365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be British: Thatcher and Ice Cream

January 3rd: 1n 1988, Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century.

Almost.

As Hugo Young has taught me, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, completed his third term of office in 1902 and totalled thirteen years. So Mrs T will have to be content with the title of  'longest-serving Prime Minister first elected in the twentieth century'.

The book goes on to say that "she helped perfect the soft-style ice cream dispensed on tap in ice-cream vans". Indeed; as a research chemist at Lyons she worked on emulsification projects that, basically, involved doubling the amount of air into ice cream without it collapsing. Hence ice cream became cheaper to produce. But could still be sold at the same price as cornets are sold by volume, not weight.

So is it any wonder she snatched my free milk later on in life?

I'm hoping that the Mr Softee link was some influence on Fluck & Law's puppet of the fey-haired Douglas Hurd...

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