Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher (1925 - 2013) has died peacefully at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke today. Margaret Thatcher was suffering from Alzheimer's for several years.
Lady Thatcher was the Tory prime minister from 1979 to 1990 and the first woman to become the Prime Minister of UK (and till now the only one).
Margaret Thatcher actually challenged former prime minister Edward Heath for Conservative Party leadership in 1975, and became the Leader of the Opposition. She led the Tories to victory in the 1979 general elections and became the Prime Minister. She also won the subsequent 1983 and 1987 elections as Prime Minister. In 1990 an inner party struggle broke out and her attempts to control John Major who replaced her did not work out.
Lady Thatcher's government privatised several state-owned industries, and is credited with breaking the backs of several British Unions - including the then powerful Mining Union. She pulverized the Mining Unions riding on the back of victory over Argentina in the Falkland Islands War in 1982, with the famous quote about fighting the “enemies without, and more dangerous enemies within”.
Earlier, under Edward Heath in 1970, Margaret Thatcher was appointed the Education Secretary and she imposed public spending cuts on state education system - which led to the abolition of free milk for schoolchildren aged seven to eleven. That gave us the moniker Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.
She visited India in 1976 while in opposition at the invitation of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Thatcher did say that she did not see eye-to-eye on the emergency declared by Indira Gandhi. But she was so touched by a gesture of her host and prime minister. From her Memoirs "The Path to Power".
"I lunched with Indira Gandhi in her own modest home, where she insisted on seeing that her guests were all looked after, and clearing away the plates while discussing matters of high politics. But in spite of everything I found myself liking Mrs Gandhi herself."
Whatever our political leanings, here is to a formidable woman and a great leader!
(image courtesy Kevin Kallaugher for The Economist)
Lady Thatcher was the Tory prime minister from 1979 to 1990 and the first woman to become the Prime Minister of UK (and till now the only one).
Margaret Thatcher actually challenged former prime minister Edward Heath for Conservative Party leadership in 1975, and became the Leader of the Opposition. She led the Tories to victory in the 1979 general elections and became the Prime Minister. She also won the subsequent 1983 and 1987 elections as Prime Minister. In 1990 an inner party struggle broke out and her attempts to control John Major who replaced her did not work out.
Lady Thatcher's government privatised several state-owned industries, and is credited with breaking the backs of several British Unions - including the then powerful Mining Union. She pulverized the Mining Unions riding on the back of victory over Argentina in the Falkland Islands War in 1982, with the famous quote about fighting the “enemies without, and more dangerous enemies within”.
Earlier, under Edward Heath in 1970, Margaret Thatcher was appointed the Education Secretary and she imposed public spending cuts on state education system - which led to the abolition of free milk for schoolchildren aged seven to eleven. That gave us the moniker Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.
She visited India in 1976 while in opposition at the invitation of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Thatcher did say that she did not see eye-to-eye on the emergency declared by Indira Gandhi. But she was so touched by a gesture of her host and prime minister. From her Memoirs "The Path to Power".
"I lunched with Indira Gandhi in her own modest home, where she insisted on seeing that her guests were all looked after, and clearing away the plates while discussing matters of high politics. But in spite of everything I found myself liking Mrs Gandhi herself."
Whatever our political leanings, here is to a formidable woman and a great leader!
(image courtesy Kevin Kallaugher for The Economist)
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