Bernard Richard Braine, Baron Braine of Wheatley, PC (24 June 1914 – 5 January 2000) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was educated at Hendon County Grammar School, and served with the North Staffordshire Regiment in the Second World War, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for over forty years, representing constituencies in Essex.

At the 1950 general election, Braine was elected as MP for Billericay. When constituencies boundaries were revised for the 1955 election he was returned for the new South East Essex, and when that constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election, he was elected for the new Castle Point constituency, becoming Father of the House of Commons in 1987.

He was chairman of the National Council on Alcoholism, and was a member of the Parliamentary Groups on Human Rights and against abortion. He was knighted in 1972, and appointed as a Privy Counsellor in 1985.

Braine stepped down from Parliament at the 1992 general election, and in August that year he was made a life peer Baron Braine of Wheatley, of Rayleigh in the County of Essex.

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.