“SHE’S a formidable lass, this Maggie, compact, efficient. She slips in and out of cars as if on ball-bearings. She manacles her hands together when she speaks. Totally neat. Condemning waffle in others (especially reporters), she herself uses waffle like a deadening sledgehammer. She never answered one question simply all day.”
Thus the Glasgow Herald’s esteemed writer, William Hunter, in February 1975, summarising much (though not all, of course) Scottish opinion of Margaret Thatcher, the new leader of the Conservative opposition, Thatcher went walkabout in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in her first major speech since she replaced Ted Heath as leader she warned the nation that the Labour government’s aim was nothing less than the destruction of private enterprise.
In Edinburgh she had to abandon her walkabout plans when a 3,000-strong crowd turned up to see her at a shopping centre. In Glasgow, where she gave the speech at the City Hall, some 1,000 people crowded into George Square to see her (main image, far right),
Addressing a Tory rally, Thatcher assured the faithful that this would only be the first of many visits she would make to Scotland, “because it is crucial for Britain that the party’s fortunes should prosper and advance in Britain as a whole”.
Scotland, she said, was particularly important. The party’s number of Scottish MPs had been declining sharply since 1955: “unless we can turn the tide it will be difficult, if not impossible, to secure the return of a Conservative Government in Westminster with a working majority”. The establishment of a Scottish assembly had to be a priority but it had to be within the framework of preserving the unity of the United Kingdom.
Read more: Herald Diary
William Hunter noted that “otherwise sensible-looking Edinburgh matrons turned girlish about having laid hands on the person of the new Tory leader”. A Herald leading article conceded that Thatcher had a novelty value, she “created a genuine excitement in a way that few politicians can do nowadays”.
In September 1981, the same month as a major Cabinet reshuffle that purged many leading ‘Wets’, Thatcher came north, to Renfrew. She was greeted by 1,200 demonstrators, some of whom hurled eggs at her. Thatcher predicted that the worst of the then-recession was over. At one point she took a picture of the massed news photographers (right, top), and she gave Herald photographer Stuart Paterson a helping hand after he accidentally walked backwards into a slowly moving car in the Thatcher convoy.
In January 1983 Thatcher visited the Herald’s offices in Albion Street (right, bottom), to help mark the paper’s bicentenary. In a light-hearted speech at the Holiday Inn she said the paper had had an unfortunate start, as its first editor had been jailed for sedition. “I am sure the present editor will escape the fate of the first one”, she added, “but I shall be taking a particularly close look at the leader column just in case”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here