Canada’s Prime Minister-designate, Joe Clark, received heartfelt congratulations from a fellow rookie on this date in 1979. Clark had defeated Pierre Trudeau the day before when he spoke to Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, who herself had only been in office as the UK’s PM for three weeks.
“You just get stuck in, that’s all,” Thatcher told Clark when he asked if she had any advice for him. “You have to really get stuck in and rely on your own instincts …. You’ll be marvelous. So, get some sleep and you’ll be wonderful.”
You can read a full transcript of the conversation between Clark and Thatcher at the link below.
https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/118146
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.