Margaret Thatcher

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Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born October 13, 1925) is a British politician and the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a position she held from 1979 to 1990. She is a member of the Conservative Party and still the figurehead for a brand of politics known as Thatcherism involving reduced government spending and privatization of government owned industries. Even before coming to power she was nicknamed The Iron Lady in Soviet propaganda, an appellation which stuck.

Thatcher served as Education Secretary in the government of Edward Heath from 1970 to 1974, and successfully challenged Heath for the Conservative leadership in 1975. She was undefeated at the polls, winning the 1979, 1983 and 1987 general elections, and became the longest serving Prime Minister of the 20th century. However, Thatcher was a divisive leader and broke the power of the trade unions in the miners' strike of 1984-5.

In foreign relations, Thatcher maintained the special relationship with the United States, and formed a close bond with Ronald Reagan. When Argentina invaded Falkland Islands in 1982, Thatcher dispatched a Royal Navy task force to retake the islands in the Falklands War, a policy that proved hugely popular at home.

Period in Office: May 4, 1979 -

November 28, 1990

PM Predecessor: James Callaghan

PM Successor: John Major

Date of Birth: October 13, 1925

Place of Birth: Grantham, England

Political Party: Conservative

Retirement

honour: Knighthood of the

Garter Life Barony (Thatcher)

Her popularity finally declined when she introduced a new tax to pay for local government which opponents called the poll tax, and the Conservative Party began to split over her sceptical approach to European Economic and Monetary Union. Her leadership was challenged from within and she was forced to resign in 1990. Since 1992 she has been known as Baroness Thatcher, with her direct political work limited to membership of the House of Lords and as head of the Thatcher Foundation.

Early life and education

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts in the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire in eastern England. Her father was Alfred Roberts who ran a grocers' shop in the town and was active in local politics, serving as an Alderman (while officially described as 'Liberal Independent', in practice he supported the local Conservatives). When the Labour Party won control of Grantham Council in 1945, Alfred Roberts was not re-elected as an Alderman, a decision which affected Thatcher deeply.

She did well at school, going on to a girls' grammar school and then to Somerville College, Oxford from 1944 where she studied chemistry. She became Chairman of Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946, the third woman to hold the post. She obtained a second class degree and worked as a research chemist for British Xylonite and then Lyons & Company, where she helped develop methods for preserving ice cream.

Political career between 1950 and 1970

biography thatcher minister britain

In the election of 1950 she was the youngest woman Conservative candidate but fought in the safe Labour seat of Dartford. She fought the seat again in the 1951 election. Her activity in the Conservative Party in Kent brought her into contact with Denis Thatcher; they fell in love and were married later in 1951. Denis Thatcher was a wealthy businessman and funded his wife to read for the Bar. She qualified as a Barrister in 1953, the same year that her twin children, Carol and Mark were born. On returning to work, she specialised in tax issues.

Thatcher had begun to look for a safe Conservative seat, and was narrowly rejected as candidate for Orpington in 1954. She had several other rejections before being selected for Finchley in April 1958. She easily won the seat in the 1959 election and took her seat in the House of Commons. Unusually, her maiden speech was made in support of her Private Member's Bill which was successful and forced local councils to hold meetings in public.

She was given an early promotion to the front bench as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in September 1961, keeping the post until the Conservatives lost power in the 1964 election. When Sir Alec Douglas-Home stepped down, Thatcher voted for Edward Heath in the leadership election over Reginald Maudling, and was rewarded with the job of Conservative spokesman on Housing and Land. She moved to the Shadow Treasury Team after 1966.

Thatcher was one of few Conservative MPs to support the Bill to decriminalise male homosexuality, and she voted in favour of the principle of David Steel's Bill to legalise abortion. However she was opposed to the abolition of capital punishment. She made her mark as a conference speaker in 1966 with a strong attack on the taxation policy of the Labour Government as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism". She won promotion to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Fuel Spokesman in 1967, and was then promoted to shadow Transport and finally Education before the 1970 general election.

In Heath's Cabinet

When the Conservatives won the election, Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education and Science. In her first months in office, forced to administer a cut in the Education budget, she decided that abolishing free milk in schools would be less harmful than other measures. Nevertheless, this provoked a storm of public protest, earning her the nickname "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher", coined by The Sun. Her term was marked by many proposals for more local education authorities to adopt comprehensive secondary education, of which she approved 96%. Thatcher also defended the budget of the Open University from attempts to cut it.

