I was seen Thatcher but to be honest I couldn't stand her

Chief reporter Neal Keeling talks to Salford Tory veteran Karen Garrido

SHE was steadfast in the bear pit of a council chamber in the 90s and the early noughties. When anger at the Tories was at its peak in Salford she was a prime target.

In 1994 she had to step down as a councillor after the estate agent business she ran with her husband went bust and she was declared bankrupt.

But her stoic nature meant in 2000, at the third attempt, she was re-elected to the council. Karen Garrido is Conservative royalty in the city and at the height of her influence was the leader of a Tory group of 13 councillors in 2007.

The lounge of her home on The Green in Worsley appears to confirm her status and devotion to the cause - a small pottery bust of Harold MacMillan, prime minister from 1957 to 1963 sits on a mantlepiece.

The presence of Macmillan in her lounge is significant. He dedicated his political career to humanising the Conservative Party. After his election victory in 1959, he said: "The class war is obsolete." Under his leadership the hard-faced Conservatism of the pre-war years became obsolete-only to make a return in the 70s.

Karen is as frank as ever when speaking at her home after announcing she will step down in May after 32 years as a councillor.

"They ruined my party," she says of the right-wing element of the current Tory regime, adding "The sooner they go the better. It might take a big bang but the right wing don't do anybody any good." She aligns herself with the strain of Toryism which made Edward Heath and David Cameron prime minister.

She is a moderate. When Cameron addressed business leaders at a conference at Manchester Airport he wanted her at his table, he wanted a briefing from her as to what the state of play was in Salford and Manchester and what was needed.

There are no Tory councillors in Manchester. Yet under Garrido, Salford Tory councillors miraculously flourished after also becoming extinct briefly in the city.