Maggie & Ted

The running feud between Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath began in 1975 – when she successfully challenged him for the leadership of the Conservative Party – and did not fade until almost a quarter of a century later. Throughout the numerous, unsparing challenges she faced during those turbulent years – the relentless demands of rebuilding a demoralised opposition in the mid 1970s, or the civil disturbances, unemployment and international crises of the early 1980s – he was always to be found – outspoken, unforgiving and bitterly hostile – at the very vanguard of her critics. Whenever Labour and the Liberals failed to provide a vigorous and effective opposition to her monetarist policies (which they generally did), he could be relied upon to do their job for them, with interest. It was always front-page stuff too – real Box Office. In later years, their growing divergence of views on Europe would widen into a schism – a schism that would soon come to define, to disrupt and, ultimately, to destroy the character, the coherence and the very fabric of the party they had both once led.