Extract В

…asked about what her greatest disappointment in office had

been, she said: «It always takes longer to achieve things than you thought, and you get a little bit impatient. If you want changes, you have to get the changes in policy agreed, then the legislation through, and it takes a year to get the legislation through and a year or two years to implement it. I am very pleased that one has been here for eight years and 244 days, but difficult to believe because it has gone so quickly. There are not so many years ahead as you always as­sumed there were. So it becomes even more important to do the things you want to do». Asked about the state of Britain, Mrs Thatcher picked out selfishness as a problem, but said the govern­ment was not to blame,

«You see graffiti on walls. It is horrid. You cannot blame gov­ernments for this... We ought to restore the beautiful Britain which is part of the standard of courtesy to one's neighbour,' she said. 'We have the most fantastic countryside, lovely villages, very nice towns. Let us keep them nice and clean and tidy. We should take as much pride in that as keeping your own house nice and clean as a bright new pin».

(Andrew Man; The Independent)

Extract С

... it was a former Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who uttered the cruellest and perhaps the aptest epitaph of the late Thatcher Cabinets. Out it came at a private meeting of a Tory philosophy group. «A brilliant tyrant surrounded by mediocrities», the old statesman said and his words spread round the gossip circuit like a contagion.

(Peter Hennessy, The Independent)

B. Find a word or phrase in the texts which, in context, is similar in meaning to:

Extract A

Extract В

Paragraph 1 - 13. put a policy into action

Extract С

Paragraph 1 - 14. most appropriate 15. people without special talent