The Right Honourable

The Baroness Thatcher

LG OM PC FRS

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In office
4 May 1979 – 28 November 1990

Monarch Elizabeth II

Deputy William Whitelaw

Geoffrey Howe

Preceded by James Callaghan

Succeeded by John Major

Leader of the Opposition

In office
11 February 1975 – 4 May 1979

Monarch Elizabeth II

Prime Minister Harold Wilson

James Callaghan

Preceded by Edward Heath

Succeeded by James Callaghan

Leader of the Conservative Party

 In office
11 February 1975 – 28 November 1990

Preceded by Edward Heath

Succeeded by John Major

Secretary of State for Education and Science

In office
20 June 1970 – 4 March 1974

Prime Minister Edward Heath

Preceded by Edward Short

Succeeded by Reginald Prentice

Member of Parliament
for Finchley

In office
8 October 1959 – 9 April 1992

Preceded by John Crowder

Succeeded by Hartley Booth

Born 13 October 1925 (age 85)

Grantham, Lincolnshire,United Kingdom

Birth name Margaret Hilda Roberts

Political party Conservative

Spouse(s) Denis Thatcher (1951–2003)

(his death)

Children Carol Thatcher

Mark Thatcher

Alma mater Somerville College, Oxford

Profession Chemist
Lawyer

Religion Church of England

(Since 1951)[1]
Methodism (Before 1951)

Signature Margaret Thatcher's signature

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (née Roberts; born 13 October
1925) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of
theConservative Party from 1975 to 1990. Thatcher is the only woman to have held either post.[2]

Born in Grantham in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, Thatcher went to school at Kesteven and
Grantham Girls' School in Grantham, where she was head girl in 1942–43.[3] She read chemistry
at Somerville College, Oxford and later trained as a barrister. She won a seat in the1959 general
election, becoming the MP for Finchley as a Conservative. When Edward Heathformed a
government in 1970, he appointed Thatcher Secretary of State for Education and Science. Four
years later, she backed Keith Joseph in his bid to become Conservative Party leader but he was
forced to drop out of the election. In 1975 Thatcher entered the contest herself and became
leader of the Conservative Party. At the 1979 general election she became Britain's first female
Prime Minister.

In her foreword to the 1979 Conservative manifesto, Thatcher wrote of "a feeling of helplessness,
that a once great nation has somehow fallen behind."[4] She entered 10 Downing
Streetdetermined to reverse what she perceived as a precipitate national decline. Her political
philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation, particularly of the financial sector,
flexible labour markets, and the selling off and closing down of state owned companies and
withdrawing subsidy to others. Amid a recession and high unemployment, Thatcher's popularity
declined, though economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of
support and she was re-elected in 1983. She took a hard line against trade unions, survived
theBrighton hotel bombing assassination attempt and opposed the Soviet Union (her tough-
talking rhetoric gained her the nickname the "Iron Lady"); she was re-elected for an
unprecedented third term in 1987. The following years would prove difficult, as her Poll tax plan
was largely unpopular, and her views regarding the European Community were not shared by
others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990 after Michael
Heseltine's challenge to her leadership of the Conservative Party.

Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister was the longest since that of Lord Salisbury and the longest
continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century.[5] She was the first
woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom, and the first of only four women to
hold any of the four great offices of state. She holds a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher,
of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, which entitles her to sit in the House of Lords.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Early life and education

• 2 Early political career (1950–1970)

• 3 Education Secretary (1970–1974)

• 4 Leader of the Opposition (1975–1979)

• 5 Prime Minister (1979–1990)

 o 5.1 First government (1979–1983)

o 5.2 Second government (1983–1987)

o 5.3 Third government (1987–1990)

• 6 Later years

o 6.1 Post-Commons

o 6.2 Activities since 2003

o 6.3 Health

• 7 Legacy

o 7.1 Honours

o 7.2 Cultural depictions

• 8 Titles

• 9 Notes

• 10 References

• 11 Further reading

• 12 External links

Early life and education

The house where Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham.

Commemorative plaque at the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13 October 1925 to Alfred Roberts, originally
fromNorthamptonshire, and his wife, the former Beatrice Ethel Stephenson from Lincolnshire.[6]
[7]
Thatcher spent her childhood in the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, where her father owned
two grocery shops.[8] She and her older sister Muriel (born 1921, Grantham;[9] died December
2004; married name Cullen)[10] were raised in the flat above the larger of the two located near the
railway line.[11] Her father was active in local politics and religion, serving as
anAlderman and Methodist lay preacher. He came from a Liberal family but stood—as was then
customary in local government—as an Independent. He lost his post as Alderman in 1952 after
the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950.[12]

Margaret Roberts was brought up a strict Methodistby her father.[13] Having attended
Huntingtower Road Primary School, she won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls'
School.[14] Her school reports show hard work and commitment, but not brilliance. Outside the
classroom she played hockey and also enjoyed swimming and walking.[15]Finishing school during
the Second World War, she applied for a scholarship to attendSomerville College, Oxford, but
was only successful when the winning candidate dropped out.[16] She went to Oxford in 1943 and
studied chemistry.[8][17] She became President of the Oxford University Conservative
Association in 1946, the third woman to hold the post. At Oxford she read Friedrich von Hayek's
recently published (1944) The Road to Serfdom. " I cannot claim that I fully grasped the
implications of Hayek's little masterpiece at this time, [but] at this stage it was the..unanswerable
criticisms of socialism in The Road to Serfdom which had an impact." In 1946 Roberts took
the Final Honour School examination, graduating with a Second Class Bachelor of Arts degree.
She subsequently studied crystallography and received a postgraduate BSc degree in 1947.
Three years later, in 1950, she achieved a Master of Arts degree, according to her entitlement as
an Oxford BA of seven years' standing since matriculation.[8]

Following graduation, Roberts moved to Colchester in Essex, to work as a research chemist

for BX Plastics.[18] During this time she joined the local Conservative Association and attended the
party conference at Llandudno in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate
Conservative Association.[19] She was also a member of the Association of Scientific Workers. In
January 1949, a friend from Oxford, who was working for the Dartford Conservative Association,
told her that they were looking for candidates.[19] After a brief period, she was selected as the
Conservative candidate, and she subsequently moved to Dartford, Kent, to stand for election as a
Member of Parliament. To support herself during this period, she went to work for J. Lyons and
Co., where she helped develop methods for preserving ice cream and was paid £500 per year.[19]

Early political career (1950–1970)

At the 1950 and 1951 elections, she fought the safe Labour seat of Dartford.[8] Although she lost
out to Norman Dodds, she reduced the Labour majority in the constituency by 6,000.[20] She was,
at the time, the youngest ever female Conservative candidate and her campaign attracted a
higher than normal amount of media attention for a first time candidate.[8][21] While active in the
Conservative Party in Kent, she met Denis Thatcher, whom she married in 1951,[22] conforming to
his Anglicanism.[23] Denis was a wealthy divorced businessman who ran his family's firm;[22] he
later became an executive in the oil industry.[8] Denis funded his wife's studies for the Bar.[24] She
qualified as a barrister in 1953 and specialised in taxation.[8] In the same year her
twins, Carol and Mark, were born,[25] delivered by Caesarean sectionwhile their father watched
a Test match at the Oval. With a mother climbing the political ladder, the children were left to
a nanny. "My mother was prone to calling me by her secretaries' names and working through
each of them until she got to Carol", recalled her daughter.[26]

Thatcher began to look for a safe Conservative seat in the mid-1950s and was narrowly rejected
as candidate for the Orpington by-election in 1955, and was not selected as a candidate in
the 1955 election.[25] She had several further rejections before being selected for Finchley in April
1958. She won the seat after hard campaigning during the 1959 election and was elected as
a Member of Parliament (MP).[27] Hermaiden speech was in support of her Private Member's
Bill (Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960) requiring local councils to hold meetings in
public, which was successful. In 1961 she went against the Conservative Party's official position
by voting for the restoration ofbirching.[28]

Within two years, in October 1961, she was given a promotion to the front bench
as Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance.[17] She held
this post throughout the administration of Harold Macmillan, until the Conservatives were
removed from office in the 1964 election.[8] When Sir Alec Douglas-Home stepped down,
Thatcher voted for Edward Heath in the leadership election of 1965over Reginald Maudling.
[29]
She was promoted to the position of Conservative spokesman on Housing and Land; in this
position, she advocated the Conservative policy of allowing tenants to buy their council houses.
[30]
The policy would prove to be popular.[31] She moved to the Shadow Treasury team in 1966. As
Treasury spokesman, she opposed Labour's mandatory price and income controls, which she
argued would produce contrary effects to those intended and distort the economy.[30]
Thatcher established herself as a potent conference speaker at the Conservative Party
Conference of 1966, with a strong attack on the high-tax policies of the Labour Government as
being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism".[30] She argued that lower
taxes served as an incentive to hard work.[30] Thatcher was one of few Conservative MPs to
support Leo Abse's Bill to decriminalise male homosexuality and voted in favour of David Steel's
Bill to legalise abortion,[32] as well as a ban on hare coursing.[33][34] She supported the retention of
capital punishment and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws.[35]

