a strategic plan that called for a revolutionary free market government to tackle the problems caused by the trade unions. Thatcher distributed the plan to senior colleagues and seized the opportunity to push it forward after the crippling union actions of the Winter of Discontent, which themselves contributed to the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election. Thatcher placed special advisers in key economic posts, including Hoskyns and Strauss at the Number 10 Policy Unit, to push forward monetarist policy, deal with the Press, liaise with MPs, write speeches, and think laterally about policy alternatives. A revolt in Thatcher's Cabinet, primarily against Howe's budgets, prompted a reshuffle to oust opponents bringing along loyalists such as Cecil Parkinson and Norman Tebbit but her leadership seemed in doubt. However her personal popularity in the party's grass-roots and radical economic policies were given a boost by the successful Falklands War and an improving economy. Contributors The Exercise of Power Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives popularity after the Falklands War continued to roll out a series of radical policies that would transform Britain and how this ideological crusade would divide Britain and her own party, culminating with a leadership challenge and her departure from office. After winning a massive majority in the 1983 general election Thatcher no longer had to move cautiously. Under the direction of the Treasury the Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit John Redwood MP drew up a plan for the privatisation of Britain's state-owned industries. Thatcher was convinced by the effects of the loss making nationalised industries on the national debt. Despite business and public scepticism, the 1984 privatisation of British Telecom proved to be an emboldening success and electricity, gas, airline and even council housing (through the Right to buy scheme, whereby council-house residents were given the chance to buy their homes), other privatisations followed. Margaret Thatcher hated the influence of trade unions on government: as Secretary of State for Education and Science in Sir Edward Heath's 1970–1974 administration, she had seen the unions bring down the Heath government, which made her determined to curtail their power for all successive governments. When the government announced a series of pit closures, the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, called for a strike initiating a titanic political struggle. Conflicts, exemplified by the Battle of Orgreave, erupted between strikers and police but the miners were finally defeated and