By the time of the next general election, most likely to be held in 2010, 20 years will have passed since Margaret Thatcher was ejected from Downing Street. David Cameron is the first post-Thatcher Conservative leader to have no significant personal connection to the Thatcher administration. This is partly explained by age — Cameron was just 12 years old when Thatcher first led the Conservatives to victory in 1979, and he only entered Parliament in 2001, but there is also a social, or class, element to this distance from Thatcherism. Cameron was educated at Eton and Oxford, an educational background that has produced a huge number of leading Conservative politicians — and a few Labour ones — but whose influence, while still strong, declined under Thatcher.
This article is essential reading for A2 students. It is also useful for Edexcel and AQA AS students studying political parties. It focuses on the following aspects of the specifications:
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