Margaret Thatcher: Vol 1. The Grocer's Daughter

John Campbell

Having waded through (and thoroughly enjoyed) John Campbell's mammoth 800-page biography of failed Prime Minister and all round grumpychops Ted Heath a couple of years ago, I knew that John Campbell could cut the mustard when it came to heavyweight political biography. Nevertheless I steered clear of his latest project, Margaret Thatcher, for a while because, I don't know, it just seemed like we had had enough of her for a lifetime. Not so much her politics, of which I'm hardly a sworn enemy, but more the basilisk stare, the hectoring voice and the wonky personality.

Besides, having grown up in the Thatcher years, I figured I knew everything I wanted to know. But I picked up this first volume quite happily because it deals with the period before she arrived in Downing Street in 1979 and before she properly came to public attention. Now that Campbell has got me hooked I can't wait for the second volume but it seems it's not yet published.

This first volume is neatly structured and each chapter deals with the phases of Margaret Thatcher's life which moved the fiercely ambitious (and slightly bizarre) young girl closer to her ultimate goal of political high office. There is a chapter each on her childhood, on school, on university, on her first campaign in an unwinnable Labour seat, the backbenches, her time as a minister in the Heath government and, lastly, the 1979 election campaign.

There is also a dry but important chapter entitled "Thatcherism Under Wraps" which details the story of how Thatcherism as we knew it in the 1980s was developed behind the scenes in the 1970s by a group of influential Tory politicians, journalists and other mavericks. Campbell argues that she initiated very little in terms of ideas but had the political judgment to know what could be sold to the rest of the country and what could not. And she was always a good saleswoman.

One of the things a book about Thatcher's early years can't help doing is to remind us that before 1979 (amazing though it seems now) it was inconceivable to many people that a woman could be prime minister. Campbell has plenty to say about her sex. When she was starting out in politics Mrs Thatcher (either modestly or genuinely) seems to have stated on many occasions that she didn't believe there would be a woman PM in her lifetime. Later, during the 1979 campaign, it's interesting to read Campbell's theory that Mrs Thatcher vastly speeded up the packaging, imagemaking and spinning that was creeping into British politics at the time. As a woman, she was used to being judged (unfairly perhaps) as much by how she looked as by the policies she expounded. And so it seemed the most natural thing in the world, to her, to hire voice consultants, to work at (and improve) her media skills and to organise photo opportunities. Callaghan scoffed at the time: "the public don't want to see you cuddling a calf [as Thatcher had, the day before], they're more interested in whether you're selling a pig in a poke." But eventually her rivals and opponents had to go down the same route.

Overall, a great read, if only to confirm what I already believed. Mrs T. Necessary for the country but slightly mad.