THE milestones of Sir Edward Heath's political career are drawn together in a new exhibition of cartoons.

Edward Heath at 100 – A Life in Cartoons opened at Arundells today.

The exhibition will reflect on his political life, including the rivalries with Harold Wilson, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher that shaped his career.

It features work by 25 political cartoonists including Trog (Wally Fawkes), Vicky (Victor Weisz), Low (David Low), Garland (Nicholas Garland), Cummings (Michael Cummings) and Ingram Pinn, who still draws for the Financial Times.

There are cartoons documenting the milestones of Heath’s 51-year parliamentary career, spanning his appointment as Harold Macmillan’s Minister of Labour in 1959, his five years leading the Opposition, his four-year premiership, his narrow defeats in the two 1974 general elections and then as a veteran MP during the Thatcher, Major and Blair years, culminating in almost a decade as ‘Father of the House’.

Also making a guest appearance will be the Spitting Image puppet of Heath from the iconic ITV satirical puppet show.

Rt Hon Lord Hunt of Wirral, the chairman of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, said: "Arundells has a first class cartoon collection, but through loans from other major collections, we have brought in a further fifty cartoons to help us tell the story.

"Through their acerbic commentaries, the leading cartoonists of the day chart our nation’s history through one man’s political career — from the abolition of resale price maintenance, rows over immigration, the search for peace in Northern Ireland, the ups and downs of trade union and economic reform and, of course, the battle for full British participation in Europe."

The exhibition includes many cartoons tracing Heath’s involvement in negotiating British entry to the EEC from Norman Mansbridge’s ‘Anyone got a plan?’ depicting Macmillan Butler and Heath in despair over De Gaulle’s first veto of British membership, Trog’s take on Heath’s negotiations with Pompidou in 1971 overseen by the ghosts of Churchill and De Gaulle, through to George Gale’s 1975 “EEC needs you” cartoon with Heath in the role of Kitchener.

Later cartoons cover Heath’s opposition to the sale of British Leyland to Ford or General Motors in 1986, culminating in an overwhelming Commons defeat for Mrs Thatcher, and Heath’s 1990 mission to Baghdad to secure the release of British hostages held as a ‘human shield’ by Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait.

The later days of his fractious relationship with Thatcher are marked by Steve Bell’s Heath as a bird of peace in 1990; Ingram Pinn’s ‘Fighting Dinosaurs’ in 1991; and Peter Brookes’ ‘Women become more forgetful and men get grumpier’ take on the relationship in 1996.

The exhibition comprises almost 70 cartoons, thanks to the collaboration of the Political Cartoon Society, the British Cartoon Archive, the Telegraph Media Group, Express Newspapers, Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication, The Guardian and the Punch Magazine Archive.

The exhibition runs until May 2017.

The exhibition forms part of a12-month programme of events to celebrate Sir Edward Heath’s Centenary which started on July 9.

Other highlights of the Centennial year include music recitals, talks by sailing greats Chay Blyth and Robin Knox-Johnston, art themed events, dinners in Beijing and Hong Kong, a lecture by Michael Heseltine and an evening ‘in conversation’ with Dr Henry Kissinger, international statesman and US Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, this October.

For more information go to arundells.org