Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Conservative Party leader for 15 years, Margaret Hilda Thatcher (born 1925) became the first female prime minister of Great Britain and served in that post from 1979 to 1990, longer than any other British prime minister in the 20th century.

Margaret Thatcher was born to grocery shop keepers in the small railroad equipment manufacturing town of Grantham. Alfred and Beatrice, her parents, were hard workers and careful savers, living over their shop and taking separate vacations so that the grocery would not be left unattended. Her father co-founded the Grantham Rotary Club, became president of the town Grocers' Association, local head of the National Savings Movement, and a member of both the boys' and girls' schools of Grantham. He served for 25 years on the Borough Council, beginning in 1927, and became chairman of its finance committee. For nine years, he was a town alderman, and became the mayor in 1943, as well as a justice of the peace at quarter sessions. He was also a Methodist lay preacher. Beatrice kept the house, sewed, baked, and helped to run the store. Thatcher's childhood family life revolved around the Methodist church, attending services three times a week, saying grace before every meal, and strictly observing the Sabbath. From age five to fifteen, Thatcher took piano lessons and sang in the church choir.

In October 1943, Thatcher was admitted to Somerville College to study chemistry at Oxford. After winning a second-class degree, Thatcher found employment as a research chemist. In 1950 and 1951, she studied to become a barrister and ran as the Conservative candidate in industrial Dartford in North Kent. During this campaign she met Denis Thatcher, who managed his family's company in North Kent. The two were married on December 13, 1951 and became the parents of twins, Mark and Carol, in August 1953.

Political Life

Thatcher became the youngest woman in the House of Commons in 1959, at the age of 34. She became known for sticking to her deeply felt, but unpopular beliefs which included quality, standards, and choice in education, for equal opportunity, and for aligning universities with industry. Thatcher ran against Ted Heath in 1975, winning the second ballot to lead the Conservatives with 146 votes. She became prime minister in May 1979, when the Conservatives won the majority of seats. In June 1987, her Conservative Party won its third consecutive general election victory. Thatcher appeared likely to continue as prime minister for many years. In the election, she had turned back a strong challenge from the Labour Party by renewing her commitment to conviction politics. She had boasted of the economic successes of her two previous governments as well as her strong foreign and defense policies. Yet Thatcher's third term was to be her least productive. With public opinion turning decisively against her, she was forced to resign from office in November 1990 after a struggle for leadership within the Conservative Party. She was succeeded by John Major, the chancellor of the exchequer since October 1989, who was a supporter of her policies.

Thatcher's third term was marked by controversy from the outset. She pursued a radical conservative agenda, in line with her earlier policies. Her aim was to promote individualism through a further dismantling of state controls. Before 1987 several key industries and public utilities had been transferred to private ownership, including the telephone system, the ports, British Gas, and British Airways. Thatcher continued this policy of privatization, notably in two key areas: water and electricity. Legislation was passed setting up private companies and selling stock in them to the public. This had the double advantage of producing short-term financial gains for the government and helping to create what Thatcher referred to as a property-owning democracy.

Similarly, the sale of council houses to their tenants, begun in 1980, proved to be a controversial if popular measure. By 1988 nearly one million municipal properties were in private hands. The private ownership of homes in Britain was about 70 percent in 1990, one of the highest figures in the world.

Thatcher's government also initiated dramatic changes in the National Health Service, established in 1948. Thatcher favored a significant increase in private medical care and insurance to complement the state-run system. Some of her plans had to be modified, but a major reorganization of the N.H.S. was commenced in 1989 after the publication of a White Paper at the beginning of the year. Market principles were introduced into the N.H.S. Family doctors were given control over their budgets and hospitals were encouraged to opt out of local health authority administration.

Similar market provisions were introduced into state education. Schools were given the power to free themselves from local authority control and to make budgetary decisions, while a national curriculum was developed. The principle of free higher education was virtually abandoned, with universities being encouraged to seek private support. While local authorities continued to provide mandatory stipends to university students, a system of supplementary loans, based on American ideas, was adopted.

Thatcher likewise sought to reduce monopoly control of the professions. Legal reforms were initiated with the intent of lessening the traditional division of functions between solicitors and barristers. Solicitors previously had lost their exclusive power to conduct real estate transactions. Further legislation gave them the right to try cases in the higher courts along with barristers.