After the Conservative defeat in February 1974, she was again promoted to be Shadow Environment Secretary. In this job she promoted a policy of abolishing the rating system that paid for local government services, which proved a popular policy within the Conservative Party. However she agreed with Sir Keith Joseph that the Heath Government had lost control of monetary policy. After Heath lost the second election that year, Joseph and other right-wingers declined to challenge his leadership but Thatcher decided that she would. Unexpectedly she outpolled him on the first ballot and won the job on the second, in February 1975. She appointed Heath's preferred successor William Whitelaw as her Deputy.

As Leader of the Opposition

On 19 January 1976 she made a speech at Kensington Town Hall in which she made a scathing attack on the Soviet Union. The most controversial part of her speech ran:

"The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns."

In response, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Red Star gave her the nickname The Iron Lady, which was soon publicised by Radio Moscow world service. She took delight in the name and it soon became associated with her image as an unwavering and steadfast character. She acquired many other nicknames such as The Great She-Elephant, Attilla the Hen, and The Grocer's Daughter (due to her father's profession, but coined at a time when she was considered as Edward Heath's ally; he had been nicknamed The Grocer).

At first she appointed many Heath supporters in the Shadow Cabinet and throughout her administrations sought to have a cabinet that reflected the broad range of opinions in the Conservative Party. Thatcher had to act cautiously in converting the Conservative Party to her monetarist beliefs. She reversed Heath's support for devolution to Scotland. An interview she gave to Granada Television's World in Action programme in 1978 spoke of her concern of immigrants "swamping" Britain aroused particular controversy. Most opinion polls showed that voters preferred James Callaghan as Prime Minister even when the Conservative Party was in the lead, but the Labour Government's severe difficulties with the Trades Unions over the winter of 1978-1979 (dubbed the 'Winter of Discontent') put the Conservatives well ahead in the 1979 election and Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister.

As Prime Minister

1979-1983

She formed a government on 4 May 1979, with a mandate to reverse Britain's economic decline and to reduce the extent of the state. Thatcher was incensed by one contemporary view within the Civil Service that its job was to manage Britain's decline from the days of Empire, and wanted the country to punch above its weight in international affairs. She was a philosophic soulmate with Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980 in the United States, and to a lesser extent Brian Mulroney, who was elected around the same time in Canada. It seemed for a time that conservatism might be the dominant political philosophy in the major English-speaking nations for the era.

Thatcher began by increasing interest rates to drive down inflation. This move hit businesses, especially in the manufacturing sector, and unemployment rose sharply. However her early tax policy reforms were based on supply-side economics. There was a severe recession in the early 1980s, and the Government's economic policy was widely blamed. Political commentators harked back to the Heath Government's "U-turn" and speculated that Mrs Thatcher would follow suit, but she repudiated this approach at the 1980 Conservative Party conference, telling the party "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning". That she meant what she said was confirmed in the 1981 budget, when despite an open letter from 364 economists, taxes were increased in the middle of a recession. Though unemployment reached 3 million in January 1982, the inflation rate dropped to low single figures and interest rates were able to fall. By the time of the 1983 election the economy was recovering well.

On 2 April 1982, Argentinian forces invaded the Falkland Islands, a British territory claimed by Argentina (see History of the Falkland Islands). Thatcher immediately sent a naval task force to the Falklands which defeated the Argentinians (see Falklands War), resulting in a wave of patriotic enthusiasm for her personally. The landslide victory of the Conservatives in the June 1983 general election is often ascribed to the 'Falklands Effect'. Her 'Right to Buy' policy of allowing residents of council housing to buy their homes at a discount did much to increase her popularity in working-class areas.

1983-1987

Thatcher was committed to reducing the power of the trade unions but unlike the Heath government, proceeded by way of incremental change rather than a single Act. Several unions decided to launch strikes which were wholly or partly aimed at damaging her politically, in particular the National Union of Mineworkers. Thatcher had made preparations for the strike by building up coal stocks and there were no power cuts, and picket line violence, combined with the fact that the NUM had not held a ballot to approve strike action, contrived to swing public opinion on her side. The Miners' Strike lasted a full year (1984-1985) before the miners were forced to give in and go back to work without a deal. After this strike, trade union resistance to reform was much reduced and a succession of changes were made.

During the middle of the strike, on the early morning of 12 October 1984, Thatcher escaped injury from a bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Brighton's Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party conference. Five people died in the attack, including the wife of Government Chief Whip, John Wakeham. A prominent member of the Cabinet, Norman Tebbit, was injured, along with his wife, Margaret, who was left paralyzed. Thatcher insisted that the Conference open on time the next day and made her speech as planned.

Thatcher's political and economic philosophy emphasised free markets and entrepreneurialism. Since gaining power, she had experimented in selling off a small nationalised industry, the National Freight company, to the public, with a surprisingly large response. After the 1983 election, the Government became bolder and sold off most of the large utilities which had been in public ownership since the late 1940s. Many in the public took advantage of share offers, although many sold their shares immediately for a quick profit. The policy of privatisation became synonymous with Thatcherism and has since been exported across the globe.

