 – 28 November 1990
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	William Whitelaw Geoffrey Howe
Preceded by	James Callaghan
Succeeded by	John Major
Leader of the Opposition
In office 11 February 1975 – 4 May 1979
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson James Callaghan
Preceded by	Edward Heath
Succeeded by	James Callaghan
Leader of the Conservative Party
In office 11 February 1975 – 28 November 1990
Preceded by	Edward Heath
Succeeded by	John Major
Secretary of State for Education and Science
In office 20 June 1970 – 4 March 1974
Prime Minister	Edward Heath
Preceded by	Edward Short
Succeeded by	Reginald Prentice
Member of Parliament for Finchley
In office 8 October 1959 – 9 April 1992
Preceded by	John Crowder
Succeeded by	Hartley Booth
Personal details
Born	Margaret Hilda Roberts (1925-10-13) 13 October 1925 (age 86) Grantham, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Denis Thatcher (married 1951–2003, his death)
Children	Carol Thatcher Mark Thatcher
Residence	Chester Square
Alma mater	Somerville College, Oxford Inns of Court
Profession	Chemist Lawyer
Religion	Church of England (Since 1951)[1] Methodism (Before 1951)
Signature

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) British prime minister of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the "Iron Lady", which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.

Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975 Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition, as well as the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became prime minister after winning the 1979 general election.

After entering 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what she perceived as Britain's precipitous national decline.^{[nb 1]} Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership.

Thatcher holds a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, which entitles her to sit in the House of Lords.

Early life and education[link]

Margaret Thatcher's birthplace, in Grantham

Commemorative plaque on the building in which Margaret Thatcher was born

Margaret Thatcher was born Margaret Roberts in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on 13 October 1925. Her father was Alfred Roberts, originally from Northamptonshire, and her mother was Beatrice Ethel (née Stephenson) from Lincolnshire.^[3] She spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned two grocery shops.^[4] She and her older sister Muriel were raised in the flat above the larger of the two, located near the railway line.^[4] Her father was active in local politics and the Christian church, serving as an alderman and a Methodist local preacher,^[5] and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist.^[6] He came from a Liberal family but stood—as was then customary in local government—as an Independent. He was Mayor of Grantham in 1945–46 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950.^[5]

Roberts attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School.^[7] Her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement; her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking.^[8][9] She was head girl in 1942–43.^[10] In her upper sixth year she applied for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford but was initially rejected, and was offered a place only after another candidate withdrew.^[11][12] She arrived at Oxford in 1943 and graduated in 1947 with Second Class Honours in the four-year Chemistry Bachelor of Science degree; in her final year she specialised in X-ray crystallography under the supervision of Dorothy Hodgkin.^[13][14]

Roberts became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946.^[15][16] She was influenced at university by political works such as Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944),^[17] which condemned economic intervention by government as a precursor to an authoritarian state.^[18]

After graduating, Roberts moved to Colchester in Essex to work as a research chemist for BX Plastics.^[19] She joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association.^[20] One of her Oxford friends was also a friend of the Chair of the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent, who were looking for candidates.^[20] Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the Conservative party's approved list: she was selected in January 1951 and added to the approved list post ante.^[21] At a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1951 she met Denis Thatcher, a successful and wealthy divorced businessman, who drove her to her Essex train.^[20][21] In preparation for the election Roberts moved to Dartford, where she supported herself by working as a research chemist for J. Lyons and Co. in Hammersmith, part of a team developing emulsifiers for ice cream.^[20][22]

Early political career[link]

In the 1950 and 1951 general elections she was the Conservative candidate for the safe Labour seat of Dartford, where she attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate.^[23][24] She lost both times to Norman Dodds, but reduced the Labour majority by 6,000, and then a further 1,000.^[23] (By an odd coincidence, Edward Heath was elected for the first time in the neighbouring constituency in 1950.) During the campaigns, she was supported by her parents and by Denis Thatcher, whom she married in December 1951.^[23][25] Denis funded his wife's studies for the bar;^[26] she qualified as a barrister in 1953 and specialised in taxation.^[27] That same year her twins, Carol and Mark, were born.^[28]

