Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, DStJ, PC, FRS, HonFRSC (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013), was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
"Iron Lady" redirects here. For other uses, see Iron Lady (disambiguation) and Margaret Thatcher (disambiguation).
The Baroness Thatcher
Geoffrey Howe (1989–90)
Elizabeth II
- Harold Wilson
- James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Edward Heath
John Major
Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Office closed
Office closed
8 April 2013 (aged 87)
London, England
- Alfred Roberts (father)
Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a barrister. She was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her secretary of state for education and science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975, she defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become leader of the opposition, the first woman to lead a major political party in the UK.
On becoming prime minister after winning the 1979 general election, Thatcher introduced a series of economic policies intended to reverse high inflation and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an oncoming recession.[nb 1] Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised greater individual liberty, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Her popularity in her first years in office waned amid recession and rising unemployment. Victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her landslide re-election in 1983. She survived an assassination attempt by the Provisional IRA in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing and achieved a political victory against the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984–85 miners' strike. In 1986, Thatcher oversaw the deregulation of UK financial markets, leading to an economic boom, in what came to be known as the Big Bang.
Thatcher was re-elected for a third term with another landslide in 1987, but her subsequent support for the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her increasingly Eurosceptic views on the European Community were not shared by others in her cabinet. She resigned as prime minister and party leader in 1990, after a challenge was launched to her leadership, and was succeeded by John Major, the chancellor of the Exchequer.[nb 2] After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher (of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire) which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. In 2013, she died of a stroke at the Ritz Hotel, London, at the age of 87.
A polarising figure in British politics, historians nonetheless view Thatcher as one of the greatest prime ministers in British history. Her tenure constituted a realignment towards neoliberal policies in Britain; the complex legacy attributed to this shift continues to be debated into the 21st century.
Later life
Return to backbenches (1990–1992)
After leaving the premiership, Thatcher returned to the backbenches as a constituency parliamentarian.[283] Her domestic approval rating recovered after her resignation, though public opinion remained divided on whether her government had been good for the country.[263][284] Aged 66, she retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, saying that leaving the Commons would allow her more freedom to speak her mind.[285]
Post-Commons (1992–2003)
On leaving the Commons, Thatcher became the first former British prime minister to set up a foundation;[286] the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties.[287] She wrote two volumes of memoirs, The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995). In 1991, she and her husband Denis moved to a house in Chester Square, a residential garden square in central London's Belgravia district.[288]
Thatcher was hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris as a "geopolitical consultant" in July 1992 for $250,000 per year and an annual contribution of $250,000 to her foundation.[289] Thatcher earned $50,000 for each speech she delivered.[290]
Thatcher became an advocate of Croatian and Slovenian independence.[291] Commenting on the Yugoslav Wars, in a 1991 interview for Croatian Radiotelevision, she was critical of Western governments for not recognising the breakaway republics of Croatia and Slovenia as independent and for not supplying them with arms after the Serbian-led Yugoslav Army attacked.[292]
In August 1992, she called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Goražde and Sarajevo to end ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War, comparing the situation in Bosnia–Herzegovina to "the barbarities of Hitler's and Stalin's".[293]
She made a series of speeches in the Lords criticising the Maastricht Treaty,[285] describing it as "a treaty too far" and stated: "I could never have signed this treaty."[294] She cited A. V. Dicey when arguing that, as all three main parties were in favour of the treaty, the people should have their say in a referendum.[295]
Thatcher served as honorary chancellor of the College of William & Mary in Virginia from 1993 to 2000,[296] while also serving as chancellor of the private University of Buckingham from 1992 to 1998,[297][298] a university she had formally opened in 1976 as the former education secretary.[298]
After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party leader in 1994, Thatcher praised Blair as "probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell", adding: "I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely has moved."[299] Blair responded in kind: "She was a thoroughly determined person, and that is an admirable quality."[300]
In 1998, Thatcher called for the release of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet when Spain had him arrested and sought to try him for human rights violations. She cited the help he gave Britain during the Falklands War.[301] In 1999, she visited him while he was under house arrest near London.[302] Pinochet was released in March 2000 on medical grounds by Home Secretary Jack Straw.[303]
Thatcher became a privy counsellor (PC) on becoming a secretary of state in 1970.[414] She was the first woman entitled to full membership rights as an honorary member of the Carlton Club on becoming Conservative Party leader in 1975.[415]
As prime minister, Thatcher received two honorary distinctions:
Two weeks after her resignation, Thatcher was appointed Member of the Order of Merit (OM) by the Queen. Her husband Denis was made a hereditary baronet at the same time;[419] as his wife, Thatcher was entitled to use the honorific style "Lady",[420] an automatically conferred title that she declined to use.[421][422][423] She would be made Lady Thatcher in her own right on her subsequent ennoblement in the House of Lords.[424]
In the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher Day has been marked each 10 January since 1992,[425] commemorating her first visit to the Islands in January 1983, six months after the end of the Falklands War in June 1982.[426]
Thatcher became a member of the House of Lords in 1992 with a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire.[285][427] Subsequently, the College of Arms granted her use of a personal coat of arms; she was allowed to revise these arms on her appointment as Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG) in 1995, the highest order of chivalry.[428]
In the US, Thatcher received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award from the Reagan Presidential Foundation in 1998;[429] she was designated a patron of the Heritage Foundation in 2006,[430][431] where she established the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.[432]