In the Cold war Mrs Thatcher supported Reagan's policies of deterrence against the Soviets. United States forces were permitted by Mrs Thatcher to station nuclear cruise missiles at British bases, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She had no objections to the US bombing raid on Libya from bases in Britain in 1986, and her liking for defence ties with the USA was demonstrated in the Westland affair when she acted with colleagues to prevent the helicopter manufacturer Westland (a vital defence contractor) from linking with the Italian firm Agusta in favour of a link with Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of the USA. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had pushed the Agusta deal, resigned in protest at her style of leadership, and thereafter became known as a potential leadership challenger.

In 1985, the University of Oxford voted to refuse her an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for education. This award had always previously been given to Prime Ministers who had been educated at Oxford.

Between 1983 and 1987, Thatcher had two noted foreign policy successes. In 1984 she visited China and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with Deng Xiaoping on 19 December stating the basic policies of the People's Republic of China (PRC) regarding Hong Kong after the handover in 1997. At the Fontainebleau summit of 1984, Thatcher argued that the UK paid far more to the EEC than it received in spending and negotiated a budget rebate. She was widely quoted as saying "We want our money back".

1987-1990

By winning the 1987 general election she became the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to win three consecutive general elections since Lord Liverpool (in office from 1812-1827). Most United Kingdom newspapers supported her, with the exception of The Daily Mirror and The Guardian, and were rewarded with regular press briefings by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham. She was known as "Maggie" in the tabloids, which in turn led to the well-known "Maggie Out!" protest song, sung throughout that period by her opponents.

In the late 1980's Thatcher began to be concerned by environmental policy, which she had previously dismissed. In 1988 she made a major speech accepting the problems of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain and in 1990 she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research that she had caused to be founded.

At Bruges in 1988 Thatcher made a speech in which she outlined her opposition to proposals from the European Communities for a federal structure and increasing centralisation of decision-making. Although she had supported British membership, Thatcher believed that the role of the EC should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that new EC regulations would reverse the changes she was making in Britain. She was specifically against Economic and Monetary Union, through which a single currency would replace national currencies, and for which the EC was making preparations.

Thatcher started to lose popularity in 1989, as the economy suffered from high interest rates imposed to stop an unsustainable boom. She blamed her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who had been following an economic policy which was a preparation for monetary union; Thatcher claimed not to have been told and did not approve. At the Madrid European summit, Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree the circumstances in which she would join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a preparation for monetary union. Thatcher took revenge on both by demoting Howe and listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October, feeling that Thatcher had undermined him.

That November, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party, by Sir Anthony Meyer. As Meyer was a virtually unknown backbench MP, he was viewed as a "stalking horse" candidate for more prominent members of the party. Thatcher easily defeated Meyer's challenge, but there were a surprisingly large number of ballot papers either cast for Meyer or abstaining.

Thatcher's new system to replace local government rates was introduced for Scotland in 1989 and for England and Wales in 1990. She replaced them with the "Community Charge" which applied at the same amount to every individual resident, with only limited discounts for low earners. The indiscriminate nature of the charge led to it being the most unpopular policy of her premiership and it was almost universally known as the Poll Tax. The Charge was introduced early in Scotland because the rateable values would in any case have been reassessed in 1989; however, it led to accusations that Scotland was a 'testing ground' for the tax. Thatcher fully belived that the new tax would be popular, and had been persuaded by Scottish Conservatives to bring it in early and in one go. Despite her hopes, the early introduction led to a sharp decline in the popularity of the Conservative party in Scotland.

A large London demonstration against the poll tax on 31 March 1990 (the day before it was introduced in England and Wales) turned into a riot. Millions of people resisted paying the tax. Opponents of the tax banded together to resist bailiffs and disrupt court hearings of poll tax debtors. Mrs Thatcher refused to compromise and change the tax, and its unpopularity was a major factor in Thatcher's downfall. One of her final acts in office was to pressure US President George H. W. Bush to deploy troops to the Middle East to drive Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait. Bush was somewhat apprehensive about the plan, but Thatcher famously told him that this was "no time to go wobbly!"

On the Friday before the Conservative Party conference in October 1990, Thatcher persuaded her new Chancellor John Major to reduce interest rates by 1%. Major persuaded her that the only way to maintain monetary stability was to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism at the same time, despite not meeting the 'Madrid conditions'. The conference that year saw a degree of unity break out within the Conservative Party. Few who attended could have realised that Mrs Thatcher had only a matter of weeks left in office.