In 1967 she was selected by the Embassy of the United States in London to participate in
the International Visitor Leadership Program (then called the Foreign Leader Program), a
professional exchange programme in which she spent about six weeks visiting various US cities,
political figures, and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.[36] Later that year,
Thatcher joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Fuel spokesman. Shortly preceding the 1970
general election, she was promoted to Shadow Transport and, finally, Education.[37]

Education Secretary (1970–1974)

When the Conservative party under Edward Heath won the 1970 general election, Thatcher
became Secretary of State for Education and Science. In her first months in office, Thatcher
came to public attention as a result of the administration of Edward Heath's decision to cut
spending. She gave priority to academic needs in schools,[38] and imposed public expenditure
cuts on the state education system, resulting in, against her private protests, the abolition of free
milk for school-children aged seven to eleven.[39] She believed that few children would suffer if
schools were charged for milk, however she agreed to give younger children a third of a pint,
daily, for nutritional purposes.[39] This provoked a storm of protest from the Labour party and the
press,[40] and led to the unflattering moniker "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher".[39] Of the
experience, Thatcher later wrote in her autobiography, "I learned a valuable lesson. I had incurred
the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit."[40]

She successfully resisted the introduction of library book charges. She did not volunteer spending
cuts in her department, contrary to her later beliefs.[39] Her term was marked by support for
several proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and to
adoptcomprehensive secondary education. Thatcher, committed to a tiered secondary modern /
grammar school system of education, was determined to preserve grammar schools, which
prepared more students for admission to universities.[38] She abolished Labour's commitment to
comprehensive schooling, and instead left the matter to local education authorities.[38]

Leader of the Opposition (1975–1979)

Margaret Thatcher elected as Leader of the Opposition on 18 September 1975.

The Heath government experienced many difficulties between 1970 and 1974.[8] The government
executed a series of reversals in its economic policies, dubbed "U-turns".[8] The Conservatives
were defeated in the February 1974 general election, and Thatcher's portfolio was changed to
Shadow Environment Secretary.[17] In this position she promised to abolish the rating system that
paid for local government services, which was a favoured policy proposal within the Conservative
Party for many years.[41]

Thatcher thought that the Heath Government had lost control of monetary policy—and had lost
direction.[42] After her party lost the second election of 1974 in October, Thatcher, determined to
change the direction of the Conservative party, challenged Heath for the Conservative party
leadership.[43] She promised a fresh start, and her main support came from the Conservative 1922
Committee.[43] Unexpectedly, she defeated Heath on the first ballot, and he resigned the
leadership.[44] On the second ballot, she defeated Heath's preferred successor, William Whitelaw,
and became Conservative Party leader on 11 February 1975.[45] She appointed Whitelaw as her
deputy. Heath remained disenchanted with Thatcher to the end of his life for what he, and many
of his supporters, perceived as her disloyalty in standing against him.[46]

Now that the Heath government had fallen, Thatcher, "renewed reading of the seminal works of
liberal economics and conservative thought. I also regularly attended lunches at the Institute of
Economic Affairs where Ralph Harris, Arthur Seldon and all those who had been right, when we
in Government had gone so badly wrong...were busy marking out a new path for Britain. " (The
IEA, a think tank founded by the poultry magnate Antony Fisher, the man who brought battery
farming to Britain and a disciple of Friedrich von Hayek, had become the ideas factory of a new
British Conservatism. Thatcher began visiting the IEA and reading its publications during the early
sixties.) Thatcher would now become the face of the ideological movement that felt the opposite
of reverence for the welfare state Keynesian economics they believed was terminally
weakening Britain. " Whatever the question the institute's pamphlets posed, their answer was
basically identical: less government, lower taxes, more freedom for business and consumers."[47]

In these years Thatcher began to work on her image, specifically her voice and screen image.
"The hang-up has always been the voice" wrote the critic Clive James, in The Observer. "Not the
timbre so much as, well, the tone – the condescending explanatory whine which treats the
squirming interlocutor as an eight-year-old child with learning deficiencies. News Extra rolled a
clip from May 1973 demonstrating the Thatcher sneer at full pitch. She sounded like a cat sliding
down a blackboard." She worked to change this image and James acknowledged:
"She'scold, hard, quick and superior, and smart enough to know that those qualities could
work for her instead of against."[48]

Thatcher appointed many of Heath's supporters to the Shadow Cabinet, for she had won the
leadership as an outsider and then had little power base of her own within the party. Thatcher had
to act cautiously to convert the Conservative Party to her monetarist beliefs. She reversed
Heath's support for Scottish devolution.

On 19 January 1976, she made a speech in Kensington Town Hall in which she made a scathing
attack on the Soviet Union. The most famous 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.[49]

In response, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) gave her the
nickname "Iron Lady".[49] She took delight in the name and it soon became associated with her
image as having an unwavering and steadfast character. She was later nicknamed "Attila the
Hen" as well.[50]

In an interview in January 1978,on the television current-affairs programme World in

Action Thatcher raised the prospect of the number of Pakistani and Commonwealth Britons
doubling to four million by the end of the century, remarking: "People are really rather afraid that
this country might be swamped by people with a different culture".[51] Thatcher was condemned
for the language and content of her remarks byCallaghan and Healey, by bishops, by the Liberal
leader David Steel and, in private, by some shadow cabinet colleagues. Enoch Powellexpressed
his 'hope and relief' at her words.[52] Thatcher allegedly received 10,000 letters thanking her for
raising the subject of immigration, and the Conservatives, previously level with Labour on 43% in
opinion polls, took a temporary 48% to 39% lead.[53] "Before my interview, the opinion polls
showed us level-pegging with Labour. Afterwards, they showed the Conservatives with an
eleven-point lead...It provided a large and welcome boost at an extremely difficult time."[54]

In spite of economic recovery in the late seventies and recovery in average disposable income
from 1977 onwards, the Labour Government was faced with unease about the direction of the
country, and eventually, 'a sudden nationwide revolt against the Social Contract, during the winter
of 1978–79, popularly dubbed the "Winter of Discontent". 'Party in grip of mild euphoria,' wrote
Thatcher's adviser John Hoskyns in his diary on 18 January, 'because country beset by strikes..'
The Conservatives attacked the government's unemployment record, and used advertising
hoardings with the slogan Labour Isn't Working to assist them.[55] When the rough poster was
shown to Thatcher, "She stared at it for a long time; the convention in party propaganda was not
to mention the opponent directly. 'Why is the biggest thing on the poster the name of the
opposition? We're advertising Labour,' she said. Tim Bell (Saatchis managing director)
and Maurice Saatchi replied, almost in unison, 'No, we're demolishing Labour.' " Denis
Healey criticised Saatchi & Saatchi for having staged the photograph with Saatchi employees.
[56]
In fact the advertisers had used a group of twenty Young Conservatives from South Hendon
"photographed over and over".[57]The Saatchi campaign unsettled Labour at a crucial moment.
Unemployment would often be much worse in the next decade without bringing down Thatcher's
government.[58]

In the run up to the 1979 General Election, most opinion polls showed that voters
preferred James Callaghan of the Labour party as Prime Minister, even as the Conservative Party
maintained a lead in the polls. After a successful motion of no confidence in spring 1979,
Callaghan's Labour government fell. The Conservatives would go on to win a 44-seat majority in
the House of Commons and Margaret Thatcher became the United Kingdom's first female Prime
Minister.

