Editing Margaret Thatcher (section)

===Member of Parliament (1959–1970)===
In 1954, Thatcher was defeated when she sought selection to be the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] candidate for the [[1955 Orpington by-election|Orpington by-election]] of January 1955. She chose not to stand as a candidate in the [[1955 United Kingdom general election|1955 general election]], in later years, stating: "I really just felt the twins were [...] only two, I really felt that it was too soon. I couldn't do that."{{sfnp|Campbell|2000|p=100}} Afterwards, Thatcher began looking for a Conservative safe seat and was selected as the candidate for [[Finchley (UK Parliament constituency)|Finchley]] in April 1958 (narrowly beating [[Ian Montagu Fraser]]). She was elected as MP for the seat after a hard campaign in the [[1959 United Kingdom general election|1959 election]].{{sfnp|Beckett|2006|p=27}}<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=41842 |date=13 October 1959 |page=6433}}</ref> Benefiting from her fortunate result in a lottery for [[backbencher]]s to propose new legislation,{{r|runciman20130606}} Thatcher's maiden speech was, unusually, in support of her [[private member's bill]], the [[Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960]], requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public; the bill was successful and became law.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 February 1960 |title=HC S 2R [Public Bodies (Admission of the Press to Meetings) Bill] (Maiden Speech) |url=http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101055 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109151758/http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/101055 |archive-date=9 November 2013 |access-date=8 April 2013 |publisher=Margaret Thatcher Foundation}}</ref>{{sfnp|Aitken|2013|p=91}} In 1961 she went against the Conservative Party's official position by voting for the restoration of [[birching]] as a [[judicial corporal punishment]].{{sfnp|Campbell|2000|p=134}}

====On the frontbenches====
Thatcher's talent and drive caused her to be mentioned as a future prime minister in her early 20s{{r|runciman20130606}} although she herself was more pessimistic, stating as late as 1970: "There will not be a woman prime minister in my lifetime – the male population is too prejudiced."<ref name="sandbrook20130409">{{Cite news |last=Sandbrook |first=Dominic |author-link=Dominic Sandbrook |date=9 April 2013 |title=Viewpoint: What if Margaret Thatcher had never been? |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22076886 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130608091711/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22076886 |archive-date=8 June 2013 |access-date=16 June 2013 |work=BBC News Magazine}}</ref> In October 1961 she was promoted to the [[frontbench]] as [[Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Pensions]] by [[Harold Macmillan]].{{sfnp|Reitan|2003|p=4}} Thatcher was the youngest woman in history to receive such a post, and among the first [[List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election|MPs elected in 1959]] to be promoted.{{sfnp|Scott-Smith|2003}} After the Conservatives lost the [[1964 United Kingdom general election|1964 election]], she became spokeswoman on housing and land. In that position, she advocated her party's policy of giving tenants the [[right to buy]] their [[council house]]s.{{sfnp|Wapshott|2007|p=64}} She moved to the [[Shadow Treasury]] team in 1966 and, as Treasury spokeswoman, opposed Labour's mandatory price and income controls, arguing they would unintentionally produce effects that would distort the economy.{{sfnp|Wapshott|2007|p=64}}

[[Jim Prior]] suggested Thatcher as a [[Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom)|Shadow Cabinet]] member after the Conservatives' [[1966 United Kingdom general election|1966 defeat]], but party leader [[Edward Heath]] and Chief Whip [[William Whitelaw]] eventually chose [[Mervyn Pike]] as the [[First Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath|Conservative shadow cabinet]]'s sole woman member.{{sfnp|Scott-Smith|2003}} At the 1966 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher criticised the high-tax policies of the [[Labour government, 1964–1970|Labour government]] as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism", arguing that lower taxes served as an incentive to hard work.{{sfnp|Wapshott|2007|p=64}} Thatcher was one of the few Conservative MPs to support [[Leo Abse]]'s bill to decriminalise male homosexuality.<ref>{{Cite Hansard |title=Sexual Offences (No. 2) |house=House of Commons |date=5 July 1966 |volume=731 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1966/jul/05/sexual-offences-no-2 |page=267 |access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> She voted in favour of [[David Steel]]'s bill to legalise abortion,{{sfnp|Thatcher|1995|p=150}}<ref>{{Cite Hansard |title=Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill |house=House of Commons |date=22 July 1966 |volume=732 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1966/jul/22/medical-termination-of-pregnancy-bill |page=1165 |access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> as well as a ban on [[hare coursing]].<ref>{{Cite Hansard |title=Hare Coursing Bill |house=House of Commons |date=14 May 1970 |volume=801 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1970/may/14/hare-coursing-bill |access-date=22 October 2020 |pages=1599–1603}}</ref> She supported the retention of capital punishment<ref>{{Cite Hansard |title=Capital Punishment |house=House of Commons |date=24 June 1969 |volume=785 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1969/jun/24/capital-punishment |page=1235 |access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws.<ref>{{Cite Hansard |title=Divorce Reform Bill |house=House of Commons |date=9 February 1968 |volume=758 |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1968/feb/09/divorce-reform-bill |access-date=22 October 2020 |pages=904–907}}</ref>{{sfnp|Thatcher|1995|p=151}}

