First Thatcher ministry May 1979. The Winter of Discontent had seen the Labour government's popularity slump during the previous four months, and the opinion polls all pointed towards a Conservative victory. The Tories won the election with a majority of 44 seats and their leader Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister. Thatcher inherited some of the worst economic statistics of postwar Britain. The nation was still feeling the effects of the numerous strikes during the recent Winter of Discontent. Inflation had recently topped 20%, and unemployment was in excess of 1.5 million for the first time since the 1930s. Thatcher's monetarist
Premiership of Margaret Thatcher her opposition to greater economic integration into the European Community. She also alienated many Conservative voters and Members of Parliament with the imposition of the local poll tax. As her support fell away, she was challenged for the party leadership and persuaded by her Cabinet to withdraw from the second round of voting, ending her eleven-year tenure as Prime Minister. Though she remains a domestically polarising figure, historians and political scientists generally rank Thatcher as an above-average Prime Minister. Biographer John Campbell reports that in July 1978 when asked by a Labour MP in Commons what she meant by socialism: