Sir Robin Day, OBE (24 October 1923 – 6 August 2000) was a British political broadcaster and commentator. His obituary in the Guardian stated that "he was the most outstanding television journalist of his generation. He transformed the television interview, changed the relationship between politicians and television, and strove to assert balance and rationality into the medium's treatment of current affairs".

He was the son of a telephone engineer who became telephone manager at Gloucester.

Day attended Brentwood School from 1934 to 1938, briefly attended The Crypt School, Gloucester and later Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight.

He served with the army in east Africa, where he reached the rank of Captain but was demoted to Lieutenant as part of a cull of rear-echelon jobs.

After the war Day attended St Edmund Hall, Oxford and, while a student, was elected president of the Oxford Union debating society. Day also took part in a debating tour of the United States, run by the English-Speaking Union.

John Enoch Powell, MBE (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, linguist and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP (1950–74), Ulster Unionist Party MP (1974–1987), and Minister of Health (1960–63). He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech against immigration. He was then controversially sacked from his position as Shadow Defence Secretary (1965–68) in the Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath. He had few friends in the establishment, but a poll said that 74% of the population agreed with him.

However, his supporters claim that the large public following that Powell attracted may have helped the Conservatives to win the 1970 general election, and perhaps cost them the February 1974 general election, at which Powell turned his back on the Conservatives by endorsing a vote for Labour, who returned as a minority government in early March following a hung parliament. He returned to the House of Commons in October 1974 as the Ulster Unionist Party MP for the Northern Irish constituency of South Down until he was defeated in the 1987 general election.

Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was a British Labour politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Commonly known as Jim Callaghan (and nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim"), Callaghan is the only person to have served in all four of the Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.

Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967 during a turbulent period in the British economy in which he had to wrestle with a balance of payments deficit and speculative attacks on the pound sterling. In November 1967, the Government was forced to devalue the pound sterling despite having already denied this would be done, both publicly and to the House of Commons. Callaghan offered to resign, but was persuaded to swap his ministerial post with Roy Jenkins, becoming Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970. In that capacity, Callaghan took the decision to use the Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government.

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. 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.

Sir John William Frederic Nott KCB (born 1 February 1932 in Bideford, Devon) is a former British Conservative Party politician prominent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He featured heavily in the public eye as Secretary of State for Defence during the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands and the subsequent Falklands War.

The son of Richard Nott and Phyllis née Francis, Nott was educated at Bradfield College and was commissioned as a regular officer in the 2nd Gurkha Rifles in Malaysia (1952–1956). He left to study law and economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society. At Cambridge he met his future wife Miloshka, herself a refugee from Communist Slovenia (Yugoslavia). They have two sons and a daughter.

Nott was Member of Parliament for St Ives in Cornwall from 1966 to 1983. Interestingly, John Nott was the last person to commence his parliamentary career under the nearly obsolete National Liberal label. The National Liberals were formally absorbed by the Conservatives in 1968 and Nott then sat as a Conservative MP.