Fall from power

By 1990 opposition to Thatcher's policies on local government taxation, her Government's handling of the economy, her perceived arrogance and her reluctance to commit Britain to economic integration with Europe made her politically vulnerable. A challenge was precipitated by the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe on 1 November, whom Thatcher had been humiliating in Cabinet meetings. Howe condemned Thatcher's policy on the European Communities and openly invited "others to consider their own response", which led Michael Heseltine to announce his challenge. In the first ballot, Thatcher was two votes short of winning re-election, but on consulting with cabinet colleagues found a vast majority thought that she could not win on the second ballot.

On 22 November, at just after 9:30 AM, Mrs Thatcher announced that she would not be a candidate in the second ballot and therefore her term of office would come to an end. She supported John Major as her successor, and retired from Parliament at the 1992 election.

Post-political career

In 1992 she was created Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, and entered the House of Lords. In addition, Denis Thatcher, her husband, was given a Baronetcy (ensuring that their son, Mark, would inherit a title).

She wrote her memoirs in two volumes. Although she remained supportive in public, in private she made her displeasure with many of John Major's policies plain, and her views were conveyed to the press and widely reported. Major later said he found her behaviour in retrospect to have been intolerable. She publicly endorsed William Hague for the Conservative leadership in 1997.

In 1998 she made a highly publicised and controversial visit to the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the time he was under house arrest in London facing charges of torture, conspiracy to torture and conspiracy to murder, and expressed her support and friendship for him.

She made many speaking engagements around the world, and actively supported the Conservative election campaign in 2001. However, on 22 March 2002 she was told by her doctors to make no more public speeches on health grounds, having suffered several small strokes which left her in a very frail state. Since then she visited Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York (in 2003), and compared his offices to those of Winston Churchill's War Room. Although she was able to attend the funeral in June 2004 of former US President Ronald Reagan, her eulogy for him was pre-taped to prevent undue stress.

She remains involved with various Thatcherite groups, including being president of the Conservative Way Forward group (who held a dinner at the Savoy Hotel in honour of the 25th Anniversary of her election). She is honorary president of the Bruges Group, which takes its name from her 1988 speech at Bruges where she was first openly hostile to developments in the European Union. She was widowed on 26 June 2003.

Legacy

Many United Kingdom citizens remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard that Margaret Thatcher had resigned and what their reaction was. She brings out strong responses in people. Some people credit her with rescuing the British economy from the stagnation of the 1970s and admire her committed radicalism on social issues; others see her as authoritarian, egotistical and responsible for the dismantling of the Welfare State and the destruction of many manufacturing industries. Britain was widely seen as the "sick man of Europe" in the 1970s, and some argued that it would be the first developed nation to return to the status of a developing country. By the late 1990s, Britain emerged with a comparatively healthy economy, at least by previous standards. Her supporters claim that this was due to Margaret Thatcher's policies.

However, critics claim that the economic problems of the 1970s were exaggerated, and caused largely by factors outside of any UK government's control, such as high oil prices caused by the oil crisis which caused high inflation and damaged the economies of nearly all major industrial countries. Accordingly, they also argue that the economic downturn was not the result of socialism and trade unions, as Thatcherite supporters claim. Critics also argue that the Thatcher period in government coincided with a general improvement in the world economy, and the buoyant tax revenues from North Sea oil, which critics contend was the real cause of the improved economic environment of the 1980s and not Margaret Thatcher's policies.

Perceptions of Margaret Thatcher are mixed in the view of the British public. A clear illustration of the divisions of opinion over Thatcher's leadership can be found in recent television polls: Thatcher appears at Number 16 in the 2002 List of "100 Greatest Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public), she also appears at Number 3 in the 2003 List of "100 Worst Britons" (sponsored by Channel Four and also voted for by the public), narrowly missing out on the top spot, which went to Tony Blair. In the end, however, few could argue that there was a woman who played a more important role on the world stage in the Twentieth Century, and even the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has implicitly and explicitly acknowledged her importance by continuing many of her economic policies.

Many of her policies have proved to be divisive. In Scotland, Wales and the urban and former mining areas of northern England she is still unpopular and many retain strong feelings about her. Many people remember the hardships of the miners strike, which destroyed many mining communities and the decline of industry as service industries boomed. This was reflected in the 1987 general election, which she won by a landslide through winning large numbers of seats in southern England and the rural farming areas of northern England while winning few seats in the rest of the country.

Her son Mark has been dogged by a series of controversies. As of late 2004, he was under house arrest in South Africa facing charges of abetting a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. These reports have been received with considerable schadenfreude by those in Britain less than impressed by the Thatcher legacy.

Quotes

"If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman."

"There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families." (in an interview for Woman's Own magazine on 23 September 1987 at 10 Downing Street).