Prime Minister (1979–1990)

Main article: Premiership of Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher's Ministry meets with Reagan's Cabinet at the White House, 1981

Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979. Arriving at 10 Downing Street, she said, in a
paraphrase of St. Francis of Assisi:

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where
there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

Thatcher was incensed by one contemporary view within the British Civil Service that its job was
to manage the UK's decline from the days of Empire[59] and she wanted the country to assert a
higher level of influence and leadership in international affairs. She represented the newly
energetic right wing of the Conservative Party and advocated greater independence of the
individual from the state and less government intervention.[60] She became a very close ally,
philosophically and politically, with President of the United States Ronald Reagan, elected in
1980. During her tenure as Prime Minister she was said to need just four hours' sleep a night.[61]

First government (1979–1983)

New economic initiatives

Thatcher's political and economic philosophy emphasised reduced state intervention, free
markets, and entrepreneurialism. She wished to end what she felt was excessive government
interference in the economy, and therefore privatised many nationally owned enterprises and sold
public housing to tenants at cut prices.[62] Influenced by monetarist thinking as espoused by Milton
Friedman, she began her economic reforms by increasing interest rates to try to slow the growth
of the money supply and thereby lower inflation.[63] She also placed limits on the printing of money
and legal restrictions on trade unions, in her quest to tackle inflation and trade union disputes,
which had bedevilled the UK economy throughout the 1970s.[64] In accordance with her anti-
interventionist views, she introduced cash limits on public spending[65] and reduced expenditures
on social services such as education (until 1987)[66] and housing.[64] Later, in 1985, as a deliberate
snub, the University of Oxford voted to refuse Thatcher an honorary degree in protest against her
cuts in funding for higher education.[67]

GDP and public spending % change in real terms

by functional classification 1979/80 to 1989/90[68]

GDP +23.3

Total government spending +12.9

Law and order +53.3

Employment and training +33.3

Health +31.8

Social security +31.8

Transport −5.8

Trade and industry −38.2

Housing −67.0

Defence −3.3[69]

At the time, some Heathite Conservatives in the Cabinet, the so-called "wets", expressed doubt
over Thatcher's "dry" policies.[70] Civil unrest in Britain resulted in the British media discussing the
need for a policy u-turn. At the 1980 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher addressed the
issue directly, armed with a speech written by the playwright Ronald Millar[71]which included the
lines: "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!"[70]

Thatcher lowered direct taxes on income and increased indirect taxes instead,[72] as the Early
1980s recession deepened, despite concerns expressed in a letter from 364 leading economists.
[73]
Unemployment soared, and by December 1981 Thatcher's job approval rating fell to 25%, the
lowest of her entire premiership, a lower rating than recorded for any previous prime minister,
although she remained more popular than her party.[74]
In early 1982, the worst post-war slump bottomed out,[74] inflation dropped to 8.6% from an earlier
high of 18%, and interest rates fell, although unemployment was now in excess of 3,000,000 for
the first time since the 1930s.[75]

Thatcher's job approval rating recovered to 32%.[74] With the success of the Falklands War in
June that year, when Britain reclaimed theFalkland Islands following an Argentine invasion, the
Conservative government's lead in the opinion polls - over the Labour opposition and the
new SDP-Liberal Alliance between the Liberals and the new Social Democratic Party[76] - grew
stronger.

By 1983, overall economic growth was stronger and inflation and mortgage rates were at their
lowest levels since 1970, though manufacturing output had dropped 30% from 1978[77] and
unemployment remained high, peaking at 3,300,000 in 1984.[78]

The term "Thatcherism" came to refer to her policies as well as aspects of her ethical outlook and
personal style, including moral absolutism,nationalism, interest in the individual, and an
uncompromising approach to achieving political goals.[64] American author Claire Berlinski, who
wrote the biography There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters, argues repeatedly
throughout the volume that it was this Thatcherism, specifically her focus on economic reform,
that set the United Kingdom on the path to recovery and long term growth.
Northern Ireland
Main article: 1981 Irish hunger strike

Campaign UK, 1987. Troubled Images Exhibition, Linen Hall Library, Belfast, August 2010
The hunger strike was begun by a number of Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation
Army prisoners in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison to regain the status of political prisoners which
had been revoked five years earlier under the preceding Labour government.[79] Bobby
Sands began the strike, saying that he would fast until death unless prison inmates won
concessions over their living conditions.[79] Thatcher refused to countenance a return to political
status for the prisoners, famously declaring "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political"[79] and felt
that Britain should not negotiate with terrorists.[80] However, despite holding this view in public, the
British government made private contact with republican leaders in a bid to bring the hunger
strikes to an end.[81] After Sands and nine more men had starved to death and the strike had
ended, some rights were restored to paramilitary prisoners, but official recognition of political
status was not granted.[82] Violence in the North significantly escalated during the hunger strike.
Due to her actions Thatcher became as an Irish Republican hate figure
of Cromwellian proportions, with Sinn Féin politicianDanny Morrison describing her as "the
biggest bastard we have ever known" at the 1982 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (party conference).[83]

Later that year, Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald established the Anglo-Irish Inter-
Governmental Council, which would act as a forum for meetings between the two governments.
[84]
On 15 November 1985, Thatcher and FitzGerald signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish
Agreement; the first time a British government gave the Republic of Ireland an advisory role in the
governance of Northern Ireland.
The Falklands
Main article: Falklands War

On 2 April 1982, the ruling military junta in Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and South
Georgia, British overseas territories that Argentina claimed.[85] The following day, Thatcher sent a
naval task force to recapture the islands and eject the invaders.[85] The conflict escalated from
there, evolving into an amphibious and ground combat operation.[85] Argentina surrendered on 14
June and the operation was hailed a great success, notwithstanding the deaths of 255 British
servicemen and three Falkland Islanders. 649 Argentinians also died, half of them after the
cruiser ARA General Belgrano was torpedoed by HMS Conqueror.[86] Victory in the South
Atlantic brought a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and support for the government.[72] Thatcher's
personal approval rating rose from 30% to 59%, as measured by Mori, and from 29% to 52%,
according to Gallup. Conservative support climbed from 27% to 44%, while Labour's slipped from
34% to 27%.[87]
On 26 July 1982, a service of thanksgiving for the victory was held in St Paul's Cathedral, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runciedelivered a sermon which asked the congregation to
share the grief of both British and Argentinian mourners alike. Thatcher did not approve.
Privately, according to an aide, she agreed with Edward du Cann, Julian Amery and other
Conservative MPs who saw the Runcie sermon as proof that the Government still had many
enemies who deserved denouncing. "Not the least of the Falklands after-effects was the start of a
long, sometimes venomous distancing, which continued through the 1980s, between the leading
representatives of Church and state."[88]
1983 election

There was some economic recovery from the spring of 1982,[72] which with the national poll the
"Falklands factor" the conditions produced a boost to Conservative support.[89] She also faced a
divided opposition: Labour was bitterly split;[72] the party had responded to the New Cold War by
moving to the left and adopting a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament, and had lost many
senior leaders to the new Social Democratic Party in alliance with the Liberal Party, preventing
the formation of an electoral pact against the Conservatives.[90]

The Labour leader Michael Foot was traditional Labour while Conservatives viewed Thatcher as
'their greatest electoral asset'.[91] In the June 1983 general election, the Conservatives won 42.4%
of the vote, the Labour party 27.6% and the Alliance 25.4% of the vote.[92] Although the
Conservatives' share of the vote had fallen slightly (1.5%) since 1979, Labour's vote had fallen by
far more (9.3%) and under the first past the post system, the Conservatives won a landslide
victory with a massive majority.[90] This resulted in the Conservative party having an overall
majority of 144 MPs.[92]

Second government (1983–1987)

Privatisation

The policy of privatisation has been called "a crucial ingredient of Thatcherism".[93] After the 1983
election the sale of large state utilities to private companies accelerated.[72]

British Petroleum was privatised in stages in October 1979, September 1983 and November
1987; British Aerospace in January 1981 and 1985; the government share in British Sugar in July
1981; Cable and Wireless in November 1981; Amersham International and National Freight
Corporation in February 1982; Britoil in November 1982 and August 1985; Associated British
Ports in February 1983; Jaguar in July 1984; British Telecom in November 1984; the National Bus
Company in October 1986; British Gas in December 1986; British Airways in February 1987;
the Royal Ordnance in April 1987; Rolls-Royce in May 1987; the British Airports Authority in July
1987; the Rover Group in August 1988; British Steel in December 1988; the Regional Water
Authorities in November 1989; Girobank in July 1990; and the National Gridin December 1990.

In 1983 Thatcher also broke up and privatised British Shipbuilders, which had been amalgamated
and nationalised by Callaghan in 1977 in the lean times following the 1973 oil crisis, and which
still employed 86,000 people building naval and commercial vessels, many in the north-east of
England.[94][95] Few of the privatised shipyards subsequently survived competition against East
Asian cheap labour,[95] with the single largest private sector group, BVT, now employing a fraction
of the nationalised group's number, just over 7,000 people working on Navycontracts in
the Clyde and Portsmouth yards.[94]

The process of privatisation, especially the preparation of nationalised industries for privatisation,
was associated with marked improvements in performance, particularly in terms of labour
productivity.[96] But it is not clear how far this can be attributed to the merits of privatisation
itself. Marxian economist Andrew Glyn believed that the "productivity miracle" observed in British
industry under Thatcher was achieved not so much by increasing the overall productivity of labour
as by reducing workforces and increasing unemployment.[97] A number of the privatised
industries, such as gas, water and electricity, were natural monopolies for which privatisation
involved little increase in competition. Furthermore, the privatised industries that underwent
improvements often did so while still under state ownership. For instance, British Steelmade great
gains in profitability while still a nationalised industry under the government-appointed
chairmanship of Ian MacGregor, who faced down trade-union opposition to close plants and more
than halve the workforce.[98] Regulation was also greatly expanded to compensate for the loss of
direct government control, with the foundation of regulatory bodies like Ofgas, Oftel and
the National Rivers Authority.[99] Overall, there was no clear pattern between the degree of
competition, regulation and performance among the privatised industries.[100] While the output and
profits of the privatised companies grew, margins increased, and employment declined, the exact
relationship of these changes to privatisation is uncertain.[101]

