Margaret Bondfield By 1973, Christmas reported, only 93 women had sat in parliament; their contributions had overall "not been stunning". Their best numerical representation at that point had been in the 1966 general election, when 29 women (out of 630 MPs) had been elected. The 1979 election saw this number fall to 19, but also saw Margaret Thatcher become Britain's first woman prime minister. Cox and Hobley draw attention to Thatcher's early life as a shopkeeper's daughter, and contrast her account of those days with Bondfield's experiences half a century earlier. Thatcher believed that the concept of service to the customer was
Margaret Thatcher had been badly misinterpreted, arguing that race was never an important focus of Thatcherism. Throughout her premiership, both major parties took similar positions on immigration policy, having in 1981 passed the British Nationality Act with bipartisan support. There were no policies passed or proposed by her government aimed at restricting immigration, and the subject of race was never highlighted by Thatcher in any of her major speeches as Prime Minister. Many of Thatcher's policies had an influence on the Labour Party, which had returned to power in 1997 under Tony Blair. Blair rebranded the party "New Labour" in 1994 with