"Every Prime Minister needs a Willie" (a reference to her Deputy Prime Minister William Whitelaw; Mrs Thatcher was deaf to any more euphemistic interpretation).

"We have become a grandmother" (March 3, 1989, on the birth of her first grandchild; this was controversial for her apparent use of the Royal we).

Books

Statecraft: Strategies for Changing World by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 2002) ISBN 0060199733

The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1999) ISBN 0060187344

The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by Margaret Thatcher, Robin Harris (editor) (HarperCollins, 1997) ISBN 0002557037

The Path to Power by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1995) ISBN 0002550504

The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1993) ISBN 0002553546

Biographies

Memories of Maggie Edited by Iain Dale (Politicos, 2000) ISBN 190230151X

Britain Under Thatcher by Anthony Seldon & Daniel Collings (Longman, 1999) ISBN 0582317142

Thatcher for Beginners by Peter Pugh and Paul Flint (Icon Books, 1997) ISBN 1874166536

One of Us: Life of Margaret Thatcher by Hugo Young (Macmillan, 1989) ISBN 0333344391

The Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher by Hugo Young (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1989) ISBN 0374226512

Margaret, daughter of Beatrice by Leo Abse (Jonathan Cape, 1989) ISBN 0224027263

Mrs.Thatcher's Revolution: Ending of the Socialist Era by Peter Jenkins (Jonathan Cape, 1987) ISBN 0224025163

The Thatcher Phenomenon by Hugo Young (BBC, 1986) ISBN 0563204729

Encyclopedia of World Biography on Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Conservative Party leader for 15 years, Margaret Hilda Thatcher (born 1925) became the first female prime minister of Great Britain and served in that post from 1979 to 1990, longer than any other British prime minister in the 20th century.

Margaret Thatcher was born to grocery shop keepers in the small railroad equipment manufacturing town of Grantham. Alfred and Beatrice, her parents, were hard workers and careful savers, living over their shop and taking separate vacations so that the grocery would not be left unattended. Her father co-founded the Grantham Rotary Club, became president of the town Grocers' Association, local head of the National Savings Movement, and a member of both the boys' and girls' schools of Grantham. He served for 25 years on the Borough Council, beginning in 1927, and became chairman of its finance committee. For nine years, he was a town alderman, and became the mayor in 1943, as well as a justice of the peace at quarter sessions.

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female prime minister and served three consecutive terms in office. She is one of the dominant political figures of 20th century Britain, and Thatcherism continues to have a huge influence.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the daughter of a grocer. She went to Oxford University and then became a research chemist, retraining to become a barrister in 1954. In 1951, she married a wealthy businessman, Denis Thatcher, with whom she had two children.

Thatcher became Conservative member of parliament for Finchley in north London in 1959, serving as its MP until 1992. Her first parliamentary post was junior minister for pensions in Harold Macmillan's government. From 1964 to 1970, when Labour were in power, she served in a number of positions in Edward Heath's shadow cabinet. Heath became prime minister in 1970 and Thatcher was appointed secretary for education.

After the Conservatives were defeated in 1974, Thatcher challenged Heath for the leadership of the party and, to the surprise of many, won. In the 1979 general election, the Conservatives came to power and Thatcher became prime minister.

An advocate of privatisation of state-owned industries and utilities, reform of the trade unions, the lowering of taxes and reduced social expenditure across the board, Thatcher's policies succeeded in reducing inflation, but unemployment dramatically increased.

Victory in the Falklands War in 1982 and a divided opposition helped Thatcher win a landslide victory in the 1983 general election. In 1984, she narrowly escaped death when the IRA planted a bomb at the Conservative party conference in Brighton.

In foreign affairs, Thatcher cultivated a close political and personal relationship with US president Ronald Reagan, based on a common mistrust of communism, combined with free-market economic ideology. Thatcher was nicknamed the 'Iron Lady' by the Soviets. She warmly welcomed the rise of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In the 1987 general election, Thatcher won an unprecedented third term in office. But controversial policies, including the poll tax and her opposition to any closer integration with Europe, produced divisions within the Conservative Party which led to a leadership challenge. In November 1990, she agreed to resign and was succeeded as party leader and prime minister by John Major.

In 1992, Thatcher left the House of Commons for the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher's overwhelming sense of self-confidence and ambition ruled her life from the time she was a small child in Grantham, though her Oxford years and during her early years in politics. It led her to become the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain, and also helped through her difficult political years as "Attila the Hun".

