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The running feud between Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath began in 1975 - when she successfully challenged him for the leadership of the Conservative Party - and did not fade until almost a quarter of a century later. Throughout the numerous, unsparing challenges she faced during those turbulent years - the relentless demands of rebuilding a demoralised opposition in the mid 1970s, or the civil disturbances, unemployment and international crises of the early 1980s - he was always to be found - outspoken, unforgiving and bitterly hostile - at the very vanguard of her critics. Whenever Labour and the Liberals failed to provide a vigorous and effective opposition to her monetarist policies (which they generally did), he could be relied upon to do their job for them, with interest. It was always front-page stuff too - real Box Office. In later years, their growing divergence of views on Europe would widen into a schism - a schism that would soon come to define, to disrupt and, ultimately, to destroy the character, the coherence and the very fabric of the party they had both once led.

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Author: Michael McManus