Member of Parliament (1959–1970)[link]

Thatcher was not a candidate in the 1955 general election as it came fairly soon after the birth of her children, although she was narrowly defeated as the candidate for the Orpington by-election, 1955.^[28] Afterwards, she began looking for a safe Conservative seat, and was selected as the candidate for Finchley in April 1958 (narrowly beating Ian Montagu Fraser). She was elected as MP for the seat after a hard campaign in the 1959 election.^[29] Her maiden speech was in support of her private member's bill (Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960), requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public. In 1961 she went against the Conservative Party's official position by voting for the restoration of birching.^[30] She regarded Finchley's Jewish residents as "her people" and became a founding member of the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley as well as a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel.^[31] But she nevertheless believed that Israel had to trade land for peace, and condemned Israel's bombing of Osirak as "a grave breach of international law".^[31]

In October 1961 Thatcher was promoted to the front bench as Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Harold Macmillan's administration.^[32] After the Conservatives lost the 1964 election she became spokeswoman on Housing and Land, in which position she advocated her party's policy of allowing tenants to buy their council houses.^[33] She moved to the Shadow Treasury team in 1966, and as Treasury spokeswoman opposed Labour's mandatory price and income controls, arguing that they would produce effects contrary to those intended and distort the economy.^[33]

At the Conservative Party Conference of 1966 she criticised the high-tax policies of the Labour Government as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism".^[33] She argued that lower taxes served as an incentive to hard work.^[33] Thatcher was one of the few Conservative MPs to support Leo Abse's Bill to decriminalise male homosexuality^[34] and voted in favour of David Steel's bill to legalise abortion,^[1][35] as well as a ban on hare coursing.^[36][37] She supported the retention of capital punishment^[38] and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws.^[39][40]

In 1967 she was selected by the United States Embassy in London to take part in the International Visitor Leadership Program (then called the Foreign Leader Program), a professional exchange programme that gave her the opportunity to spend about six weeks visiting various US cities and political figures as well as institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.^[41] Thatcher joined the Shadow Cabinet later that year as Fuel spokesman. Shortly before the 1970 general election, she was promoted to Shadow Transport spokesman and later to Education.^[42]

Education Secretary (1970–1974)[link]

The Conservative party under Edward Heath won the 1970 general election, and Thatcher was subsequently appointed Secretary of State for Education and Science. During her first months in office she attracted public attention as a result of the administration's attempts to cut spending. She gave priority to academic needs in schools,^[43] and imposed public expenditure cuts on the state education system, resulting in the abolition of free milk for schoolchildren aged seven to eleven.^[44] She held that few children would suffer if schools were charged for milk, but she agreed to provide younger children with a third of a pint daily, for nutritional purposes.^[44] Her decision provoked a storm of protest from the Labour party and the press,^[45] leading to the moniker "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher".^[44] Thatcher wrote in her autobiography: "I learned a valuable lesson [from the experience]. I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit."^[45][46]

Thatcher's term of office was marked by proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and to adopt comprehensive secondary education. Although she was committed to a tiered secondary modern-grammar school system of education, and determined to preserve grammar schools,^[43] during her tenure as Education Secretary she turned down only 326 of 3,612 proposals for schools to become comprehensives; the proportion of pupils attending comprehensive schools consequently rose from 32 per cent to 62 per cent.^[47]

Leader of the Opposition (1975–1979)[link]

Margaret Thatcher, Leader of the Opposition, 18 September 1975

The Heath government continued to experience difficulties with oil embargoes and union demands for wage increases in 1973, and lost the February 1974 general election.^[45] Labour formed a minority government, and went on to win a narrow majority in the October 1974 general election. Heath's leadership of the Conservative Party looked increasingly in doubt. Thatcher was not initially the obvious replacement, but she eventually became the main challenger, promising a fresh start.^[48] Her main support came from the Conservative 1922 Committee.^[48] She defeated Heath on the first ballot and he resigned the leadership.^[49] In the second ballot she defeated Heath's preferred successor, William Whitelaw, and became party leader on 11 February 1975;^[50] she appointed Whitelaw as her deputy. Heath remained disenchanted with Thatcher to the end of his life, for what he and many of his supporters perceived as her disloyalty in standing against him.^[51]

