On November 22, 1990, Thatcher announced she was resigning as Prime Minister after more than a decade in office. Two years later, the couple welcomed twins Mark and Carol. ). Margaret Thatcher became one of the world's most influential and respected political leaders, as well as one of the most controversial, dynamic, and plain-spoken, a reference point for friends and enemies alike. Recipes you want to make. However, he felt compelled to help and took the letter to the local Rotary Club. During her years as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher revolutionised the economic fortunes of every person in the UK. To fund lower taxes on incomes, up went tax on most things shoppers bought. Over the pond in America soft-serve ice cream had been on sale since the 1930's. 1925-1947: Grantham & Oxford Margaret Thatcher at a friend's house, summer 1935. John Major wrote a five-page personal letter to his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, to tell her of his government's decision to abolish her flagship poll tax, which he described as unfair,. Margaret Thatcher was the Iron Lady who ran Britain from 1979 to 1990, a period in which she defined a generation. But soft-serve's smooth texture doesn't just come from a temperature difference. That was the thinking behind the launch of personal pensions in 1988. Robert Evans, the Reuters bureau chief in Moscow, was trudging through what he would later recall as miserably slushy day in the city when he came across a copy of Krasnaya Zvezda, a Soviet army propaganda paper. Here's one sweet spot in The Iron Lady's history: She helped create soft-serve ice cream. While speaking against the Labour Partys tax plan, she said, So once more, the married woman who goes to the butcher, grocer, and dry cleaner and then, when she finishes and wishes for a little pleasure, to the hairdresser, will find the prices going up.. "The harm she has done to the universities more than outweighs government funding of the research councils and her general friendliness to science," one anonymous critic told the magazine. Margaret Thatcher died this morning at the age of 87. 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Perhaps the oddest claim about the legacy of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday at the age of eighty-seven, is, in the words of the Washington Post, that she helped invent ice cream as we know it. Soft-serve, specifically. Thatcher, you see, before she was a politician, was a research chemist. In the U.S., companies like Carvel and Dairy Queen had been selling soft-serve ice cream since the '30s, but it wasn't the fluffy, creamy stuff you'd expect to get from a Mr. Softee today--the original soft-serve was likely denser, since both Dairy Queen and Carvel claim that their inspiration came when they found that customers preferred ice cream that hadn't yet frozen totally solid. Theres an argument there about when soft-serve became soft-serve and whether or not the earliest versions of the ice cream are legitimate. As Bruce Bartlett, a former policy adviser to Reagan and George . I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit., After the Labour party retook power in 1974, Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party. McCullough (who came up with this new kind of ice cream on purpose) and Tom Carvel (who came up with it quite accidentally when his truck broke down and he kept selling the melting ice cream) in 1938. And then, as soft serve is wont to do, it quickly spread. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. Mr-Whippy-style soft-serve ice-cream originated in the US about a decade before Thatcher worked at J Lyons, it reports. Anyone who has held on to these shares will now have a portfolio that includes a stake in Centrica, BG Group and National Grid. Margaret Thatcher tags: appearances , power 774 likes Like "Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. Made-to-order and customizable just the way you like it, one bite is all it takes to taste the Creamistry difference . They suggest that it was started by the British left, who could think of no metaphor more appropriate than soft-serve ice cream to point out all that they thought was wrong with Thatchers politics. Margaret Thatcher's government reduced it to 60 per cent in 1980 and 40 per cent in 1989 (equal to the higher rate). But Thatcher's chancellors not only cut income tax, but also changed the way we pay tax. To complement Peps, John Major, the last chancellor of the Thatcher era, introduced a tax-free vehicle for cash savings, the Tessa. 2023 BBC. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. The Russians calculate that their military strength will more than make up for their economic and social weakness, she said. The Right to Buy Scheme for council houses was one of Margaret Thatcher's most popular policies. Thatchers refusal to give in to a coal miners strike mirrored Reagans firing of striking traffic controllers. Giving people the right to buy their council houses and shares in previously. I stand before you tonight, she said, in my Red Star evening gown, my face softly made up, and my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world. The Iron Lady nickname followed her throughout her career. Membership fell from over 12 million in 1980 - today there are fewer than 6 million members of Trades Union Congress-affiliated unions. On average, during her premiership, 40 percent of the public was satisfied with her job performance while 54 percent were dissatisfied. Thatcher, you see, before she was a . REPUBLIC. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. This, in turn, unleashed a succession of takeovers by even bigger organisations, the giant American finance houses. Looking for a more convenient base from which to launch a campaign, she relocated to London and took a new job at the food conglomerate J. Lyons & Co. But some believe that other changes, such as those that made mortgages and credit much easier to get, sowed the seeds of future crises that still affect many to this day. Others include Ada Lovelace, the mathematician who wrote the first computer program in 1843, and Dorothy Hodgkin, a pioneer in mapping molecular structures who was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and also taught Mrs. Thatcher at Oxford. Mr. Lee, Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0 Margaret Roberts studied chemistry at Oxford University from 1943 to 1947. Even when she was there, she was mostly working on soap and pie fillings. Thatcher's chemistry career was relatively short-lived, and in and in 1952 she went back to school to study law. Mr. Moore, the biographer, said the time was not yet ripe for Mrs. Thatcher to appear on a bank note. The Right to Buy Scheme was extended in the March 2013 Budget, as the government vowed to increase sales once again. But an article published in the Notes and Records of the Royal Society in 2011and linked to by The Atlantic in its soft-serve posthints at a more political explanation: An oft-told anecdote in British left circles associates Thatcher with the invention of soft ice cream, which added air, lowered quality and raised profits. In other words, it wasnt Thatchers supporters who spread the soft-serve myth; it was the left-wingers, who saw in it a suitable metaphor for her policies. Members agreed to pay for her passage and rotate hosting duties. ("I just didn't like staying in the laboratory that long,", a research job at food manufacturer J. Lyons and Company, could be manufactured with fewer ingredients, the swirly stuff we know today as soft serve. Margaret Thatcher, then known as chemist Margaret Roberts helped turn ice cream into a cheaper dessert by adding air. By 1959, Tillyer continues, J. Lyons was in the vanguard of the new soft ice cream revolution and well ahead of WallsT. The problem comes when you consider that soft-serve had been popular in the US for around a decade before Thatcher started her work at J. Lyons & Co. Margaret Thatcher worked as a food scientist, testing cakes and ice cream. One of the first privatisations and arguably the most memorable - through a celebrated advertising campaign - was the sell-off of shares in British Gas in 1986. But the cause of unity is surely not advanced by hundreds of petty internal regulations, such as on the content of ice cream or the activities of doorstep salesmen., Update:Daniel Fromson,writing at NewYorker.com, looks into the history of Thatcher's role in the development of soft serve, arguing that the story "resides somewhere in the hazy borderlands between simplification and legend.". Xi Jinping's power grab - and why it matters, Street fighting in Bakhmut but Russia not in control, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. . Bon Apptit may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Do you have a story or video for The Scottish Sun? The King family in Milton Keynes receive the deeds to their council house in 1979, Holiday money in the 1970s was strictly controlled, BT privatisation day at the London Stock Exchange was a big event, The advert for the sale of British Gas shares became one of the most celebrated campaigns, Traders on the London Stock Exchange were a close-knit bunch, Credit and savings: Seeds of future crises, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. Thatcher helped to convince Reagan to develop a working relationship with new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Reached by phone at the B. and B. he operates in Northamptonshire, Tillyer told me that Softee and Whippy evolved separately from one another, and that Whippy was in fact founded because its proprietor failed to secure rights to the Softee brand. