Margaret Thatcher


Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness
Thatcher of Kesteven (born October 13,
1925) is a British politician, the
first woman to become leader of the    Period in         May 4, 1979 -
British Conservative Party and the     Office:           November 22, 1990
first woman Prime Minister of the      PM Predecessor:   James Callaghan
United Kingdom, a position she held
from 1979 - 1990.                      PM Successor:     John Major
                                       Date of Birth:    October 13, 1925
                                       Place of Birth:   Grantham, England
                                       Political Party:  Conservative Party

Early Career

She was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, in the town of
Grantham, the daughter of a grocer. Educated at Somerville College, Oxford,
she studied chemistry and worked as a research chemist. After marrying Denis
Thatcher in 1951, she returned to study law and later briefly worked as a
tax lawyer. Her twin children, Carol and Mark were born in 1953.

She was elected to the British House of Commons in 1959 as the Conservative
MP for Finchley, North London. Later, as Minister of Education and Science
under Edward Heath, she was 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". After
the Conservative defeat in 1974, she challenged Heath for the leadership of
the party, winning the post in February 1975.

In 1976 she was dubbed "The Iron Lady" by the Russians after making a speech
containing a scathing attack on the Soviet Union. The speech declared that
"The Russians are bent on world dominance" and "They put guns before
butter". She took delight in the name and it soon became associated with her
remarkable unwavering and steadfast personal character. She had many other
nicknames such as Attilla the Hen, and The Grocer's Daughter (obviously due
to her father's profession) — which led to Edward Heath being
nicknamed The Grocer.

Most United Kingdom newspapers supported her, with the exception of The
Daily Star, The Mirror and The Guardian, and were rewarded with regular
press briefings by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham. This led to the name
"Maggie" being popularised by the tabloids, which in turn led to the
well-known "Maggie Out!" protest song, sung throughout that period.

Prime Minister

She led the Conservative Party to victory in the general election, forming a
government on May 4, 1979, with a mandate to reverse Britain's perceived
economic decline and to reduce the role of government. Many argue that
Britain had been in a gradual relative economic decline since the late 19th
century and that this worsened considerably during the 1970s. 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
years to come.

During Thatcher's years as prime minister, unemployment rose sharply,
doubling during her first term, reaching 3 million in 1982. It was not to
start declining again until mid-1986. Since the mid-1990s, Britain has
consistently had lower unemployment than most of continental Europe.
Thatcher's supporters claim this is the result of her structural reform of
the labour market, though this is disputed by many left-leaning
commentators.

Her political and economic philosophy emphasised free markets and
entrepreneurialism. The economic policy of her government was predominantly
monetarist, emphasising control of inflation as a primary economic goal.

She is widely remembered in the UK for her government's antipathy to the
Trade Union movement -- trade unions were much more powerful in the 1970s,
and Thatcher did much to reduce their influence on British industry.

Thatcher's pro-American stance and her acceptance of US nuclear Cruise
missiles on British soil, coupled with her equanimity over the US bombing
raid on Libya from bases in Britain, helped bolster Western confidence after
the failed detente of the late 1970s. However, it did nothing to improve her
relationship with the leftist British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Thatcher's popularity received an unexpected boost from the Falkland Islands
War. In 1982 the military dictatorship of Argentinian forces invaded the
Falkland Islands, a British colony to which Argentina laid claim as
described in History of the Falkland Islands. Thatcher's government sent a
force to the Falklands which defeated the Argentineans. On the back of her
Falkland Islands policy, Thatcher led the Conservatives to a landslide
victory in the parliamentary elections of June 1983.

