Margaret Thatcher were officially denied by William Heseltine, the Private Secretary to the Sovereign. Thatcher later wrote: "I always found the Queen's attitude towards the work of the Government absolutely correct ... stories of clashes between 'two powerful women' were just too good not to make up." Thatcher's economic policy was influenced by monetarist thinking and economists such as Milton Friedman and Alan Walters. Together with Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe, she lowered direct taxes on income and increased indirect taxes. She increased interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thereby lower inflation, introduced cash limits on
Premiership of Margaret Thatcher those of non-oil-exporting countries, and there was a decline in the country's relative standing in terms of unemployment. The resulting welfare payments meant that, even though Thatcher and her ministers in 1979 had taken the view that "public expenditure is at the heart of Britain's present economic difficulties", it was not until the boom year of 1987 that the expenditure ratio fell below the 1979 level, and for most of the 1980s the average tax take was actually higher than in 1979. On the early morning of 12 October 1984, the day before her 59th birthday, Thatcher escaped injury in