Many people took advantage of share offers, although many sold their shares immediately for a
quick profit and therefore the proportion of shares held by individuals rather than institutions did
not increase. By the mid 1980s, the number of individual stockholders had tripled, and the
Thatcher government had sold 1.5 million publicly owned housing units to their tenants.[64]

The privatisation of public assets was combined with deregulation of finance in an attempt to fuel
economic growth. Notably, in 1979 Geoffrey Howe abolished Britain's exchange controls to allow
more capital to seek profits overseas and the Big Bang of 1986 removed many restrictions on the
activities of the London Stock Exchange. The Thatcher government encouraged the growth of the
financial and service sectors to replace Britain's ailing manufacturing industry. Susan
Strange called this new financial growth model, flourishing in Britain and America under Thatcher
and Reagan, "casino capitalism" – as speculation and trading in financial claims became a more
important part of the economy than industry.[102]
Trade unions
Further information: Opposition to trade unions

Thatcher was committed to reducing the power of the trade unions, whose leadership she
accused of undermining parliamentary democracy and economic performance through paralysing
strike action.[103] Several unions launched strikes in response to legislation introduced to curb their
power, but resistance eventually collapsed.[104] Only 39% of union members voted for Labour in
the 1983 general election.[105] According to the BBC, Thatcher "managed to destroy the power of
the trade unions for almost a generation."[106]

The number of stoppages across the United Kingdom peaked at 4,583 in the crisis year of 1979
that brought Thatcher to power, with over 29 million working days lost. 1984, the great year of
industrial confrontation with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), saw 1,221 stoppages and
over 27 million working days lost. Stoppages then fell steadily through the rest of Thatcher's
premiership, to 630 by 1990, with under 2 million working days lost, and continued to fall
thereafter.[74] Trade union membership also fell, from over 12 million in 1979 to 8.4 million in 1990.
[74]

The miners' strike was the climax of the confrontation between the unions and the Thatcher
government. In March 1984 the NUM ordered a strike, without a national ballot,[107] in opposition
to National Coal Board proposals to close 20 pits out of 174 state-owned mines and cut 20,000
jobs out of 187,000.[108][109][110] Two-thirds of the country's miners downed tools.[109][111] Thatcher
refused to meet the union's demands,[64] and said: "We had to fight the enemy without in the
Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight
and more dangerous to liberty."[106]

Violence was common on the picket lines during the miners' strike; controversial police tactics
were used against strikers.[106] The strike resulted in at least three deaths.[108] Two miners, Joe
Green and David Jones, were crushed to death by lorries while picketing.[108][112] Two miners,
Dean Hancock and Russell Shankland, were sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for
the manslaughter of taxi driver David Wilkiewho was taking a working miner to his colliery.
[113]
Some 20,000 people were injured in the course of the strike.[114] 11,300 miners and their
supporters were arrested and charged with criminal offences.[111][115]
The NUM's failure to ballot and the picket line violence and intimidation cost the strike public
support. A MORI poll in June 1984 found that 41% of people backed the Coal Board, and 35%
the miners. By August support for the Board had risen to 46%, while support for the miners had
fallen to 30%. The position remained unchanged at the end of the year. The miners' strike also
split the trade union movement, with lorry drivers, dockers and power station employees crossing
picket lines or handling coal.[115] The strike was described as "one of the most aggressive trade
union struggles since the 1926 General Strike",[112] with some commentators even suggesting it
was "the nearest the country had come to civil war for 400 years".[111] Archbishop of
Canterbury Robert Runcie accused Thatcher personally of fostering a "politics of confrontation",
and blamed her policies for high unemployment, which he said had created "despair about the
future".[109]

After a year out on strike, in March 1985, the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. The cost
of the strike to the economy was estimated at least £1.5 billion. The strike was also blamed for
much of the pound's fall against the US dollar.[115] The government proceeded to close 25
unprofitable pits in 1985; by 1992, a total of 97 pits had been closed,[116] with the remaining being
sold off and privatised in 1994.[117] These actions had great effect on the industrial and political
complexion of the country.[107] The eventual closure of 150 collieries, not all of which were losing
money, resulted in a loss of tens of thousands of jobs and devastated entire communities,[116]
[118]
delivering a blow from which the coal industry, with 50 mines employing 6,000 people, has
barely begun to recover, with plans for 58 new open-cast mines and up to a dozen new deep
mines.[118]
Brighton bombing
Main article: Brighton hotel bombing

Thatcher with US First Lady Nancy Reagan at 10 Downing Street, 1986

On the early morning of 12 October 1984, the day before her 59th birthday, Thatcher narrowly
escaped injury in the Brighton hotel bombing carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican
Army.[119] Five people were killed in the attack, including the wife of Cabinet Minister John
Wakeham; a prominent member of the Cabinet, Norman Tebbit, was injured, and his wife
Margaret was left paralysed. Thatcher was staying at the hotel to attend the Conservative Party
Conference, and insisted that the conference open on time the next day.[119] She delivered her
speech as planned in defiance of the bombers,[120] a gesture which won widespread approval
across the political spectrum, and measurably enhanced her personal popularity with the public.
[121]
A Gallup poll that month found her personal approval rating up from 40% to 50%, and the
Conservative lead over Labour widening from 1% to 12%.[74]
Cold War
Main article: Cold War

Thatcher took office in the final decade of the Cold War, a period of strategic confrontation
between the Western powers and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites. During her first
year as prime minister she supported NATO's decision to deploy US Cruise missiles andPershing
missiles in Western Europe.[104] She permitted the United States to station more than 160 nuclear
cruise missiles at Greenham Common, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.[104]

Thatcher became closely aligned with the policies of US President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989),
and their closeness produced transatlantic cooperation.[104] His policy of deterrence against the
Soviets contrasted with the policy of détente which the West had pursued during the 1970s, and
caused friction with allies who still adhered to the idea of détente.

Thatcher was among the first Western leaders to respond warmly to reformist Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They met in London in 1984, three months before he became General
Secretary. Thatcher declared that she liked him, and told Reagan, saying, "we can do business
together".[104] Following the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetings from 1985 to 1988, as well as
multiple reforms enacted by Gorbachev in the USSR, Thatcher declared in November 1988,
"We're not in a Cold War now" but rather in a "new relationship much wider than the Cold War
ever was."[122] She continued, "I expect Mr Gorbachev to do everything he can to continue his
reforms. We will support it."[122]
Thatcher initially opposed German reunification, telling Premier Gorbachev that "this would lead
to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would
undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security." She
expressed concern that a united Germany would align itself closer with the Soviet Union and
move away from NATO.[123]Recent records attribute Gorbachev as stating that "the West doesn’t
want German reunification but wants to use us to prevent it", possibly because of the line taken
by Thatcher and other European leaders such as France's Mr Mitterrand who was even thinking
of a military alliance with Russia to stop it, "camouflaged as a joint use of armies to fight natural
disasters".[124]

Thatcher's premiership outlasted the Cold War, which ended in 1989, and those who share her
views on it credit her with a part in the West's victory, by both the deterrence
and détente postures.
Nuclear deterrent

In March 1982 Thatcher approved the modernisation of the strategic nuclear force by ordering a
new generation of Trident submarines to replace Polaris[125] at a cost of £10 billion,[126] creating
25,000 British jobs.[127] She justified the expenditure on the basis that the United Kingdom was
acquiring only the minimum deterrent against Soviet aggression and rejected participation
in START negotiations unless the US and Soviet arsenals were substantially reduced.[128] She
committed the government to using savings from co-operation with the United States in the
nuclear field to strengthen British conventional forces.[125]
Hong Kong

On 19 December 1984, Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping of the People's Republic of China signed
the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which committed Hong Kong to the status of a Special
Administrative Region. Britain agreed to leave the region in 1997.[129]
Bombing of Libya

In April 1986 Thatcher, after expressing initial reservations, permitted US F-111s to use RAF
bases for the bombing of Libya in retaliation for the alleged Libyan bombing of a Berlin
discothèque,[130] citing the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.[131]

Thatcher told the House of Commons: "The United States has more than 330,000 forces in
Europe to defend our liberty. Because they are there they are subject to terrorist attack. It is
inconceivable that they should be refused the right to use American aircraft and American pilots
in the inherent right of self-defence to defend their own people."[132]
The United Kingdom was the only nation to provide support and assistance for the US action.
[132]
Polls suggested that more than two out of three people disapproved of Thatcher's decision to
accede to the US request.[133] Later that year the United States Congress approved an extradition
treaty that stopped IRA operatives evading extradition. The United States Senate only ratified this
treaty when Reagan explicitly mentioned Britain's support for the bombing of Libya.[134]