Britain's first female Prime Minister was born on October 13, 1925 in a small room over a grocer's shop in Grandham, England. Margaret Hilda was the second daughter of Alfred and Beatrice Roberts. She often stated that she was brought up very strictly: I owe everything in my life to two things: a good home, and a good education. My home was ordinary, but good in the sense that my parents were passionately interested in the future of my sister and myself. At the same time, they gave us a good education - not only in school, but at home as well (Gardiner, 1975, p.13). As a child, thrift and practicality were instilled in Margaret's character. The Methodist church played an active part in the lives of the Roberts. She attended good schools as a child and spent her years studying with the intent of attending Oxford. Margaret arrived at Oxford in the autumn of 1943.

During her years here, Margaret worked in a canteen for the war effort, continued her interest in music by joining various choirs and joined the Oxford University Conservative Association where she became very active in it's political activities. After Oxford, Margaret became the youngest female candidate of the Dartford Association. She was unofficially engaged to Denis Thatcher at this time, and they married in December 1951. Twins were born the following year. During this period, she studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1954. In the same year she was a candidate for the Oysington Conservative Association. Margaret won in a Tory landslide at Finchley, a suburb of London in 1959. Her parliamentary career had begun. A stroke of good luck gave her the opportunity of presenting her first bill almost immediately.

This bill was to allow the press to attend the meetings of the local councils. The bill was eventually passed and it greatly enhanced her reputation. In 1964 she was part of the opposition and saw the other side of politics. Between 1970 and 1974 Thatcher was the Secretary of State for Education and Science. She enjoyed the tough verbal conflict of parliamentary debates. She had a quick mind and an even quicker tongue, along with an enormous self-confidence. She liked to fight and liked to win. In 1975, the Conservatives were the first party in Britain to chose a woman as leader and potential Prime Minister: It was the backbenchers, not the Leader, or his Shadow Cabinet, who forced a ballot, and it was a backbenchers- candidate who emerged triumphant from it. When the election was announced on January 23, and in the first ballot Margaret had the support of only one member of a Shadow Cabinet of 23 she was regarded with suspicion by most of those managing the party machine at Central Office, and opposed by many in the National Union. In short, she was an anti- establishment candidate. Her campaign manager was a backbencher, backbenchers of varying shades of opinion made up her campaign committee who voted decisively for change(Gardiner, 1975, p.204). In May 1979, Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Her party won again in 1983 and 1987. Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in November 1990, after loosing the support of the party. She remained in the House of Commons until 1992. In the same year, Thatcher was made a Baroness by the queen and became a member of the House of Lords. Abse, author of "Margaret daughter of Beatrice" paints an entirely different picture of Thatcher's family background. In his psycho-biography, he describes Margaret's mother as strict, cold and unloving. He states that this resulted in... Margaret Hilda Thatcher (nee Roberts), later Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven (born October 13, 1925), was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, the first woman to hold the position. Her leadership permanently moved Britain to the right and reshaped the nation's political environment to stress economic growth and international competitiveness. The Labour Party in response under Tony Blair jettisoned their old leftist ideas and followed Thatcher-lite programs.

Thatcher was chosen to be the leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975, succeeding former Prime Minister Edward Heath. She was opposed to socialism and out-of-control union power which had brought down the previous Conservative government in 1974. She led the Conservatives to victory in the May 1979 General Election and thus became Prime Minister. “ The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose. [1] ”

Thatcher sold many of the UK's nationalized industries back to private investors and made tax cuts. She broke the power of the trade unions which stood in the way of industrial progress, especially in the mining, print and shipbuilding industries and the public sector. Due to her strong standards and her leadership style, she became known as the "Iron Lady," a term originally coined as an insult by the communist Soviet Union, but one she adopted. A famous statement of hers was "You turn if you want to, but the lady's not for turning", in reference to calls from within her own party to back down (in the political terminology of the time, "U-turn") on issues that were important to her. Thatcher was always a strong supporter of close relations with the United States, and was a good friend of President Ronald Reagan, uniting with him in actions against the Communists.

She led Britain to victory against Argentina in a 1982 war over Argentinian aggression against the Falkland Islands. The United States was allied with both countries, and initially tried to broker a negotiated settlement. When Thatcher rejected the proposed compromise, the U.S. supported Britain with intelligence information and the supply of advanced AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles. The conflict led to a strong friendship with the Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet after Chile helped Britain in the conflict. In 1986, she banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools in a piece of legislation known as Section 28.

Thatcher led the Conservative Party to victory in three general elections (1979, 1983 and 1987). By 1990, her popularity was waning and there were calls from within her own party for her to step aside. She was challenged for the party leadership and just failed to gain the necessary majority in the first election despite getting more votes than her rival Michael Heseltine. After being convinced by colleagues that she would narrowly fail to gain the necessary votes she decided not to stand for a second ballot and resigned as party leader on 22 November 1990. John Major won the party leadership vote, and was subsequently appointed to succeed Thatcher as Prime Minister. Heseltine's reputation was destroyed by his actions and his career in the Conservative Party slowly declined.

