Election '97 : Thatcher's `no' vote

Baroness Thatcher ignored John Major's appeals for the Tory party to rally round the Government on the euro.

When asked on a visit to an electronics company in Maldon, Essex, whether Britain should join a single currency, there came the vintage Thatcher response: "I invented the answer - No, No, No.

"It is like I have been saying to the candidates, are you trying to become a member of Parliament only to hand over the powers of Parliament to Brussels, a non-elected bureaucracy? ... There is now nearly a single currency ... the dollar. It's not a single currency, it's a common currency."