Cecil Parkinson, Charles Powell, John Simpson and Steve Hilton remember Margaret Thatcher

Cecil Parkinson: Underestimated – but unbowed

Even among Mrs Thatcher’s original shadow Cabinet, there were those who simply did not believe that she would be capable of dealing with the problems of a declining country. To a man they were wrong.

Each underestimated the determination of Margaret Thatcher. She did not regard the manifesto on which she had been elected as a set of pledges designed merely to win an election and to be abandoned when the going got tough. She intended to honour hers: to reduce the role of the state; to transfer power to the people. Trade union members were given the right to elect their leaders at regular intervals and to vote before being called out on strike. People would keep more of what they earned and taxes at all levels were to be reduced. Millions of people were given the right to escape from the grip of local authority bureaucrats and buy their council houses.