Thatcher began to attend lunches regularly at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank founded by the poultry magnate Antony Fisher, a disciple of Friedrich von Hayek; she had been visiting the IEA and reading its publications since the early 1960s. There she was influenced by the ideas of Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon, and she became the face of the ideological movement opposing the welfare state Keynesian economics they believed was weakening Britain. The institute's pamphlets proposed less government, lower taxes, and more freedom for business and consumers.^{[52][page needed]}

The television critic Clive James, writing in The Observer during the voting for the leadership, compared her voice of 1973 to a cat sliding down a blackboard.^{[nb 2]} Thatcher had already begun to work on her presentation on the advice of Gordon Reece, a former television producer. By chance Reece met the actor Laurence Olivier, who arranged lessons with the National Theatre's voice coach.^[53][54][55] Thatcher succeeded in completely suppressing her Lincolnshire dialect except when under stress, notably after provocation from Denis Healey in the House of Commons in April 1983, when she accused the Labour front bench of being frit.^{[56][nb 3]}

On 19 January 1976 Thatcher made a speech in Kensington Town Hall in which she made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union; in response, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) called her the "Iron Lady":^[57]

The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.^[57]

In mid-1978, the economy began to improve and opinion polls showed Labour in the lead, with a general election being expected later that year and a Labour win a serious possibility. Prime Minister James Callaghan surprised many by announcing on 7 September that there would be no general election that year and he would wait until 1979 before going to the polls. Thatcher reacted to this by branding the Labour government as "chickens", and Liberal Party leader David Steel joined in, criticising Labour for "running scared".^[58]

The Labour government then faced fresh public unease about the direction of the country and a damaging series of strikes during the winter of 1978–79, dubbed the "Winter of Discontent". The Conservatives attacked the Labour government's unemployment record, using advertising with the slogan Labour Isn't Working. A general election was called after James Callaghan's government lost a motion of no confidence in early 1979. The Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in the House of Commons, and Margaret Thatcher became the UK's first female Prime Minister.

Prime Minister (1979–1990)[link]

Thatcher's Ministry meets with Reagan's Cabinet at the White House, 1981

Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979. Arriving at 10 Downing Street, she said, in a paraphrase of the "Prayer of Saint Francis":

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

Domestic affairs[link]

Thatcher was Leader of the Opposition and Prime Minister at a time of increased racial tension in Britain. Commenting on the local elections of May 1977, The Economist noted "The Tory tide swamped the smaller parties. That specifically includes the National Front, which suffered a clear decline from last year".^[59][60] Her standing in the polls rose by 11 percent after a January 1978 interview for World in Action in which she said "the British character has done so much for democracy, for law and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in."; and "in many ways [minorities] add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened."^[61][62] In the 1979 General Election, the Conservatives attracted voters from the National Front, whose support almost collapsed.^[63][64] In a meeting in July 1979 with Lord Carrington (the Foreign Secretary) and William Whitelaw (Home Secretary) she objected to the number of Asian immigrants,^[65] in the context of limiting the number of Vietnamese boat people allowed to settle in the UK to fewer than 10,000.

As Prime Minister, Thatcher met weekly with Queen Elizabeth II to discuss government business, and their relationship came under close scrutiny.^[66][67] In July 1986 the Sunday Times reported claims attributed to the Queen's advisers of a "rift" between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street "over a wide range of domestic and international issues".^[68][69] The Palace issued an official denial, heading off speculation about a possible constitutional crisis.^[69] After Thatcher's retirement a senior Palace source again dismissed as "nonsense" the "stereotyped idea" that she had not got along with the Queen, or that they had fallen out over Thatcherite policies.^[70] Thatcher later wrote: "I always found the Queen's attitude towards the work of the Government absolutely correct ... stories of clashes between 'two powerful women' were just too good not to make up."^[71]