"I wanted to have more direct work to do with people.") Before she became the "Milk Snatcher," Thatcher found another way to work with dairy. Margaret Thatcher, then known as chemist Margaret Roberts helped turn ice cream into a cheaper dessert by adding air. The recession of the early 1980s created the environment that allowed the Conservatives to drive forward the idea of moving nationalised industries into private ownership. 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 . 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. ). RELATED10 Sweet Sandwich Recipes (Including Ice Cream Sandwiches! Essential reporting and analysis from correspondents around the world. Even better, the resulting product could be dispensed by a machine rather than scooped by hand. 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. But under New Labour, the main planks of the reforms of the Thatcher years remained unchanged. The biggest strike against the story is that soft-serve was already well-known in the US by the time Thatcher supposedly invented it. Privatisation was key to the Thatcher government's economic policy. In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman. . The new formula also. Twenty-three states and D.C. treat either candy or soda differently than groceries. Transactions were carried out by jobbers, who made markets in shares - physically seeking out others with whom to trade on the Stock Exchange floor. Mr-Whippy-style soft-serve ice-cream originated in the US about a decade before Thatcher worked at J Lyons, it reports. Members of England's scientific community were none too pleased with her being honored by the Royal Society, "England's premier body of scientists," according to the journal New Scientist. Some newcomers just know her as a new character on Netflixs The Crown. Foxiz News Network. In 1995, two economists calculated the total worth of the assets sold from 1979 through the early 90s, at 45 billion, which is about 87.16 billionor $115 billiontoday. By John Moylan, employment correspondent, BBC News. Margaret Thatcher gave her last speech as Prime Minister at the October 1990 Conservative Party Conference, Poll tax protestors march through Glasgow, Scottish campaigners took the fight to Westminster, Poll tax protestor Tommy Sheridan became a household name in Scotland, Resignation speech by Geoffrey Howe in 1990 which led to the end of Margaret Thatcher's reign as PM. The claim was that Thatcher, who had gotten her degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford, had worked at J. Lyons & Co., where she had been instrumental in creating the emulsifiers used in soft-serve ice cream, along with the process of injecting air into the mixture to make it even more light and wonderful. The Right to Buy Scheme for council houses was one of Margaret Thatcher's most popular policies. The new plans provided a route to save for those who did not have a company scheme. She wore lipstick, smoked cigarettes, and flirted with boys. Margaret Thatcher, the legend goes, helped invent soft-serve ice cream. Thatcher, you see, before she was a . Customer must pay applicable taxes. Before entering politics, Thatcher was an Oxford-trained chemist, and in the 1950s worked the lab where soft-serve ice cream was perfected. America's Flavorites. Thatcher has done well in rankings of prime ministers. This led to a new wave of first-time shareholders in the UK. The Conservative government set about a series of changes to employment and trade union laws, which ended mass picketing, secondary action and the closed shop, where staff had to join a union to get a job. 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. The number of people who bought their council house from their local authorities rose to 200,000 by 1982, and again peaked at 180,000 in 1989, her last full year as prime minister. Despite the brevity of her career, Britains premier scientific organization honored her with a fellowship in 1983, a controversial move that reportedly irked some British scientists. 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. Critics said the policy resulted in speculators buying up valuable housing stock too cheaply. And in 1980, the 25 percent lower rate of taxation was eliminated so that 30 percent became the lowest tax rate. Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Building societies were allowed to lend more and foreign banks set up in the UK to compete. According to the Bishop of London, Thatcher was partially responsible for the creation of one of the favorite summertime treats of children everywhere: soft-serve ice cream. 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. Margaret Thatcher (October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013) was the first woman prime minister of the United Kingdom and the first European woman to serve as a prime minister. In 1998, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet traveled to the UK for medical treatment. Why did Margaret Thatcher close the mines? However, college associates recommended her as a possible parliamentary candidate to the Dartford Conservative Association. 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. In an attempt to cut spending, the Treasury ended a 1940s-era program providing milk, free of charge, at schools to children ages 7 to 11. