Did former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher try to seduce Sir Edward Heath, who was leader of the Conservative party from 1965 to 1975?

The claim that she tried to seduce him during her hunt for a Conservative seat has been made in a BBC 4 production titled Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley. The BBC claimed the programme was a “light-hearted and imaginative film which delves under the skin of the Iron Lady for the first time”.

Heath, better known as Ted, was PM from 1970 to 1974. Heath, who died in 2005, was known to be bitter towards Thatcher because she ousted him as leader of the Conservative party in 1975. In one scene, the two are seen at a Conservative party Tory ball, where they flirt and dance together before going for a walk outside. The words are inaudible but the young Thatcher appears to ask Heath if he would be her lover. He apparently rebuffs her suggestion but later in the show, he is seen playing with a letter which the then-unmarried Thatcher sent him and which he sniffs for a trace of her scent. However, Denis MacShane, the Labour MP who is one of Heath’s biographers, refused to accept the suggestion.