Despite the Lebanon hostage crisis in April 1986, the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in September
1986, and the Lockerbie bombing in December 1988, Thatcher insisted that the raid had deterred
further Libyan attacks.[135]
Supplementary Extradition Treaty

Thatcher also contended that her support for the US bombing of Libya imposed an obligation on
the United States to ratify a new extradition treaty with the United Kingdom in order to stand up
to IRA violence. "What is the point", she asked, "of the United States taking a foremost part
against terrorism and then not being as strict as they can against Irish terrorism, which afflicts one
of their allies?"[136] The US-UK Supplementary Extradition Treaty, restricting the application of the
political offence exception, signed in June 1986, and coming into force in December, was "hailed
as a major improvement in the efforts of democratic nations to fight international terrorism".[137]
Westland affair

Thatcher's preference for defence ties with the United States was also demonstrated in
the Westland affair of 1986 when she acted with colleagues to allow the helicopter
manufacturer Westland, a vital defence contractor, to refuse to link with the Italian firm Agusta in
order for it to link with the management's preferred option, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of the
United States. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had pushed the Agusta deal, resigned
in protest after this, and remained an influential critic and potential leadership challenger.
South Africa

In July 1986 Thatcher expressed her belief that economic sanctions against South Africa would
be immoral because they would make thousands of black workers unemployed.[138] Public
dissatisfaction with her position grew steadily, reaching 65% in a MORI poll for The
Times published in August 1986, following a boycott of the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh
by 32 nations. 49% of people surveyed said they would approve of an end to new investment by
British companies, and a complete ban on trade, air or sporting links also failed to attract majority
support. 46% said sanctions would not help bring an end to apartheid, while 44% said they would.
[139]

Local government devolution

In 1986, in a controversial move, the Thatcher government abolished the Greater London
Council, then led by the left-wing Ken Livingstone, as well as six Labour controlled metropolitan
county councils.[140] The government stated that they ordered this to decrease bureaucracy and
increase efficiency, and encouraged transferring power to local councils for increased electoral
accountability.[140] Thatcher's opponents, however, held that the move was politically motivated,
as the GLC had become a powerful centre of opposition to her government, and the county
councils were in favour of higher local government taxes and public spending.
Relationship with the Queen

As Prime Minister, Thatcher met weekly with Queen Elizabeth II to discuss government business.
[141]
Their relationship came under close scrutiny,[142] with the media speculating that they did not
get along overly well.[143] While they displayed public images that largely contrasted,[144] Tim Bell, a
former Thatcher advisor, recalled, "Margaret has the deepest respect for the Queen and all her
family".[145] She was said to greet the Queen with a curtsey every time they met.[145]

In July 1986 sensational claims attributed to the Queen's advisers of a "rift" between Buckingham
Palace and Downing Street "over a wide range of domestic and international issues" were
reported by The Sunday Times.[146][147] The immediate cause was said to be "the Queen's fear for
the possible break-up of the Commonwealth" because of Thatcher's rejection of comprehensive
sanctions against South Africa.[139][146] Their relationship was characterised as "pragmatic and
without any personal antagonism".[146] The Palace issued an official denial, heading off
speculation about a possible constitutional crisis.[147] However a MORI poll for the Evening
Standard suggested a sharp loss of support for the government following the controversy, giving
Labour a six-point lead, reversing a previous Conservative six-point lead, while a separate MORI
poll for The Times put Labour on 41% with a nine-point lead.[139]

After Thatcher's retirement, a senior Palace source again dismissed as "nonsense" the
"stereotyped idea" that she had not got along with the Queen or that they had fallen out over
Thatcherite policies.[148] Thatcher herself declared that "stories of clashes between 'two powerful
women' were too good not to make up ... I always found the Queen's attitude towards the work of
the Government absolutely correct".[149]
1987 election

At the time of the 1987 general election, Labour leader Neil Kinnock presided over a party deeply
divided on policy agendas.[150] Margaret Thatcher, in turn, led her party to victory, winning an
unprecedented third term[151] with a 102 seat majority,[152] and became the longest continuously
serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since Lord Liverpool (1812 to 1827), as well as the
only Prime Minister of the 20th century to serve three terms.[72] She was elected riding on an
economic boom against a weak Labour opposition. The Conservatives won 42.2% of the popular
vote, while the Labour party won 30.8% and Alliance won 22.6 %.[152]

Third government (1987–1990)

Environmental issues

Thatcher, the former chemist, became publicly concerned with environmental issues in the late
1980s. In 1988, she made a major speech communicating the problems of global warming, ozone
depletion and acid rain.[153]
Section 28
Main article: Section 28

Though an early backer of decriminalisation of male homosexuality,[154] Thatcher, at the 1987

Conservative party conference, issued the statement that "Children who need to be taught to
respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay".
[155]
Backbench Conservative MPs and Peers had already begun a backlash against the
'promotion' of homosexuality and, in December 1987, the controversial 'Section 28' was added as
an amendment to what became the Local Government Act 1988. This legislation was repealed by
Tony Blair's Labour administration between 2000 and 2003.
Continuation of economic changes

Thatcher introduced a new system for the government to raise revenue; she replaced local
government taxes with a Community Charge or "Poll tax", in which property tax rates were made
uniform, in that the same amount was charged to every individual resident, and the residential
property tax was replaced with a head tax whose rate would be established by local
governments.[156] Thatcher's revolutionary system was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in
England and Wales the following year.[72]

The Thatchers with the Reagans standing at the North Portico of the White House prior to a state dinner, 16
November 1988
Thatcher's system of local taxation[156] was among the most unpopular policies of her premiership
with working class and poorer citizens unable to pay the new tax and some being sent to Prison
for non payment.[156] The central Government capped rates resulting in charges of partisanship
and the alienation of small-government Conservatives.[156] The Prime Minister's popularity
declined in 1989 as she continued to refuse to compromise on the tax.[72] Unrest mounted and
ordinary British people young and old took to the streets to demonstrate, the demonstrators were
met with horse mounted Police in riot gear and demonstration turned to riots at Trafalgar Square,
London, on 31 March 1990; more than 100,000 protesters attended and more than 400 people
were arrested.[157]

A BBC Radio poll in September 1989 indicated that almost three-quarters of the public were also
against water privatisation.[158] Despite public opposition to the poll tax and the privatisation of
water, electricity, and British Rail, Thatcher remained confident that, as with her other major
reforms, the initial public opposition would turn into support after implementation. A MORI poll for
the Sunday Times in June 1988 found that more than 60% of voters agreed that in the long term
the Thatcher government's policies would improve the state of the economy, while less than 30%
disagreed; although income inequality had increased: 74% of Britons said they were satisfied with
their present standard of living, while only 18% were dissatisfied.[159]
Europe

At Bruges, Belgium, in 1988, Thatcher made a speech in which she outlined her opposition to
proposals from the European Community, a forerunner to the European Union, for a federal
structure and increasing centralisation of decision-making.[160] Though she had supported British
membership in the EC, Thatcher believed that the role of the organisation should be limited to
ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that the EC approach to governing was
at odds with her views of smaller government and deregulatory trends;[161] in 1988, she remarked,
"We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-
imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from
Brussels".[161] A split was emerging over European policy inside the British Government and her
Conservative Party.[8]

On 30 November 1988, when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain's detention
provisions were in breach of European law, the policy split extended to parliament with the
presentation of a petition calling for a written British constitution. Thatcher reacted angrily to the
ECHR ruling, and to the failure of Belgium and Ireland to extradite a suspected terrorist, Father
Patrick Ryan, to face charges in Britain. She told the Commons: "We shall consider the judgment
carefully and also the human rights of the victims and potential victims of terrorism."[162]

At a meeting before the Madrid European Community summit in June 1989, Chancellor of the
Exchequer Nigel Lawson and Foreign SecretaryGeoffrey Howe sought to persuade Thatcher to
agree to circumstances under which the United Kingdom would join the Exchange Rate
Mechanism, a preparation for monetary union, and abolish the pound as British currency. At the
meeting, they both said they would resign if their demands were not met.[163] Thatcher, as well as
her economic advisor Alan Walters, was opposed to this notion and felt that the pound sterling
should be able to float freely,[164] and that membership would constrain the UK economy.[165] Both
Lawson and Howe eventually resigned[164] and Thatcher remained firmly opposed to British
membership in the European Monetary System.[165]
1989 Leadership election

Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by virtually unknown
backbench MP Sir Anthony Meyer in the 1989 leadership election.[166] Of the 374 Conservative
MPs eligible to vote, 314 voted for Thatcher while 33 voted for Meyer; there were 27 abstentions.
[166]
Thatcher noted, "I would like to say how very pleased I am with this result and how very
pleased I am to have had the overwhelming support of my colleagues in the House and the
people from the party in the country", while Meyer said he was delighted as well: "The total result
I think is rather better than I had expected".[166] Her supporters in the Party viewed the results as a
success, and rejected suggestions that there was discontent within the Party.[166]
Gulf War
Thatcher reviews Bermudian troops, 12 April 1990
Main article: Gulf War

