A Woman Alone

The BBC is finally realizing what a feminist icon Margaret Thatcher always was:

It is the mid Fifties, and she has just been rejected for the umpteenth time as the candidate for a safe Conservative seat by a panel of male chauvinists. The self-made grocer's daughter from Grantham is inconsolable. "I am better than them," she wails to her husband. "I've always believed that with application and merit, you can achieve everything. But now I see you'll always end up strangled by the old school tie. Damn their Establishment, damn the lot of them." Tears roll down her face.

This is a key scene from BBC4's compelling new drama, Margaret Thatcher: the Long Walk to Finchley...

Decades before Hillary decided to marry her way to power. And re-elected prime minister thrice.

Actress Andrea Riseborough was also won over by this Mrs Thatcher. "I don't share her politics, but I came away respecting her as a person," she says. "She managed everything from cooking Denis's breakfast of two poached eggs every morning to running the country on four hours' sleep a night. To become Britain's first female prime minister was amazing enough, but to do it in the face of this oppressive old boys' club was just incredible. It took me such a short time to feel real fondness for her."