Margaret Thatcher

Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher (October 13, 1925 -)

Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to become leader of the British Conservative party, and the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a position she held from 1979 - 1990.

She was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925 in the town of Grantham, the daughter of a grocer. Educated at Somerville College, part of the University of Oxford, she studied chemistry and worked as a research chemist. After marrying she returned to study law and later briefly worked as a tax lawyer.

She was elected to the 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 mesures. Neverthelss, this provoked a storm of 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 1975.

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.

Four years later she led the Conservative Party to form 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 with Brian Mulroney, 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 the course of her first term. It was not to decline again until the late 1980s, and 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.

Thatcher's pro-American stance and her acceptance of US Cruise nuclear 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 Argentina let its forces occupy the Falkland Islands, a British colony. These islands had an entirely British population and had never been part of Argentina. Thatcher's government sent a force to the Falklands which defeated the Argentinians. 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 minders, led by a Marxist trade union, had been in conflict with several previous governments. However, Thatcher refused to give in to their demands. Eventually this led to the closing of lossmaking mines and a shift from coal to natural gas, which is less harmful to the environment. 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. One of the fiercest of these battles, the 1984 Battle of Osgrove, was reconstructed on June 17, 2001 by a 1,000 strong cast. [1].

In October 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. A number of people perished in that viscous terrorist attack, including the wife of Government Chief Whip, John Wakeham. A member of her Cabinet, Norman Tebbit, was seriously injured along with his wife.

By winning the June 1987 elections she became the first 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 (amongst them what were to become British Telecom and British Gas), greatly improving 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 community charge that became known as the poll tax. This was an attempt to reform the widely criticized and antiquated local tax system with a simple flat rate. However, the unequitable 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 was a major political setback for the Thacther government.

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 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.

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 European 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, B.T. This assured that Margaret Thatcher's son, Mark Thatcher will inherit a title.