Thatcher was visiting the United States when she received word that Iraqi leader Saddam
Husseinhad invaded neighbouring Kuwait.[167] She met with US President George H. W. Bush,
who had succeeded Ronald Reagan in 1989, during which Bush asked her, "Margaret, what is
your view?" She recalled in an interview that she felt "that aggressors must be stopped, not only
stopped, but they must be thrown out. An aggressor cannot gain from his aggression. He must be
thrown out and really, by that time in my mind, I thought we ought to throw him out so decisively
that he could never think of doing it again."[167] She put pressure on Bush to deploy troops to the
Middle East to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.[168] Bush was somewhat apprehensive about the
plan, so Thatcher remarked to him during a telephone conversation, "This was no time to go
wobbly!"[169]Thatcher's government provided military forces to the international coalition in the Gulf
War to pursue the ouster of Iraq from Kuwait.[170]
Resignation
See also: Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 1990

Despite having the longest continuous period of office of any prime minister in the twentieth
century, Thatcher had, on average during her premiership, the second-lowest approval rating of
any post-war prime minister, at 40%, only beating Edward Heath; even after the Falklands War it
had never risen above 55%; polls consistently showed that she was less popular than the
Conservative party.[171] A self-described conviction politician, Thatcher always insisted she did not
care about her poll ratings, pointing instead to her unbeaten election record.[172]

Moreover, in relative terms, Thatcher's personal position had remained consistently strong: a
Marplan poll for the Sunday Express in October 1988 showed that Thatcher was still trusted by
61% of Britons to lead the country, compared with only 17% for Labour leader Neil Kinnock.
Thatcher's capacity to lead was trusted by 87% of Conservative voters and 46% of Labour voters.
[173]
A Telephone Surveys poll for the Sunday Express in September 1990, during the Gulf crisis,
found that 65% of voters preferred Thatcher as a crisis leader to Kinnock, who polled 20%.[174]

A Mori poll for the Sunday Times in September 1989 showed that Thatcher was still the public's
preferred choice of Conservative leader, attracting the support of 32% of voters, her pro-
European former cabinet colleague Michael Heseltine coming second on 22%.[175] However, by
March 1990, in the face of rising inflation and the threat of a recession and inevitable mass
unemployment, Thatcher's support had halved to 15%, with Heseltine's doubling to 40%.
[175]
Opposition to the poll tax[176] and the divisions opening in the parliamentary party
overEuropean integration[72] left Thatcher increasingly vulnerable to a challenge.[177]

By November 1990 the Conservatives had been trailing Labour for 18 months.[171] Although a Mori
survey for the Sunday Times showed that 83% of Conservative voters were satisfied by the way
Thatcher represented the United Kingdom in Europe,[178][relevant? – discuss] a BBC poll found that Labour
had increased its lead by 5 points to 14%, its biggest lead since May, while a poll for the Evening
Standard found that Labour had nearly doubled its lead over the Conservatives to 13.2 points.
[179]
Low poll ratings, along with Thatcher's combative personality and willingness to override
colleagues' opinions, contributed to discontent in the parliamentary party.[180]

On 1 November 1990, Geoffrey Howe, for 15 years one of Thatcher's most "loyal and self-
effacing" supporters, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister over her refusal to
agree to a timetable for British membership of the single currency.[179][181] In his resignation speech
in the Commons on 13 November, referring to Thatcher's promise to veto any arrangement which
jeopardised the pound sterling, Howe famously complained: "It is rather like sending your opening
batsmen to the crease only for them to find the moment that the first balls are bowled that their
bats have been broken before the game by the team captain."[182] Howe's resignation put
Thatcher's future in doubt,[179][183]and was afterwards recognised as dealing a "fatal blow" to her
premiership.[184] While 59% of the British public polled for The Independent by Number Market
Research agreed with Thatcher's opposition to monetary union, 64% were of the opinion that she
needed to retire.[185]

A few days later Heseltine challenged her for the leadership of the party. A Gallup poll for
the Daily Telegraph showed that 28% of voters would be more inclined to vote Conservative if
Heseltine were leader, and only 7% would be less inclined. Five separate polls indicated that he
would give the Conservatives a national lead over Labour.[175] Heseltine attracted sufficient
support from the parliamentary party in the first round of voting to prolong the contest to a second
ballot.[8] Although Thatcher initially stated that she intended to contest the second ballot,[8]she
consulted with her Cabinet and decided to withdraw from the contest.[2] Thatcher said that
pressure from her colleagues helped her to conclude that the unity of the Conservative Party and
the prospect of victory in the next general election would be more likely if she resigned.[186] Early
on the morning of 22 November, the 65-year-old Prime Minister announced to the Cabinet that
she would not be a candidate in the second ballot.[180] Thatcher informed the Queen of her
decision, and a statement was released from 10 Downing Street at 09.34:[180]
The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Margaret Thatcher, F.R.S., has informed the Queen that she
does not intend to contest the second ballot of the election for leadership of the Conservative
Party and intends to resign as Prime Minister as soon as a new leader of the Conservative Party
has been elected… "Having consulted widely among my colleagues, I have concluded that the
unity of the Party and the prospects of victory in a General Election would be better served if I
stood down to enable Cabinet colleagues to enter the ballot for the leadership. I should like to
thank all those in Cabinet and outside who have given me such dedicated support."[180]

Some sections of the British public were stunned,[180] but there were also scenes of rejoicing at
the news.[187] After visiting the Queen at Buckingham Palace, she later arrived at the House of
Commons to a debate; Neil Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, proposed a motion of no
confidence in the government, and Thatcher displayed her combativeness.[180] She said:

Eleven years ago we rescued Britain from the parlous state to which socialism had brought it.
Once again Britain stands tall in the councils of Europe and of the world. Over the last decade,
we have given power back to the people on an unprecedented scale. We have given back control
to people over their own lives and over their livelihoods, over the decisions that matter most to
them and their families. We have done it by curbing the monopoly power of trade unions to
control, even victimize the individual worker.[180]

Soon after her resignation, a MORI poll found that 52% of Britons agreed that "On balance she
had been good for the country", while 48% disagreed.[188]

Thatcher is often credited by her supporters for saving Britain from rule by Neil Kinnock; whereas
Kinnock's Labour had led the polls (often by a double-digit margin) for some 18 months prior to
Thatcher's resignation, a dramatic turnaround followed in the opinion polls as John Majoroversaw
an upturn in Conservative support (despite the deepening recession and rising unemployment)
which regularly saw the Conservatives come ahead of Labour in the 17 months leading up to
the next general election, which was held on 9 April 1992. Major led the Conservatives to their
fourth successive general election victory and Kinnock stepped down as opposition leader after
nine years of ultimately unsuccessful efforts to oust the Conservatives and return Labour to
government.[189]

However, Conservative supports often see Thatcher's resignation as hugely destabilising for the
party. Although her resignation to make way for John Major is widely regarded as the winning
card for the Conservatives in the 1992 election, it meant that the Conservatives were in power
when a significant financial crisis hit the country later that year. Black Wednesday, 16 September
1992, saw interest rates begin the day at 10%, and over the course of the day rise from 12% to
15% before falling back to 12%. Pound sterling was then removed from the European Exchange
Rate Mechanism. With the economy still not yet out of recession, fears were widespread that the
economy would remain weak for many years to come.[190]
With the Conservative Party's reputation for monetary excellence in tatters, Labour was soon
ascendant in the opinion polls.[191]

Although the recession was declared over by April 1993 and the subsequent economic recovery
was strong and the fall in unemployment relatively swift, opinion polls continued to show the
Conservatives trailing Labour by a wide margin and after the death of Labour leader John
Smith in May 1994, the well received election of Tony Blair as Labour leader served to widen the
gulf between the Conservatives and Labour. With a general election called for May 1997, Major
spent weeks campaigning for voters to re-elect the Conservatives for a fifth successive term,
urging them not to fall for "New Labour's" policies, as well as concentrating on the theme of a
strong economy and falling unemployment. However, the Conservative government had denied
responsibility for recession earlier in the decade, and few voters were willing to give them credit
for the economic recovery. The Conservative government's 18 years in power were ended by a
Labour landslide.[192]

The Conservatives failed to represent a serious threat to Labour's position in government as

the 2001 and 2005 general elections were both won by Labour. However, the election of David
Cameron as Conservative leader in December 2005 saw Conservative support rise dramatically
and soon it was back to levels not seen since the beginning of John Major's premiership. Hopes
of an imminent Conservative election win were thrown into doubt in June 2007 when Tony Blair
stepped aside as prime minister to be succeeded by Gordon Brown, sparking a brief rise in
Labour support. However, the onset of a recession saw the Conservatives firmly re-established
as the most popular party in opinion polls. In May 2010, Cameron finally returned the
Conservatives to power after 13 years in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, after the
Conservatives attained the highest number of votes and seats at the general election but failed to
gain an overall majority.[193]

Later years
Mrs Thatcher retained her parliamentary seat in the House of Commons as MP for Finchley for
two years, returning to the backbenches after leaving the premiership. She supported John
Major as her successor and he duly won the leadership contest, although in the years to come
her approval of Major would fall away.[194] She occasionally spoke in the House of Commons after
she was Prime Minister, commenting and campaigning on issues regarding her beliefs and
concerns.[72] In 1991, she was given an unprecedented five minute standing ovation at the party's
annual conference.[195] She retired from the House at the 1992 election, at the age of 66 years;
she said that leaving the Commons would allow her more freedom to speak her mind.[196]

Post-Commons
After leaving the House of Commons, Thatcher remained active in politics. She wrote two
volumes of memoirs: The Downing Street Years, published in 1993 and The Path to
Power published in 1995.

