Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Croydon Conservatives

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Croydon
Source: Croydon Advertiser, 15 November 1974
Editorial comments: 1430 onwards.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 277
Themes: Autobiographical comments, Labour Party & socialism

Margaret Thatcher's hat trick

‘I always bring one’

Even women M.P.s, it seems, suffer from hat wearing confusion: when is an occasion hat-worthy?

Mrs Margaret Thatcher, MP, was caught out at Croydon Conservative Association's Christmas market she was opening on Friday.

Scurrying back stage to put on a smart black tasselled hat at the last minute she said: “I always bring one with me, but I always hope to get away without wearing it.”

Mrs Thatcher, in a bright yellow, black edged suit, said she overheard: “Oh look, she's got no hat.”

Praise

The hat situation rectified, Mrs Thatcher praised the work the association had done in getting their “splendid” MP, Mr John Moore, back into the House of Commons.

“Alas, the Conservative Party has not done so well in the rest of the country as you have,” she said.

She added “We are in for difficult times this winter. Coal stocks are lower than ever before—despite generous pay awards made to miners. And there are more shortages of supplies in the shops than ever before.

“At least the Conservative Party did not hide these facts from you during the last election campaign.”

Mrs Thatcher said one of the main problems today was that people tackled the Government in terms of what they could get out of it, and not what they could put into it. People must be prepared to do their share, she said.

She finished with a rallying cry to Conservative Party workers: “To win the next election we must start fighting now, and put forward our policies fearlessly.”

With the market well and truly opened, Mrs Thatcher took her hat off.