Thatcher successfully confronted the trade unions during the Miners' Strike
(1984 - 1985), deploying the police to prevent the movement of miners and
their pickets. The radical miners, led by a socialist trade union, under the
leadership of Arthur Scargill, had been in conflict with several previous
governments. However, Thatcher refused to give in to their demands. Frequent
battles were reported between the miners and police and the claim was often
made by Thatcher's opponents that the police were being used for political
purposes. The Government was able to win the dispute partly by good planning
e.g. storing coal at power stations so that the economy could outlast the
ability of the union militants to prolong the strike. One of the fiercest of
the battles with the miners, the 1984 Battle of Orgreave, was reconstructed
on June 17, 2001 by a 1,000 strong cast. [1].

Thatcher's stance on EEC, now EU, led to many disagreements with fellow
members but did successfully negotiate UK rebate in 1984 after famously be
quoted as saying I want my money back.

On October 11, 1984 she escaped injury when a bomb planted by the terrorist
organization the Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded in Brighton's
Grand Hotel during a party conference. 5 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. See: Brighton hotel bombing.

In December 1984 she visited China and signed the Sino-British Joint
Declaration with Deng Xiaoping on December 19, stating the basic policies of
the People's Republic of China (PRC) regarding Hong Kong after the handover
in 1997.

By winning the 1987 general election she became the only Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom in the 20th century to serve for three consecutive terms.
Thatcher worked to diminish the role of the government in the economy,
improve competitiveness and encourage entrepreneurship. She privatised many
nationalised industries (among them British Telecom, British Gas, BP,
British Airways, British Steel, the water industry, and the electricity
industry), aiming to greatly improve their efficiency. Although she cut the
budgets of many social programmes, overall public spending as a fraction of
GDP remained roughly stable or increased slightly.

In 1989 Thatcher introduced a tax on individuals, (the "community charge")
that became known as the poll tax. This was an attempt to reform the widely
criticized and antiquated local tax system (Rates) by replacing the previous
tax on housing with a simple per-person flat rate. However, the inequitable
nature of a flat rate was widely disliked among the British public and
resulted in people going to jail to avoid payment on principle, mass
demonstrations and, finally, a number of riots. This political misjudgment
was a major setback for the Thatcher government. However Thatcher also
brought about major changes in the ownership of council housing that
initially spread her popularity to many former Labour voters.

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 aprehensive about the plan, but Thatcher
famously told him that this was "no time to go wobbly!"

Fall from power

In 1989 she was first challenged for the leadership of the Conservative
Party, by Sir Anthony Meyer, a previously unremarkable backbench MP from
North Wales, who was viewed as a "stalking horse" candidate for more
prominent members of the party. Thatcher easily defeated Meyer's challenge,
but he received a surprisingly large number of votes from his colleagues who
feared for their seats at the next election if Thatcher's policy on the
community charge was not changed. This was viewed as a warning to Thatcher,
one she failed to heed.

In 1990 controversy over Thatcher's policies on taxation, her handling of
the economy, her perceived arrogance and her reluctance to commit Britain to
economic integration with Europe resulted in a more substantial challenge to
her leadership. She resigned on November 22, after the first round of a
leadership challenge initiated by Michael Heseltine, and was replaced as
party leader and Prime Minister by John Major.

Although the introduction of the community charge had marked a significant
increase in the opposition to Margaret Thatcher, substantial opposition to
Margaret Thatcher had already been running for some years prior to her
actual resignation, and in 1985 Oxford University had refused her an
honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for education. [2]

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. 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. In the 1990s, Britain emerged with a
comparatively healthy economy, at least by previous standards.

In 1992 she become Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven and entered the House of
Lords. In addition, Denis Thatcher, her husband, was given a Baronetcy,
which is a rare kind of hereditary knighthood. He became Sir Denis Thatcher,
Bt. This assured that Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark, would inherit a title.
Sir Denis died on June 26th 2003.

Since leaving power, she has made many speaking engagements around the
world. However, in March 22, 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.

"Margaret Thatcher" is an anagram of "That great charmer", a phrase whose
aptness has caused a great deal of debate. 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),
alongside such other greats as David Beckham, Aleister Crowley and Johnny
Rotten; 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.