In August 1992 Thatcher called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Goražde and Sarajevo in
order to end ethnic cleansing and to preserve the Bosnian state. She described the situation in
Bosnia as "reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Nazis", warning that there could be a
"holocaust" in Bosnia and described the conflict as a "killing field the like of which I thought we
would never see in Europe again."[197] She made a series of speeches in the Lords criticising
the Maastricht Treaty,[196] describing it as "a treaty too far" and stated "I could never have signed
this treaty".[198] She cited A. V. Dicey, to the effect that, since all three main parties were in favour
of revisiting the treaty, the people should have their say.[199]

Thatcher at the state funeral of Ronald Reagan, June 2004

Thatcher with Mikhail Gorbachev (left) and Brian Mulroney (centre) at Reagan's funeral.
From 1993 to 2000, Lady Thatcher served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary in
Virginia, which was established by Royal Charter in 1693. She was also Chancellor of
theUniversity of Buckingham, the UK's only private university.

After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party leader in 1994, Thatcher gave an interview in May
1995 in which she praised Blair as "probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh
Gaitskell. I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely
has moved."[200]

Lady Thatcher visited former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet, once a key British ally during
the 1982 Falklands War, while he was under house arrest in Surrey in 1998. Pinochet was
fighting extradition to Spain for alleged human rights abuses committed during his tenure.
[201]
Thatcher expressed her support and friendship for Pinochet,[201] who had swept to power on a
wave of military violence and torture in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, thanking him for supporting
Britain in the Falklands War and for "bringing democracy to Chile."[201]

In 1999, during Thatcher's first speech to a Conservative Party conference in nine years, she
contended that Britain's problems came from continental Europe.[202] Her comments aroused
some criticism from Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former Foreign Secretary under Sir John Major, who
said that Lady Thatcher's comments could give the impression that Britain is prejudiced against
Europe.[202]

In the 2001 general election, Lady Thatcher supported the Conservative general election
campaign but this time did not endorse Iain Duncan Smith in public as she had done previously
for John Major and William Hague. In the Conservative leadership election shortly after, she
supported Iain Duncan Smith because she believed he would "make infinitely the better leader"
than Kenneth Clarke.[203]

In March 2002 Thatcher published Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, detailing her
thoughts on mainly international relations and dedicated to Ronald Reagan. She claimed there
would no peace in the Middle East until Saddam Hussein was toppled and said if he was found to
be involved in the attacks on 11 September 2001, war was right. She also said Israel must trade
land for peace as part of an equitable settlement. The most controversial part, however, dealt with
the European Union. It was "fundamentally unreformable" and "a classic utopian project, a
monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure". She
argued that Britain should renegotiate its terms of membership but if this failed Britain should
leave the EU and join the North American Free Trade Area. This book was serialised in The
Times on Monday 18 March and caused a sensation. Having dominated the media all week with
her views on the EU, on Friday 23 March she announced that on the advice of her doctors she
would cancel all planned speaking engagements and accept no more.[204]

Activities since 2003

Thatcher was widowed upon the death of Sir Denis Thatcher on 26 June 2003. A funeral service
was held honouring him at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea on 3 July with Thatcher present, as well
as her children Mark and Carol.[205] Thatcher paid tribute to him by saying, "Being Prime Minister
is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be—you cannot lead from a crowd. But with Denis there I
was never alone. What a man. What a husband. What a friend".[206]

At a secret meeting of the No Turning Back group of Conservative MPs, she spoke against the
Labour government's plans for compulsoryidentity cards, saying: "Identity cards are a Germanic
concept and completely alien to this country. I don't see why we should have them". She claimed
they would not protect Britain from a terrorist attack nor reduce crime.[207]

Now in her declining years, she began complaining about her "lost" family (Mark in South Africa,
Carol in Switzerland), but her daughter was less than sympathetic: "A mother cannot reasonably
expect her grown-up children to boomerang back, gushing cosiness and make up for lost time.
Absentee Mum, then Gran in overdrive is not an equation that balances."[208]

The following year, on 11 June, Thatcher travelled to the United States to attend the state funeral
service for former US President Ronald Reagan, one of her closest friends, at the National
Cathedral in Washington, D.C.[209] Thatcher delivered a eulogy via videotape to Reagan; in view of
her failing mental faculties following several small strokes, the message had been pre-recorded
several months earlier.[210] Thatcher then flew to California with the Reagan entourage, and
attended the memorial service and interment ceremony for President Reagan at theRonald
Reagan Presidential Library.[211]

Thatcher attends the Washington memorial service marking the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, pictured
with Dick Cheney and his wife.
Thatcher talks with then-United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld andChairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff General Peter Pace, 12 September 2006

Thatcher marked her 80th birthday with a celebration at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde
Park, London on 13 October 2005, where the guests included the Queen, The Duke of
Edinburgh,Princess Alexandra and Tony Blair.[212] There, Geoffrey Howe, now Lord Howe of
Aberavon, said of his former boss, "Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party
but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted
as irreversible."[213]

In 2006, Thatcher attended the official Washington, D.C. memorial service to commemorate the
fifth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States. She attended as a guest
of the US Vice President, Dick Cheney, and met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Riceduring her visit.[214] On 12 November, she appeared at the Remembrance Day parade at
theCenotaph in London, leaning heavily on the arm of Sir John Major. On 10 December she
announced she was "deeply saddened" by the death of Augusto Pinochet.[215]

In February 2007, she became the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to be honoured with
a statue in the Houses of Parliament while still living. The statue is made of bronze and stands
opposite her political hero and predecessor, Sir Winston Churchill.[216] The statue was unveiled on
21 February 2007 with Lady Thatcher in attendance; she made a rare and brief speech in the
members' lobby of the House of Commons, responding: "I might have preferred iron — but
bronze will do... It won't rust."[216] The statue shows her as if she were addressing the House of
Commons, with her right arm outstretched. Thatcher said she was thrilled with it.[217]

On 13 September 2007, Thatcher was invited to 10 Downing Street to have tea with Gordon
Brownand his wife. Brown referred to Lady Thatcher as a "conviction politician."[218] On 30
January 2008, Thatcher met David Cameron at an awards ceremony at London's Guildhall where
she was presented with a 'Lifetime Achievement Award'.[219] In May 2009, she travelled to Rome
to meet Pope Benedict XVI in a private audience at the Vatican. She had previously met Paul
VI in 1977 and John Paul II in 1980.[220] On 8 June 2010 she again returned to Downing Street to
have tea with the Prime Minister, David Cameron and his wife Samantha Cameron, where she
said it was 'good to be back in Downing Street'.

Lady Thatcher was invited back to Number 10 in late November 2009 to be at the unveiling of an
official portrait by the artist, Richard Stone, who had previously painted The Queen and the late
Queen Mother. Lady Thatcher was invited along with guests including David Cameron, as well as
former members of Lady Thatcher's Cabinet and members of the Conservative-supporting
newspapers throughout the 1980s including the Chief Political Commentator of The Telegraph,
Benedict Brogan, and former Sun editor, Kelvin MacKenzie.[221]

It is a rare honour for a living Prime Minister to have a commissioned painted portrait hanging in
the Prime Minister's residence: all other living prime ministers having photographs only that line
the stair walls of Number 10. Baroness Thatcher and only two other Prime Ministers have their
portraits painted as well as a hung photograph on display. Sir Winston Churchill and David Lloyd
George are the only other Prime Ministers to have hung painted portraits on display in Number 10
Downing Street.[222]

Lady Thatcher was among one of four former British Prime Ministers whom were addressed
by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on 17 September 2010 in Westminster Hall, Lady Thatcher
was seated on the front row sitting in front of senior coalition Cabinet ministers andmembers of
the Labour opposition. She sat next to Sir John Major, who provided her with support when she
was meeting with the Pope after his speech.[223]

Health
Thatcher suffered several small strokes in 2002 and she was advised by her doctors not to
engage in any more public speaking.[224] As a result of the strokes, her short term memory began
to falter.[225] Her former press spokesman Sir Bernard Ingham said in early 2007, "She's now got
no short-term memory left, which is absolutely tragic."[226]