The reform that turned public opinion against Thatcher and ultimately led to her downfall was the introduction of the poll tax, or community charge, in 1988. This tax was levied on individuals in a particular district at the same rate, although rebates were available for the poor. It was intended to replace property taxes, hitherto the mainstay of local finance. Since local councils determined the rate of the tax, Thatcher believed that voters would repudiate the higher-spending councils dominated by the Labour Party. There were violent demonstrations against the poll tax in London and other cities, and opposition to it developed within the Conservative Party itself. Major, the new prime minister in 1990, promised to take steps to make the tax more equitable.

Thatcher's economic policies also began to fail during her third term. Her chief successes had been a significant reduction in income tax and a lessening of inflation, from more than 21 percent annually in 1980 to under 3 percent in 1986. However, inflation began to increase again, and by 1990 it had exceeded 10 percent. When combined with a persistently high level of unemployment and a severe downturn in the balance of payments, the economic gains of the Thatcher era began to be called into question. Her solution of attacking inflation by maintaining high interest rates only made matters worse for ordinary people because it increased their monthly mortgage payments.

Opposition to European Integration

The immediate issue that brought about Thatcher's resignation as prime minister was her unyielding opposition to European integration. Britain had joined the European Community in 1973 when Edward Heath was prime minister. Although Thatcher supported integration at the time, in subsequent years she turned down every proposal that seemed to bring the concept of a federal Europe closer to reality. She aligned her foreign policy with Washington rather than Europe in the belief that a special relationship existed with the United States. In economic matters, she firmly rejected proposals for a single European currency.

Thatcher's "Little England" feelings towards Europe antagonized many voters, including a large number of Conservatives. Three leading politicians in her party resigned from office over matters related to Europe: Michael Heseltine, her defense minister, in 1986; Nigel Lawson, the chancellor of the exchequer, in 1989; and Geoffrey Howe, the deputy leader of the party, in November 1990. It was Howe's resignation that produced the leadership crisis and Major's emergence as prime minister. The issue of European integration was closely related to Thatcher's other policies. Once again she championed individual sovereignty, while arguing vehemently against the encroaching bureaucratization of government.

Thatcher's 11½ years as prime minister were remarkable. She held office longer than any other prime minister in the 20th century. She impressed her vision upon Britain in a distinctive way, making the word "Thatcherism" a part of that nation's political vocabulary. By her attacks upon central government and the welfare state she undermined a political consensus that had existed since the 1950s. She helped to invigorate the economy, particularly by encouraging small businesses to develop. She challenged powerful institutions and brought about necessary reforms in industrial relations.

Yet the case against Thatcher is a strong one. She was a divisive leader, as on the issues of the poll tax and European integration. Her strident attitudes on social issues upset many people. Economic inequality increased under Thatcher, as did homelessness, and many social services deteriorated. She was accused of weakening basic civil liberties. Her foreign policy, though defined by a spectacular victory over Argentina in the Falklands War in 1982, was marked by Cold War rhetoric which seemed increasingly outdated by her third term in office. Ironically, the Soviet Union gave Thatcher the nickname she was best known by: the Iron Lady. She was proud of it, and her policies, though controversial, reflect a determination and consistency of vision that few political leaders can hope to equal.

In the month following the Thatcher resignation Queen Elizabeth II appointed the former prime minister a member of the Order of Merit, one of only 24 members (a vacancy occurred with the 1989 death of Laurence Olivier). The new Lady Thatcher's husband, Denis, received a baronetry (to become Sir Denis). A second honor came March 7, 1991, when Thatcher received the U.S. Medal of Freedom from President Bush. Although she was no longer prime minister, Thatcher remained politically active. She became president of the Bruges Group of British lawmakers opposed to a full political union with Europe, as well as of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, designed to help bring order to the world.

On June 28, 1991, Thatcher wound up 32 years of a legislative career by announcing she would not seek to retain her seat in the House of Commons at the next election (which was called in July 1992). She had been MP for Barnet, Finchley, two suburbs northwest of London. She has remained active with lectures and appearances over the entire world, and somehow found the time to write her memoirs.

