Source: CBC News

Margaret Thatcher, one of the most important British politicians of the 20th century, has died at the age of 87. She was the first woman to become U.K. prime minister and Britain’s only prime minister of the 20th century to win three consecutive terms.

After leading the Conservatives to victory in the 1979 election, Thatcher shook Britain to its economic roots in a relentless battle to restructure the country.

Richard Longworth of the Chicago Tribune described Thatcher in 1989 as “perhaps the most admired, hated, fascinating, boring, radical and conservative leader in the western world.”

The next year she would be forced from office by her own party.
The mayor’s daughter

Born Margaret Hilda Roberts in Grantham, England in 1925 she was the second daughter of Alfred and Beatrice Roberts. Her father eventually owned two grocery stores (the family lived above one of them) and would become mayor of Grantham.

He had a huge influence on Margaret, as she observed when she became prime minister.

“Of course I just owe almost everything to my father. He brought me up to believe almost all the things I do believe.”

She graduated from Oxford in 1947 after majoring in chemistry. She was barred from joining the all-male Oxford Union debating society, so she joined Oxford’s conservative association and in 1946 became its first female president.

She ran for parliament in 1950, the youngest person seeking a seat. She lost — and lost again the next year.

At the end of 1951 she married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy, divorced businessman she met in 1949.

Since graduating, Margaret had been working as a research chemist. She returned to university and earned a law degree in 1953. A multi-tasker, she gave birth that year to twins and continued to be politically active.

After being called to the bar she specialized in patent law and then tax law, until 1961.
Elected to parliament on her third try

In 1959 she was elected as the MP from Finchley. Two years later Prime Minister Harold Macmillan named her parliamentary secretary to the minister of pensions and insurance.

From 1964 to 1970 the Labour Party governed and Thatcher held various portfolios in the opposition shadow cabinet.

When the Conservatives were back in power under Edward Heath, Thatcher was the secretary of state for education and science, the only woman in the cabinet. She got attention when she abolished a free milk program for school children, and was dubbed ‘Thatcher the milk snatcher’ by the Labour opposition.

Heath resigned as leader after losing the 1974 election and his successor was the first women to lead the Conservatives, Margaret Thatcher.

“I am not a consensus politician. I am a conviction politician,” Thatcher announced when she took over in 1975.
The Iron Lady

That kind of approach earned her the nickname the Iron Lady, which she wore proudly. That description originated in the Russian media after she harshly denounced Soviet expansionism and questioned the long-standing Western policy of detente with the Soviet Union in 1976.
Margaret Thatcher maintained a close relationship with then U.S. president Ronald Reagan. Margaret Thatcher maintained a close relationship with then U.S. president Ronald Reagan. (Associated Press)

Here’s an example of how she turned the nickname to her advantage in the 1979 election campaign, at a rally in Birmingham: “We took that risk in 1976 when we warned the nation of the growing dangers of Soviet expansion. And what happened? The Russians said that I was an Iron Lady. They were right. Britain needs an Iron Lady.”

Her campaign slogan was “Labour isn’t working,” a slogan that U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney borrowed for his own campaign in 2012, “Obama isn’t working.”

Two years before she took the reins as Conservative Party leader, Thatcher said on the BBC: “I don’t think there will be a woman prime minister in my lifetime.”

But after winning the May 3, 1979 election, Margaret Thatcher became prime minister the next day.

Her victory followed six weeks of public sector strikes known as the winter of discontent, which caused deep difficulties for the Labour government and eventually led to its fall.

Once in office Thatcher slashed the tax rates for the wealthiest Britons, increased the value-added tax (VAT), reduced government subsidies and began to sell off state-owned enterprises and public housing.

The number of unemployed quickly doubled.

“We shall not be diverted from our course,” she told the party conference in Brighton in 1980. She continued: “To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”

By March 1982, the Conservatives had fallen to third place in public opinion polls, with just a 22 per cent approval rating.
A bold decision to go to war

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