Thatcher was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital, Central London on 7 March 2008, for tests after
collapsing at a House of Lords dinner.[225]She was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where she
spent one night.[225] The incident was probably caused by her low blood pressure and stuffy
conditions within the dining hall.[225][227]
On 24 August 2008 it was publicly disclosed that Thatcher has been suffering from dementia. Her
daughter Carol described in her 2008 memoir, A Swim-on Part in the Goldfish Bowl, first
observing in 2000 that Thatcher was becoming forgetful.[228] The condition later became more
noticeable; at times, Thatcher thought that her husband Denis, who died in 2003, was still living.
[229]
Carol Thatcher recalls that her mother's memories of the time she spent as Prime Minister
from 1979 to 1990 remain among her sharpest.[228]

In June 2009 Thatcher broke a bone in her arm in a fall at home.[230] She underwent a 45-minute
surgical procedure to insert a pin into her upper arm.[231] She spent a total of three weeks in
hospital before being discharged.[232]

On 13 November 2009, rumours of Thatcher's death were erroneously circulated within

the Government of Canada whilst they attended a black-tie dinner, after transport minister John
Baird sent a text message announcing the death of his pet tabby called Thatcher. The news was
reported to Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the death of Baroness Thatcher, and almost
caused a diplomatic incident between Canada and the United Kingdom, but the Canadian
Government rang Downing Street and Buckingham Palace to seek verification.[233]

At the Conservative Party conference 2010, the newly installed Prime Minister David Cameron
announced he would be seeking to invite Lady Thatcher back to Downing Street for the occasion
of her 85th birthday with a party at 10 Downing Street, to be attended by past and present
ministers. Lady Thatcher was forced to pull out of the celebration at the last minute after being
taken ill with a bout of flu, later said to have caused an infection.[234][235]

A few days later, after consultation with a doctor called by worried aides, Baroness Thatcher was
admitted for precautionary tests at the private BUPA Cromwell Hospital, west London.[236] Her
son, Sir Mark reports she is doing well and talking about the Coalition Government's
comprehensive spending review albeit whilst being 'drowsy', the effect of the medication
administered. A press conference called by the hospital four days after her admission, confirmed
that Lady Thatcher was doing well and would be expected to be staying in for a few more days.
[237]

Lady Thatcher was discharged from The Cromwell on 1 November, after nearly a fortnight in the
private BUPA hospital having been admitted on 19 October 2010. She was released with the
advice to take things slowly, however on arrival at home she did assemble outside her Belgravia
home for photographers, albeit with the help of aides.[238]

Legacy

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Thatcher remains identified with her remarks to the reporter Douglas Keay, for Woman's
Own magazine, 23 September 1987:

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to
understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I
will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so
they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are
individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except
through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then
also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the
entitlements too much in mind without the obligations...[239]

As the individualistic credo expressed above took hold of Thatcher's Britain, egalitarian concerns
dwindled. Andy Beckett commented: "Authorities on poverty rates and income distributions differ
as to precisely when the optimum moment of equality in Britain came, but some statistics leap
out. The Gini coefficient, a common measure of income inequality, reached its lowest level for
British households in 1977. The proportion of individual Britons below the poverty line did the
same in 1978. Social mobility, the likelihood of someone becoming part of a different class from
their parents, peaked in the Callaghan era. The egalitarian Britain of the Callaghan years and its
social trends were relentlessly reversed in the Thatcher years and beyond, so that Britain in the
1970s was probably more equal than it had ever been before, and certainly more than it has ever
been since."[240]
To her supporters Margaret Thatcher remains a figure who revitalised Britain's economy,
impacted the trade unions, and re-established the nation as a world power.[241] Yet Thatcher was
also a controversial figure, her premiership marked by high unemployment and social unrest,
[241]
and many critics fault her economic policies for the unemployment level.[242] Speaking in
Scotland in April 2009, before the 30th anniversary of her election as prime minister, Thatcher
declared: "I regret nothing", and insisted she "was right to introduce the poll tax and to close loss-
making industries to end the country's 'dependency culture'."[243]

Critics have regretted her influence in the abandonment of full employment, poverty reduction and
a consensual civility as bedrock policy objectives. Many recent biographers have been critical of
many aspects of the Thatcher years and Michael White writing in New Statesman in February
2009 wondered if the ' hubristic collapse of the free-market model of capitalism that she promoted
[had] dealt her another blow. Who was it who first removed the seat belts and airbags from the
safe-but-boring Volvo that the West built after 1945? 'Her freer, more promiscuous version of
capitalism' in Hugo Young's phrase is reaping a darker harvest."[244]

The Labour party on gaining power in 1997, did not reverse Thatcher's privatisation of the
previously state-owned enterprises.[245]

Thatcher's growth model was to promote privatisation of public assets and deregulation of the
private sector, particularly the financial sector, its encouragement of the financial sector to 'create
new ways of spreading risk and expanding credit'. The financial revolution in London in the 1980s
meant that among the large economies none rivalled Britain for the relative size of its financial
sector.

In April 2008, the Daily Telegraph commissioned a YouGov poll asking whom Britons regarded as
the greatest post-World War II prime minister; Thatcher came in first, receiving 34% of the vote,
while Winston Churchill ranked second with 15%.[246][247][248]

Honours
Margaret Thatcher's arms. The admiral represents the Falklands War, the image of Sir Isaac Newton her
background as a chemist and her birth town Grantham.

In addition to her conventional appointment as a Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy
Council (PC) upon becoming Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1970[249] Thatcher
has received numerous honours as a result of her career, including being named a Lady of the
Most Noble Order of the Garter (LG). She is a Member of the Order of Merit (OM) as well as
aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and the first woman entitled to full membership rights as an
honorary member of the Carlton Club, a gentlemen's club.

US President George H. W. Bush awards Thatcher the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1991

Thatcher became a peer in the House of Lords in 1992 by the bestowal of a life
peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire.[196][250]Thatcher had
already been honoured by the Queen in 1990, shortly after her resignation as Prime Minister,
when awarded the Order of Merit, one of the UK's highest distinctions and in the personal
conferment of the sovereign.[251] At the same time it was announced that her husband, Denis,
would be given a baronetcy, which was confirmed in 1991[251][252] (ensuring that their son, Mark,
would inherit a title). She and her husband were one of the few married couples
where both partners held noble titles in their own right. In 1995, Baroness Thatcher was
appointed a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter, the United Kingdom's highest order
of chivalry.[253]

In 1999 Thatcher was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th
century, from a poll conducted of Americans. In a 2006 list compiled by New Statesman, she was
voted 5th in the list of "Heroes of our time".[254] She was also named a "Hero of Freedom" by
the libertarian magazine Reason.[255] In the Falkland Islands, Margaret Thatcher Day is marked
every 10 January, commemorating her visit on this date in 1983, seven months after the military
victory;[256][257] the decision was taken by the Falkland Islands legislature in 1992.[258] Thatcher
Drive in Stanley, the site of government, is named for her. In South Georgia, Thatcher Peninsula,
where the Task Force troops first set foot on Falklands soil, bears her name.[259][260]

Thatcher has also been awarded numerous honours from foreign countries. In 1990, she was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour awarded by the United
States. She was given the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom, Ronald Reagan Freedom
Award, and named a patron of the Heritage Foundation.[261] She was awarded the Grand Order of
King Dmitar Zvonimir, the fourth highest state order of the Republic of Croatia.

Cultural depictions
Cultural depictions of Margaret Thatcher have featured in a number of television programmes,
documentaries, films and plays; among the most notable depictions of her are Patricia
Hodge in The Falklands Play (2002) and Lindsay Duncan in Margaret (2009). She was also the
inspiration for a number of protest songs.[262][263][264][265][266]

Thatcher was lampooned by satirist John Wells in multiple formats. Wells collaborated
with Richard Ingrams on the spoof Dear Bill letters which ran as a column in Private
Eye magazine, were published in book form and were then adapted into a West End stage revue
as Anyone for Denis? - starring Wells as Thatcher's hapless husband Denis. The stage show
yielded a 1982 TV special directed by Dick Clement. Although the Private Eye column, books,
stage show and TV special were all ostensibly about Thatcher's husband, this was partly a
comedic device to poke fun at Thatcher and followed a similar pattern established by Wells and
Ingrams in the 1960s when they had lampooned Prime Minister Harold Wilson through a Private
Eye column, books and a West End revue titled Mrs Wilson's Diary using Wilson's wife as the
device to mock the Labour Premier. In 1979, Wells was commissioned by comedy
producer Martin Lewis to write and perform on a comedy record album titled The Iron Lady: The
Coming Of The Leader on which Thatcher was portrayed by comedienne and noted Thatcher
impersonatorJanet Brown. The album consisted of skits and songs. It was released by Logo
Records.[267]