Thatcher was the longest serving British Prime Minister in more than 150 years and, alongside Winston Churchill, is considered to be one of the two most important British political leaders of the twentieth century.

She fundamentally moved the British economy from factories and mines to services and finance. Time Magazine wrote of Lady Thatcher: “ She was the catalyst who set in motion a series of interconnected events that gave a revolutionary twist to the century's last two decades and helped mankind end the millennium on a note of hope and confidence. The triumph of capitalism, the almost universal acceptance of the market as indispensable to prosperity, the collapse of Soviet imperialism, the downsizing of the state on nearly every continent and in almost every country in the world -- Margaret Thatcher played a part in all those transformations, and it is not easy to see how any would have occurred without her. Champion of free minds and markets, she helped topple the welfare state and make the world safer for capitalism and mankind. [2]

Career prior to 1979

The predominant influence in Lady Thatcher's early life was her father, Alfred Roberts. Roberts was a grocer by occupation who was active in local politics. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she read chemistry and became chairman of the university Conservative association. After graduating, she worked for a time as a research chemist before qualifying as a barrister and practicing as a tax lawyer, an indication of her interest in financial matters. In this time period, it was uncommon in Britain for a woman from a background to go to an upper-class university and then to pursue a career in the elitist male world of the Bar.

Lady Thatcher married Denis Thatcher, a successful businessman whom she met at a Conservative Party meeting; a quiet man, he kept out of the spotlight. They had two children, twins Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher.

Under the weak and troubled Conservative premiership of Edward Heath (1970-1974), Thatcher served as Secretary of State for Education during which time her most noted achievement was the withdrawal of a daily milk ration to primary age schoolchildren earning her the nickname Milk-Snatcher. After the Conservatives were defeated in the elections of February and October 1974, Thatcher challenged the more liberal Heath for the leadership of the party. When she went into Heath's office to tell him her decision, he did not even bother to look up. "You'll lose," he said. "Good day to you." [1]

Though at the time she was a relatively untested figure (and many in the party were wary of choosing a woman leader), she defeated both Heath and other male rivals in the contest in February 1975. Heath subsequently became a prominent personal and political adversary of Thatcher, drawing accusations of bitterness.

In the 1970s, Thatcher's strongly conservative, pro-capitalist stance resonated with a new mood among the British electorate, many of whom had become dissatisfied with the post-World War II statist consensus (the "post-war consensus", sometimes also called "Butskellism" after the centrist Conservative politician Rab Butler and the moderate Labour politician Hugh Gaitskell). Thatcher and the Conservatives offered a clear alternative vision for an increasingly aspirational society. The Conservative politician Sir Keith Joseph was the primary intellectual force behind these theories that later became known as Thatcherism. They were strongly influenced by the pro-market intellectuals Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman.

Attitude to Abortion

Thatcher, throughout her parliamentary career, voted in favor of liberal abortion laws.[2]

1979 election

The Labour party under James Callaghan (prime minister 1976-79) contested the May 1979 election as unemployment passed the one-million mark and unions became more aggressive. The Conservatives used a highly effective poster created by Saatchi and Saatchi, showing a dole queue snaking into the distance and it carried the caption "Labour isn't working".

Voters gave Conservatives 43.9% of the vote and 339 seats to Labour's 269, for an overall majority of 43 seats. People generally voted against Labour rather than for the Conservatives. Labour was weakened by the steady long-term decline in the proportion of manual workers in the electorate. Twice as many manual workers normally voted Labour as voted Conservative, but they now constituted only 56% of the electorate. When Harold Wilson won narrowly for Labour in 1964, they had accounted for 63%. Furthermore they were beginning to turn against the trade unions--alienated, perhaps, by the difficulties of the winter of 1978-9. In contrast, Tory policies stressing wider home ownership, which Labour refused to match. Thatcher did best in districts where the economy was relatively strong and was weaker where it was contracting.

Prime Ministership

Economic policy

Thatcher's chief goals in power were to reverse Britain's economic decline and to reduce the range of the state as well as standing taller on the international stage. She found a soul-mate in Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980 but whom she had met in 1975. Thatcher started by increasing interest rates to drive down inflation which hit the manufacturing sector and caused unemployment to rise sharply and there was a deep recession in the early 1980s blamed on her Government's economic policy. This led to her famous quote: 'the lady is not for turning', and she refused a policy reversal and, despite an open letter from 364 "economists", taxes were increased in the middle of a recession. Although unemployment did not reach 3 million till 1982, a year earlier British cities burned as thousands took to the streets to demonstrate their frustration. Inflation was going down though, allowing interest rates to fall, proving those "economists" wrong.