====In the Shadow Cabinet====
In 1967, the [[Embassy of the United States, London|United States Embassy]] chose Thatcher to take part in the [[International Visitor Leadership Program]] (then called the Foreign Leader Program), a professional exchange programme that allowed her to spend about six weeks visiting various US cities and political figures as well as institutions such as the [[International Monetary Fund]]. Although she was not yet a Shadow Cabinet member, the embassy reportedly described her to the [[State Department]] as a possible future prime minister. The description helped Thatcher meet with prominent people during a busy itinerary focused on economic issues, including [[Paul Samuelson]], [[Walt Rostow]], [[Pierre-Paul Schweitzer]] and [[Nelson Rockefeller]]. Following the visit, Heath appointed Thatcher to the Shadow Cabinet{{sfnp|Scott-Smith|2003}} as fuel and power spokeswoman.<ref>{{Cite news |date=8 April 2013 |title=Margaret Thatcher's timeline: From Grantham to the House of Lords, via Arthur Scargill and the Falklands War |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/margaret-thatchers-timeline-from-grantham-to-the-house-of-lords-via-arthur-scargill-and-the-8564555.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104013802/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/margaret-thatchers-timeline-from-grantham-to-the-house-of-lords-via-arthur-scargill-and-the-8564555.html |archive-date=4 November 2016 |access-date=2 November 2016 |work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref> Before the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]], she was promoted to shadow transport spokeswoman and later to education.{{sfnp|Wapshott|2007|p=65}}<ref>{{Cite news |date=15 November 1968 |title=Maudling leads Tory General Election drive |url={{GBurl|tX9AAAAAIBAJ|p=1&article_id=4653,2776284}} |work=[[The Glasgow Herald]] |page=1 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Warden |first=John |date=22 October 1969 |title=Shadow Cabinet's Three Changes |url={{GBurl|E5JAAAAAIBAJ|p=24&article_id=2828,4200705}} |work=The Glasgow Herald |page=24 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

In 1968, [[Enoch Powell]] delivered his [[Rivers of Blood speech|"Rivers of Blood" speech]] in which he strongly criticised [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] immigration to the United Kingdom and the then-proposed [[Race Relations Act 1968|Race Relations Bill]]. When Heath telephoned Thatcher to inform her that he would sack Powell from the Shadow Cabinet, she recalled that she "really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". She believed that his main points about Commonwealth immigration were correct and that the selected quotations from his speech had been taken out of context.{{sfnp|Aitken|2013|page=117}}  In a 1991 interview for ''[[Today (UK newspaper)|Today]]'', Thatcher stated that she thought Powell had "made a valid argument, if in sometimes regrettable terms".<ref name="Sandford">{{Cite magazine |last=Sandford |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Sandford (biographer) |date=4 December 2017 |orig-date=June 2012 issue |title=To See and to Speak |url=https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/article/to-see-and-to-speak/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027040342/https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/article/to-see-and-to-speak/ |archive-date=27 October 2020 |access-date=23 October 2020 |magazine=[[Chronicles (magazine)|Chronicles]]}}</ref>

Around this time, she gave her first Commons speech as a shadow transport minister and highlighted the need for investment in [[British Rail]]. She argued: "[{{ucfirst:i]f}} we build bigger and better roads, they would soon be saturated with more vehicles and we would be no nearer solving the problem."{{sfnp|Campbell|2000|p=189}}  Thatcher made her first visit to the [[Soviet Union]] in the summer of 1969 as the Opposition transport spokeswoman, and in October, delivered a speech celebrating her ten years in Parliament. In early 1970, she told ''The Finchley Press'' that she would like to see a "reversal of the permissive society".{{sfnp|Campbell|2000|pp=190–191}}