Edward Heath

Edward Heath was the first of three Tory party leaders to break the public school tradition and achieve high office from humble origins. He was an intellectual who believed in one nation at the heart of Europe and the common good before personal gain. Yet, as Prime Minister at a time of flux, everything he tried to achieve led directly to its opposite - Thatcherism. For a man who never married, whose doting mother had waited on him hand and foot, it was a cruel irony to find himself sidelined on every major issue by a woman as wrong-headed as he believed Margaret Thatcher to be.