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. In 2011, declassified documents showed that intelligence reports, reviewed by Thatcher, indicated the Belgrano was heading into the warzone. The Milk Snatcher, who was also an ice cream inventor. The real aeration breakthroughs, he says, occurred when ice-cream-machine manufacturers themselvesoften American or Italianintroduced equipment, during the sixties, that included mechanized air pumps. With little else to report on, Evans wrote a small article about how the Soviets perceived this rebuke from a British politician. She was ushered to power in the wake of the Winter of Discontent when a wave of strikes paralysed many parts of the economy. The story of soft ice cream in Britain, Tillyer writes, started in the United States.. Supposedly, it was only after her work on the research team that they succeeded in creating a reliable method to make soft-serve ice cream. The Nazi army had occupied the country, stripping Jews of their rights, shuttering their businesses, and burning down synagogues. (Or, if you're in Britain, "soft scoop.") She ordered the Navy to sink the Argentinean warship ARA General Belgrano, killing 323 onboard. The claim by the bishop of London in his funeral address that the former scientist was "part of the team that invented Mr Whippy ice-cream" is no exception. Transactions were carried out by jobbers, who made markets in shares - physically seeking out others with whom to trade on the Stock Exchange floor. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). He never faced a trial for human rights crimes. When his truck carrying ice cream broke down in Hartsdale, N.Y., he sold it from the truck over two days as it softened. The poll tax (or community charge) was supposed to make local council . While beating the country into submission, his regime murdered at least 2279 people and tortured another 27,255. Lyons certainly worked on this new product, but there is no firm evidence that Thatcher directly assisted in its invention.". Margaret Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, to Albert and Beatrice Roberts of Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. It's not the usual epithet for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who's generally remembered by . Strategic tax-raiser. Some people remember former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as the quick-witted "Iron Lady" who resolutely lead the UK through the end of the Cold War. At conservative gathering, Trump is still the favourite. It was enshrined in the Housing Act of 1980, making it one of her first major pieces of legislation after she came to office in 1979. The Bank of England did not control the expansion of credit and there are those who see the roots of the current financial crisis in the credit boom of the Thatcher years. The Iron Lady of Soft Serve. Our challenge is to create the kind of economic background which enables private initiative and private enterprise to flourish for the benefit of the consumer, employee, the pensioner, and society as a whole, she told a conference of young conservatives in 1976. RELATED10 Sweet Sandwich Recipes (Including Ice Cream Sandwiches! She also gave Margaret, then 13, a firsthand account of Nazism that affected the future PM deeply. The future prime minister, then Margaret Roberts, receiveda degree in chemistry from Oxfordin 1947. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. Restaurant recommendations you trust. Margaret Thatcher, the legend goes, helped invent soft-serve ice cream. The promotional campaign featured TV adverts in which characters urged each other to "tell Sid" about the chance to buy shares at "affordable" prices. As a result, it hoped that the large subsidies granted to industry over the decades would be eventually phased out, allowing for further tax cuts and controlling borrowing. In 1990, Pinochet left his self-declared position as president of the Republic to take a seat as senator-for-life. Mrs. Thatcher, then Margaret Hilda Roberts, studied chemistry at the University of Oxford, and after graduating went to work as a chemist at J. Lyons, a British restaurant chain that also sold its own lines of food and, for a while, some of the worlds first business computers. (BBC via YouTube), (And so that, additionally, the dairy-y result. ) The year-long dispute over pit closures led to repeated scenes of violence as striking miners clashed with police. Thatcher has done well in rankings of prime ministers. She was a radical conservative, known for dismantling nationalized industries and social services, weakening union power.She was also the first incumbent prime minister in the UK removed on a vote of their own party. By the end of its first term, it had already privatised British Aerospace and Cable & Wireless. A MediaComms.IO company. Margaret Thatcher speaks during the Conservative Party . During her years as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher revolutionised the economic fortunes of every person in the UK. One of the nominees? And sheput it to use first in work at a glue factory, and then with a research job at food manufacturer J. Lyons and Company, a "foodstuff conglomerate" in Hammersmith. Sam Dean, blogging for Bon Apptit about the Thatcher-soft-serve connection, suggests that this early soft-serve was more like proto-soft-serve, since it wasnt the fluffy, creamy stuff youd expect to get from a Mr. Softee today. This raises an intriguing ontological questionif ice cream is soft, and looks like soft-serve, is it, in fact, soft-serve?but also raises further red flags about Thatchers bona fides, condemning her, at best, to be a lesser figure in the sort of Talmudic quarrels that have characterized disputes about the origins of the hamburger and other iconic foods. More importantly, Mrs. Thatcher paid for her 1979 tax cut by nearly doubling the value-added tax to 15 percent, from 8 percent. Not be confused with the antiquated American voter suppression tactic of charging a tax to vote, the tax was a single payment made by each adult in a jurisdiction to pay for local government services. The company invented machines popularized in Mr. Whippy ice cream trucks, but theres no evidence Thatcher worked on that project. Margaret, who was already a studious learner, read up on Nazi anti-Semitism. As she spoke out against the Labour government, which was in power from 1964 to 1970, Thatcher sharpened her wit and developed a rather caustic public persona. Very little connected to Margaret Thatcher's legacy comes without an argument. Even better, the resulting product could be dispensed by a machine rather than scooped by hand. It is, though, as the New Yorker has it, a "frozen-dessert origin myth". From 1989 to 2010, the highest rate of income tax remained at 40 per cent and this was not a live political issue. The innovation spread thanks to Mr. Whippy, a chain of British ice-cream trucks that paved the way for todays hawkers of towering cones pierced with Cadbury Flake bars, and became popular worldwide. Thatcher, and colleagues, invented a way to add more air into the ice cream so that it was less dense and used less ingredients, which also made it more cost-effective. Read about our approach to external linking. A young Margaret Thatcher, in the lab. Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). That ice cream would be branded Mr Whippy in the UK, and it spread to other parts of the world from there. Internally, however, she was unnerved by the personal nature of the insults and considered quitting politics. So, partly thanks to Thatcher, your ice cream is now less dense and arguably less delicious. Okay. They were encouraged further as credit was unleashed. Margaret Thatcher, then known as chemist Margaret Roberts helped turn ice cream into a cheaper dessert by adding air. Clement Attlee (prime minister from 1945 to 1951), who built the welfare state Thatcher worked to dismantle, ranked highest in both. One was J. Lyonsbut, according to Steve Tillyer, who is almost certainly the most avid amateur chronicler of midcentury British soft-serve, with several books on the subject to his name, J. Lyons entered the industry by partnering with the American ice-cream-truck brand Mister Softee and opening local franchises using that companys American machines. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the . Margaret Thatcher, who passed away this morning at 87, was Britain's first female prime minister, a paragon of free-market conservatism, and a good friend of Ronald Reagan. Her first job was at BX Plastics in Essex. Figure 2: Changes in post-tax real hourly earnings and average hours for the median and top 1 per cent. The claim by the Bishop of London today that Margaret Thatcher was one of the inventors of Mr Whippy ice cream went viral on micro-blogging site Twitter, with Britons debating whether the former . What, then, accounts for the popularity of the Thatcher soft-serve origin myth? A policy of privatising the UK's large utilities revolutionised share ownership in the UK, and as such it was widely popular with many, though the initiatives also had their critics. Her real accomplishment was developing an emulsifier that let manufacturers whip more air into the soft-serve formula, paving the profitable way for everyone from small soft-serve vendors on up to Britain's fleet of Mr. Whippy soft-serve trucks. Rubbish was piled high in the streets as collections stopped. Heres one aspect of Margaret Thatchers legacy we can all feel unequivocally good about: The Iron Lady, better known for her bruising political style and free-market views, helped invent soft-serve ice cream as a chemist in the late 1940s. Other nominees include Alan Turing, the mathematician who played a key role in inventing modern computing, and Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin.