This article recounts the story of Margaret Thatcher's 'shopping list' scandal of 1974, where her tendency to stockpile tinned food was used by rivals to portray her as out-of-touch and uncaring. However, Thatcher cleverly turned this smear campaign against her opponents, highlighting her resourcefulness and strategic thinking.
Baroness Jenkin is founder of Women2Win, campaigning to increase the number of Conservative women MPs.Four cans of corned beef, four cans of ham and two cans of tongue. A tin of mackerel, four tins of sardines and six tins of salmon – ‘to make salmon mousse’. Two jars of Bovril.
But she soon turned the shopping list slur against her rivals – and in doing so made herself hugely popular as her quick thinking gave Britain its first inkling that Mrs T was a political genius like no other. Margaret Thatcher's rivals used her shopping list as a means to smear her in an attempt to prevent her getting the top job
We realised that now is the time to put that story on record, ‘while we’ve all still got our marbles’, as one friend put it. But in late 1974, with Heath and the Conservatives reeling from two general election defeats within the year, she was not regarded as a serious contender for No 10. Even Mrs Thatcher herself confessed to her friend and former permanent secretary, William Pile, that the height of her ambition was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Awkward and disagreeable, he was leading the Tories into oblivion. All the parliamentary party knew it, but few had the courage to say so to his face. The accusation was particularly damaging, since it made her out to be a bad housewife and, by extension, a bad mother: Mrs Thatcher was one of the few women in Parliament who had brought up children while serving as an MP, though her twins Carol and Mark were by now 21 years old.
Read More Brian and Maggie viewers sink claws into Steve Coogan just minutes into Channel 4 Thatcher drama That cost-cutting measure saw her dubbed ‘Thatcher the Milk Snatcher’, an insult she bore with gritted teeth. But until her landslide victory in February 1975, trouncing her rivals, few imagined Mrs Thatcher or any other woman could be Conservative Party leader.
Conservative politician Airey Neave was one of Mrs Thatcher's most loyal lieutenants but was murdered when the IRA attached a bomb to his car in 1979 Neave disliked Heath for personal as well as political reasons. At a dinner, the PM had once disparaged his abilities as an MP, making it plain he was not regarded as government material, in front of the other guests.
It was a clever, psychological tactic to ensure her friends did not become complacent while reassuring her enemies that they had no need to take aggressive action. Joan Hall, the former MP for Keighley, West Yorkshire , offered her services as press secretary. Mrs Thatcher’s first question was to ask, ‘But what about your finances?’ – worried that Joan was offering support she could ill afford.
Morrison told him the ‘big, land-owning members of the party’ believed she was going to win: ‘We think she’s the only one with balls, even though she’s a filly. Brains too, and she’s running well enough to end up the winner.’Margaret Thatcher speaking at a meeting of the party's campaign to keep Britain in the Common Market, watched by her predecessor Edward Heath in 1975
Until the results were read out, he was blithely confident that he would retain the leadership, and he never forgave Mrs Thatcher for besting him. Read More ANDREW ROBERTS: I knew Lady Thatcher and see echoes of her in Badenoch On the eve of the vote, the BBC’s flagship documentary show Panorama announced it would showcase the candidates.
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