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 was no gloating or effort to humiliate Gorbachev. While US President George H. W. Bush wanted to make NATO more of a political than a military alliance, Thatcher, spoke out for the importance of the military role. Like Mitterrand in France, she was nervous about the reunification of Germany, repeating the quip from Lord Ismay, NATO's first secretary general: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down." Thatcher and Mitterrand had a more specific worry. Bush said: "Margaret still feared the worst from reunification and, like Mitterrand, worried that the Germans