But the rise of a harder Right (if that's the best way to put it) within the Tory party was, or so thinketh I, inevitable due to demographic changes (related to Post-War affluence)
The right of the 'harder right' wasn't immediate if you look closely and scrutinse the policy and policy makers of the '79 - '83 administration (which I hold in general good regard) even if all that is remembered of it is 'right to buy' and a tax raising budget. Mrs Thatcher was still at this time reminiscent of her old timid self of the late 60's and early 70's (where by party standards, on education, abortion and homosexuality she was actually quite liberal) and her first government reflected what she had inherited from Heath.
It was the Falklands and the landslide in 1983 that cemented the hard rights rise within Thatcher's inner circle and amongst some of the cabinet. Had that not happened as it did (and had Labour not been so inept) what we now refer to as Thatcherism would have been stillborn.