Further Reading

Margaret Thatcher wrote her memoirs in two volumes: The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995). Two previous biographies of Thatcher are particularly worthwhile: Kenneth Harris, Thatcher (1988), and Hugo Young, The Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher 1989; (published in Britain under the title One of Us). Both books are by journalists who offer balanced, if critical, accounts of the Thatcher years. A number of recent studies focus on the events of the Thatcher era rather than her personality. The best of these is Thatcherism and British Politics: The End of Consensus?, 2nd edition (1990), by Dennis A. Kavanagh. More sympathetic to Thatcher than Kavanagh's volume is The Thatcher Decade: How Britain Has Changed During the 1980s by Peter Riddell (1989). Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon have edited a stimulating collection of essays titled The Thatcher Effect (1989), which includes contributions by leading scholars and journalists. Yet another perceptive work is Mrs. Thatcher's Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era (1987) by Peter Jenkins, who maintains that Thatcher destroyed the political order prevailing in Britain since the late 1950s. The so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States is ably covered by Geoffrey Smith in Reagan and Thatcher (1991). Thatcher's press secretary and long-time retainer, Bernard Ingham, gives a favorable account of Thatcher in his memoir Kill the Messenger (1991). □

Thatcher, Margaret Hilda, Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire (née Roberts) (b. 13 Oct. 1925). British Prime Minister 1979–90 Born in Grantham (Lincolnshire), she was educated at Kesteven and Grantham Girls School, and at Oxford, where she studied chemistry. She was then a research chemist, and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as Conservative candidate for Dartford in 1950 and 1951. She married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman, in 1951, and having studied law, was called to the Bar in 1954. In 1959, she was elected to Parliament for Finchley and, in 1961, became Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. After taking a prominent role in opposition (1964–70), she served under Heath as Secretary of State for Education. By late 1974, when Heath had lost his third election, she was still relatively unknown. In the leadership contest of 1975 she was the only serious challenger to Heath and, after a surprising success in the first ballot, gathered so much momentum as to achieve an overall majority in the second. The manner of her election meant that she had to be careful in her first years of opposition to conciliate many leading figures in the party who had been her seniors before 1975. However, her increasing conviction that Britain needed a radical policy overhaul to establish free and private enterprise liberated from government and trade-union interference struck a chord during the strike waves of 1978–9, which became known in popular memory as the ‘winter of discontent’.

She won the 1979 elections through her uncompromising twin message that the Labour Party was the party of government intervention, and that it had become a hostage to trade union power. In office, she broke with postwar Conservative policy to realize economic policies of monetarism. The effects of the prevalent world depression caused by the 1979 oil price shock were exacerbated through drastic reductions in state spending, and a policy of high interest rates to reduce inflation, the new number one target of economic policy. The record of her economic achievements was mixed. She did drastically reduce inflation, as well as public debt. During the 1980s, economic fortunes improved, and unemployment recovered from its high levels of 1979–81. However, inflation decreased not only in Britain, but in all industrialized countries, and Britain's inflation rate remained among the highest in Western Europe. It is also unclear to what extent the economic recovery of the 1980s was the result of her policies, and to what extent it was the consequence of a decline in commodity prices which affected all other countries as well. At any rate, her claim to have improved long-term British economic prospects were belied by the recession which set in in 1989, which was even worse than that of 1979–81, and underpinned her eventual fall from power.

Apart from directing economic policy, she lost no time in pursuing her second major preoccupation, the reduction of trade-union power. She exploited the unions' inevitable weakness during the 1979–82 depression to pass legislation making trade unions more democratic in their decision-making, and more responsive to their members' wishes. Her battle against the trade unions climaxed in 1984–5, when she stood firm and eventually overcame the eleven month-long miners' strike. It was a decisive victory over the trade-union movement and its hitherto excessive power, albeit achieved at an enormous social cost. Furthermore, it is arguable that, in line with the rest of the world, trade-union power and membership declined more owing to the difficult economic circumstances of high unemployment and job insecurity during the 1980s and 1990s, than in response to any of her anti-union legislation.

