{"id":19771,"date":"2013-04-09T00:19:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T04:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=19771"},"modified":"2013-04-09T00:19:18","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T04:19:18","slug":"margaret-thatcher-1925-2013the-iron-ladywho-became-first-woman-prime-minister-of-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=19771","title":{"rendered":"MARGARET THATCHER (1925-2013):The “Iron Lady”Who Became First Woman Prime Minister of Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

By
\nJoseph R.Gregory<\/strong><\/p>\n

Margaret Thatcher, the \u201cIron Lady\u201d of British politics, who pulled her country back from 35 years of socialism, led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet Union through the Cold War\u2019s difficult last years, died Monday. She was 87. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother, Baroness Thatcher, died peacefully following a stroke this morning,\u201d a statement from her spokesman, Lord Tim Bell, said. She had been in poor health for months, and suffered from dementia. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mrs. Thatcher was the first woman to become prime minister of Britain and the first to lead a major Western power in modern times. Hard-driving and hard-headed, she led her Conservative Party to three straight election victories and held office for 11\/ years \u2014 May 1979 to November 1990 \u2014 longer than any other British politician in the 20th century. <\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron offered tributes to what Mr. Cameron called \u201ca great leader, a great prime minister, a great Briton.\u201d <\/p>\n

Buckingham Palace said the Queen was \u201csad to hear the news\u201d and would be sending a private message of sympathy to the family. <\/p>\n

A statement from the White House said that \u201cthe world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend.\u201d <\/p>\n

The tough economic medicine Mrs. Thatcher administered to a country sickened by inflation, budget deficits and industrial unrest brought her wide swings in popularity, culminating with a revolt among her own cabinet ministers in her final year and her shout of \u201cNo! No! No!\u201d in the House of Commons to any further integration with Europe. <\/p>\n

Thatcherism <\/p>\n

But by the time she left office, the principles known as Thatcherism \u2014 the belief that economic freedom and individual liberty are interdependent, that personal responsibility and hard work are the only ways to national prosperity, and that the free-market democracies must stand firm against aggression \u2014 had won many disciples. Even some of her strongest critics accorded her a grudging respect. <\/p>\n

At home, Mrs. Thatcher\u2019s political successes were decisive. She broke the power of the labour unions and forced the Labour Party to abandon its commitment to nationalised industry, redefine the role of the welfare state and accept the importance of the free market. <\/p>\n

Abroad, she won new esteem for a country that had been in decline since its costly victory in World War II. After leaving office, she was honoured as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. But during her first years in power, even many Tories feared that her election might prove a terrible mistake. <\/p>\n

In October 1980, 17 months into her first term, Mrs. Thatcher faced disaster. More businesses were failing and more people were out of work than at any time since the Great Depression. Racial and class tensions smouldered so ominously that even close advisers worried that her push to staunch inflation, sell off nationalised industry and deregulate the economy was devastating the poor, undermining the middle class and courting chaos. <\/p>\n

At the Conservative Party conference that month, the moderates grumbled that they were being led by a free-market ideologue oblivious to life on the street and the exigencies of realpolitik. With electoral defeat staring them in the face, cabinet members warned, now was surely a time for compromise. <\/p>\n

To Mrs. Thatcher, they could not be more wrong. \u201cI am not a consensus politician,\u201d she had often declared. \u201cI am a conviction politician.\u201d <\/p>\n

In an address to the party, she played on the title of Christopher Fry\u2019s popular play \u201cThe Lady\u2019s Not for Burning\u201d in insisting that she would press forward with her policies. \u201cTurn if you like,\u201d she told the faltering assembly. \u201cThe lady\u2019s not for turning.\u201d Her tough stance did the trick. A party revolt was thwarted, the Tories hunkered down, and Mrs. Thatcher went on to achieve great victories. She turned the Conservatives, long associated with the status quo, into the party of reform. Her policies revitalised British business, spurred industrial growth and swelled the middle class. <\/p>\n

But her third term was riddled with setbacks. Dissension over monetary policy, taxes and Britain\u2019s place in the European Community caused her government to give up hard-won gains against inflation and unemployment. By the time she was ousted in another Tory revolt \u2014 this time over her resistance to expanding Britain\u2019s role in a European Union \u2014 the economy was in a recession and her reputation tarnished. <\/p>\n

To her enemies she was \u2014 as Denis Healey, chancellor of the Exchequer in Harold Wilson\u2019s government, called her \u2014 \u201cLa Pasionaria of Privilege,\u201d a woman who railed against the evils of poverty but who was callous and unsympathetic to the plight of the have-nots. Her policies, her opponents said, were cruel and short-sighted, widened the gap between rich and poor and worsened the plight of the poorest. <\/p>\n

Relations with Russia <\/p>\n

Her relentless hostility to the Soviet Union and her persistent call to modernise Britain\u2019s nuclear forces fed fears of nuclear war and even worried moderates in her own party. It also caught the Kremlin\u2019s attention. After a hard-line speech in 1976, the official Soviet news agency Tass gave her a sobriquet of which she was proud: the Iron Lady. <\/p>\n

Yet when she saw an opening, she proved willing to bend. She was one of the first Western leaders to recognise that the Soviets would soon be led by a member of a new generation, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and invited him to Britain in December 1984, three months before he came to power. \u201cI like Mr. Gorbachev,\u201d she declared. \u201cWe can do business together.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her rapport with the new Soviet leader and her friendship with President Ronald Reagan made her a vital link between the White House and the Kremlin in their tense negotiations to halt the arms race of the 1980s. <\/p>\n

Brisk and argumentative, she was rarely willing to concede a point and loath to compromise. Colleagues who disagreed with her were often deluged in a sea of facts, or what many referred to as being \u201chandbagged.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cShe had high standards, and she expected everyone to do their work,\u201d John O\u2019Sullivan, a special adviser to the prime minister, recalled in 1999. \u201cBut there was a distinction. She was tougher on her ministers than she was on her personal staff. The more humble the position, the nicer she was.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite her being the first woman to lead a major political party in the West, she rubbed many feminists the wrong way. \u201cThe battle for women\u2019s rights has largely been won,\u201d she declared. \u201cI hate those strident tones we hear from some women\u2019s libbers.\u201d <\/p>\n

She relished being impolitic. \u201cYou don\u2019t follow the crowd,\u201d she often said. \u201cYou make up your own mind.\u201d <\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s arts and academic establishments loathed her for cutting their financing and considered her tastes provincial, her values narrow-minded. In 1985, two years into her second term, she was proposed for an honorary doctorate at Oxford, a laurel traditionally offered Prime Ministers who had attended the university, as she had. The proposal, after debate among the faculty, was rejected. <\/p>\n

Yet her popularity remained high. <\/p>\n

\u201cMargaret Thatcher evoked extreme feelings,\u201d wrote Ronald Millar, a playwright and speech writer for the Prime Minister. \u201cTo some she could do no right, to others no wrong. Indifference was not an option. She could stir almost physical hostility in normally rational people, while she inspired deathless devotion in others.\u201d \u2014 New York Times News Service <\/strong><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joseph R.Gregory Margaret Thatcher, the \u201cIron Lady\u201d of British politics, who pulled her country back from 35 years of socialism, led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet Union through the Cold War\u2019s difficult last years, died Monday. She was 87. \u201cIt is with great …<\/p>\n

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