Falkland Islands

As the economy started to recover Argentina invaded the Falklands, the first (and unprovoked) invasion of sovereign British territory by a foreign government since the Second World War. This invasion was preceded, and possibly encouraged, by her withdrawal of the Royal Navy's antarctic patrol ship HMS Endurance from the South Atlantic. Thatcher immediately declared her resolve to recapture the islands in line with the wishes of their inhabitants, and dispatched a naval task force to that end. With help from President Pinochet of Chile and, more covertly, Ronald Reagan, the British forces swiftly recaptured the islands. The resulting wave of patriotic enthusiasm as well as her right to buy policy for council homes, and a uselessly divided opposition, meant she got a landslide victory in the June 1983 general election.

Unions

The central theme of Thatcher's second term was reducing the power of the trade unions with a series of measures that a number of unions reacted to with industrial action. In particular the National Union of Mineworkers led by Arthur Scargill. The Tories had prepared for the strike by building up coal reserves and the deploying well paid police units fitted out with new riot gear brought in after the disturbances of 1981 who taunted the strikers by waving fivers at them. The miners responded with bricks and very ugly scenes developed on picket lines that split the country. Scargill's failure to hold a ballot for the strike undermined public support and the striker's chant of 'vote with your feet' calling miners to join the strike was turned on them as more and more returned to work over the year of the strike.

IRA

In the middle of the strike, on October 12 1984, the IRA detonated a bomb during the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. Thatcher escaped injury but five people died in the attack and Margaret Tebbit was left paralyzed; the conference went on as normal.

Privatization

Thatcher's political and economic philosophy emphasized free markets and since gaining power she had experimented in selling off nationalized industries starting with the National Freight company, most of the large utilities followed.

Privatization was perhaps the most enduring legacy of the political economy developed under Thatcher. She privatized long-nationalized corporations (such as the telephone and aerospace firms) and, most important, sold public housing to tenants, all on favorable terms. Theis turned Labour-minded tenants into Conservative-minded property owners and mortgage payers. The policy developed an important electoral dimension during the second Thatcher government (1983-90). It involved more than denationalization: wider share ownership was the second plank of the policy, and this provides an important historical perspective on the relationship between Thatcherism and 20th-century conservatism.[3]

Foreign policy

Thatcher supported Reagan's Cold War policies of rollback of Communism. She supported the stationing of nuclear missiles in Europe and at British bases, ignoring the last-gasp protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She supported the American bombing raid on Libya from bases in Britain in 1986 and, by refusing to side with a European consortium, in backing the American-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation over a British company Westland. Michael Heseltine resigned in protest at her style of leadership over this.

In 1984 she visited China and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with Deng Xiaoping that agreed the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. At the Fontainebleau summit in 1984 Thatcher argued that the UK paid far more to the EEC than it received in spending and negotiated a budget rebate using the argument that `We want our money back'. In 1985, the University of Oxford voted to refuse her an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for education.

Reelected 1987

In 1987, Thatcher became the first British Prime Minister to win three consecutive general elections since Lord Liverpool (1812-1827).

Environment

In the late 1980's Thatcher began to be concerned by environmental policy and in 1988 she made a major speech accepting the problems of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. [4]

Europe

At Bruges, she made a speech in which she outlined her opposition to proposals from the European Communities for a federal structure and increasing centralization of decision-making believing that the role of the EC should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition. She was specifically against Economic and Monetary Union, through which a single currency would replace national currencies, and for which the EC was making preparations. In 1989 the economy high interest rates were imposed to stop an unsustainable boom. At the Madrid European summit, Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree the circumstances in which she would join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a preparation for monetary union. She took revenge on both by demoting Howe and listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October and in November, a so-called `stalking horse candidate Sir Anthony Meyer challenged Thatcher for the leadership of the Conservative Party. In 1989 a new system of local government finance to replace the rates was introduced for Scotland in 1989 and for England and Wales in 1990. Called the 'Community Charge' but known as the Poll Tax was applied at the same amount to every individual resident with only limited discounts. Widespread opposition culminated in a huge demonstration in London on March 31 that turned into the largest outbreak of public disorder central London had seen in a century which was followed by millions of people refusing to pay the tax. This along with her government's handling of the economy, her perceived arrogance and a general feeling that she would never retire, made her politically vulnerable. Geoffrey Howe resigned on November 1 and condemned Thatcher's policy on the European Communities then openly invited 'others to consider their own response'. Michael Heseltine's response was a leadership challenge which resulted in a narrow failure, by two votes, for Thatcher to win automatic re-election. After consulting with cabinet colleagues she found a vast majority thought that she could not win on the second ballot. On November 22nd Thatcher announced that she would not be a candidate in the second ballot. She supported John Major as her successor, and retired from Parliament at the 1992 election.