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. J. Lyons, the company Thatcher worked for, did so by buying American soft-serve technology. This article was published more than9 years ago. She was the daughter of Jewish bankers in Vienna. Private Company. In January of 1939, she stayed with the Roberts family. Margaret Roberts became Margaret Thatcher when she married Denis Thatcher in 1951 (they were married for more than 50 years, until his death in 2003). Producers solicited Britons to ask Thatcher questions live via a live video feed. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the . Rather than complete a fight for leadership within her own party, Thatcher conceded her premiership and left Parliament in 1992. The Unlikely Myth Of Margaret Thatcher And Soft-Serve Ice Cream, The Rise of Kpop: How a Genre Took over the World. The poll tax (or community charge) was supposed to make local council . Ad Choices, Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister and, almost as important, helped invent soft-serve ice cream, I Am Begging More Restaurants to Serve Big Hunks of Cheese as the Main Course, These CheesyGreenPea Fritters Are Delightfully Cheap, Eleven Madison Park Launches a Soup Box for the Low, Low Price of $117. Please whitelist in order to read our content as well as support our work. What followed was a grab for power and popularity between Whippy and Softee, and it wasnt until the 1960s that machines advanced to the point where they had air pumps in them to create the soft ice cream we all know and love today. One of the first actions of the Labour government in 1997 was to repeal the ban on unions at GCHQ - the Government Communications Headquarters - imposed under the Tories. At best it was a self-regulating club, where bounders could easily be spotted, but at its worst this club fostered insider dealing and share price ramping. 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. To fund lower taxes on incomes, up went tax on most things shoppers bought. So the next time you order a cone of soft serve, feel free to imagine Margaret Thatcher's face staring out at you from the sweet, milky swirls, and maybe, if there isn't anyone else around, say a brief "thank you" before biting in. Margaret Thatcher's government reduced it to 60 per cent in 1980 and 40 per cent in 1989 (equal to the higher rate). She was quite a good chemist as a student at Oxford; she was a serious chemist, he said in a phone interview on Tuesday. Clement Attlee (prime minister from 1945 to 1951), who built the welfare state Thatcher worked to dismantle, ranked highest in both. Secret ballots were introduced, as were restrictions on holding legitimate disputes that still rankle with the unions to this day. Photograph, of Margaret Thatcher, by Andrew Kiggins/Daily Mail/Rex USA. Compensating the victims cost the pensions industry 11bn. After the Conservatives gained power in 1970, Thatcher was appointed secretary of education. Before Big Bang, share dealing was done through a stockbroker, who advised clients on dealings. The selling off of state-owned industry to private companies became a central tenant of the neoliberal doctrine dubbed Thatcherism. During her years as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher revolutionised the economic fortunes of every person in the UK. Long before she became prime minister of the United Kingdom, a young Margaret Thatcher was a chemist for the food manufacturer J. Lyons and Company and studied ways to cheapen the icy treat. British Telecom, British Airways, British Steel, as well as water and electricity firms were among those privatised later. 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. (Chris Ware/Getty Images). 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. A petition to put Mrs. Thatcher on the 50 note was started last month by a right-wing British political blog, Guido Fawkes, seemingly in part as a parody of a much-attacked but eventually successful feminist campaign for Jane Austen to appear on the 10 note. 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. Her popularity peaked at 59 percent in June 1982, after British forces repelled the Argentineans from the Falklands, and sunk to 20 percent in March 1990, after the proposal of a poll tax.. Margaret Thatcher shortlisted to be on the 50 note for being an 'ice cream pioneer' (not prime minister) November 28, 2018, 4:53 PM. The claim that Mrs. Thatcher helped invent soft-serve ice cream while at Lyons is widely distributed, even appearing in the address given at her funeral in 2013 by the then bishop of London, who described her as part of the team that invented Mr. Whippy, the major British soft-serve brand. Few senior trade union figures have commented on the death of Baroness Thatcher. With the death of Margaret Thatcher came a bizarre claim that she was responsible for the development of one of our favorite summer treats: soft-serve ice cream. Margaret Thatcher worked as a food scientist, testing cakes and ice cream. Furthermore, the history of the British soft-serve industry in particular does not reinforce the notion that the soft-serve technology developed by J. Lyons & Company, much less by Thatcher, laid the groundwork for Mr. Whippys cones. Big Bang helped facilitate privatisation, demystifying the share-buying process that many ordinary people had found a stumbling block, thus allowing people to simply walk into their banks and order a parcel of shares. There, her work centered on testing the quality of cake fillings and ice cream. Denis Thatcher muttered that the BBC was a nest of long-haired Trots and wooftahs. Her critics reveled in seeing an average citizen make Thatcher lose her cool. It was the most brutal twist in the conflic Featured image via Wikipedia 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.