Tory! Tory! Tory! as it prevented Powell from taking control of the party. Heath had attempted to reduce the power of the trade unions but was eventually beaten by the strikers. Following the February 1974 election defeat former Health Minister Keith Joseph turned against Heath and his neo-Keynesian policies to become a champion of free market economics but lost his position and influence after his controversial "human stock" speech. Joseph's close friend and ally, Margaret Thatcher, put herself forward as the free market candidate in the subsequent leadership election and won a surprising victory. Jay met with Thatcher at a dinner where he
Edward Heath including pianist Moura Lympany. When Heath was Prime Minister she was approached by the Conservative MP Tufton Beamish, who said: "Moura, Ted must get married. Will you marry him?" She said she would have done but was in love with someone else. She later said the most intimate thing Heath had done was to put his arm around her shoulder. Bernard Levin wrote at the time in "The Observer" that the UK had to wait until the emergence of the permissive society for a prime minister who was a virgin. In later life, according to his official biographer Philip Ziegler,