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
First Lord of the Treasury a royal warrant only in 1905. William Pitt the Younger once opined that the Prime Minister ""ought to be the person at the head of the finances"" (though Pitt also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for the entirety of his time as Prime Minister, so his linkage of the finance portfolio to the premiership was wider than merely proposing the occupation of the First Lordship of the Treasury by the Prime Minister). Prior to 1841 the First Lord of the Treasury also held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer unless he was a peer and thus barred from