Margaret Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his Conservative government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition, the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election. Thatcher introduced a series of economic policies intended to reverse high unemployment and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an ongoing recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom retirement from the Commons, which elevates the individual to the House of Lords. Formerly, the peerage bestowed was usually an earldom, with Churchill offered a dukedom. From the 1960s onward, life peerages were preferred, although in 1984 Harold Macmillan was created Earl of Stockton. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher accepted life peerages, although Douglas-Home had previously disclaimed his hereditary title as Earl of Home. Edward Heath did not accept a peerage of any kind and nor have any of the Prime Ministers to retire since 1990; although Heath and Major were later appointed as Knights