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
Margaret Thatcher mind. Upon leaving the House of Commons, Thatcher became the first former Prime Minister to set up a foundation; the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties. She wrote two volumes of memoirs, "The Downing Street Years" (1993) and "The Path to Power" (1995). In 1991 she and her husband Denis moved to a house in Chester Square, a residential garden square in central London's Belgravia district. Thatcher was hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris as a "geopolitical consultant" in July 1992, for $250,000 per year and an annual contribution of