The initial unpopularity of her government was reversed as the ‘iron lady’ reclaimed the Falklands Islands from Argentine occupation in the Falklands War of 1982. In consequence, she won the 1983 elections with a record majority. In foreign policy, her close relationship with US Presidents Reagan and Bush gave her enormous clout, which ensured that her reputation abroad eventually exceeded her rather more controversial image in Britain. Again, her record is mixed. Her pragmatic and pioneering insight in 1984 that Gorbachev was a man one ‘could do business with’ stood in sharp contrast to her great reluctance to accept the inevitability of German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. Her undoubted hostility to European integration was also compromised by her eventual acquiescence to the signing of the Single European Act in 1986.

Her longevity despite the ambiguous success of her policies stemmed from three basic factors. First, she created a rhetoric in which her strong leadership was portrayed as successful, while the Labour Party would continue to be wedded to socialism and trade unionism regardless of its party reforms under Kinnock.

Second, she was extraordinarily fortunate in the foundation of the Social Democratic Party in 1981, which throughout the 1980s split the opposition between two almost equal camps: thus she was able to gain record parliamentary majorities despite gaining less than 45 per cent of the popular vote.

Third, she had a shrewd appreciation of the needs of the Conservative political constituency and ways to expand it. For example, the Housing Act of 1980 gave council tenants the right to buy their houses or flats, and about half a million properties were sold in 1979–83. As new homeowners, these people had effectively received a social promotion, and were now keen to underline their new status as ‘middle class’ by switching their allegiance from Labour to Conservative. Her programme of large-scale privatization had a similar effect of strengthening her middle-class constituency, through their purchase of cheap shares, which increased government revenue. But perhaps the best example in this respect is her policy of taxation. Although the total tax burden increased during her time in power, direct taxation fell, which enhanced her tax-cutting image among her middle-and upper-income constituency. The consequent increase in indirect taxation hit the poorest sections of society particularly hard, but these would have been unlikely to vote Conservative anyway.

Despite her record victories at three successive elections, by 1989 she increasingly lost her political touch, notably by failing to appreciate the unpopularity of the poll tax. It seemed unlikely that she could win another victory against a rejuvenated Labour Party, and her obstinate opposition to the European Community was increasingly at odds with her senior Cabinet colleagues. Challenged by the charismatic Michael Heseltine, himself an earlier casualty of her iron control over the Cabinet, she narrowly failed to win a sufficient majority in the first round of the 1990 leadership elections and resigned (perhaps a little rashly), taking into account the not altogether selfless advice of her senior Cabinet colleagues such as John Major. Adorned by the rank-and-file in the Conservative Party, her frequent political criticism of her successor and her increasingly hostile stance on the EU compounded the difficulties of the Conservatives in the 1990s to find consistent policies.

Thatcher, Margaret (b. 1925). Prime minister. Britain's first woman prime minister and one of the most controversial, she won three resounding election victories in a row for the Conservatives (1979, 1983, and 1987), before they rejected her as party leader and premier in 1990, a ruthless act of political ingratitude.

Mrs Thatcher was educated at Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School and Somerville College, Oxford, and entered Parliament in 1959. Beforehand she had been a research chemist (1947–54) and a lawyer (she was called to the bar in 1954). Between 1970 and 1974 she was secretary of state for education, a position in which she earned the sobriquet of ‘ Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher’ for abolishing the free supply of milk to schoolchildren. This was mild compared to the abuse she endured later.

As leader of the opposition, between 1975 and 1979, she repudiated the legacy of her predecessor as Tory leader, Edward Heath, and, under the influence of Sir Keith Joseph, a former colleague in Heath's cabinet, moved towards that ideal of political patriotism, low taxes, private ownership, balanced budgets, and individual initiative which later became known as Thatcherism. However, if the goal was financial stability, permanently low inflation, reduced government spending, and lower taxes, it proved illusory. Her record as prime minister began and ended with severe recessions (the worst since the 1930s) leading to a reduced industrial base and very low overall growth rates. She failed to reverse Britain's relative decline, although for a few years, until Nigel Lawson and John Major threw it away, it looked as if she had established the right conditions for doing so. The trade unions were tamed; Arthur Scargill's miners went down to defeat after a year-long strike aimed at overthrowing the government; most state-owned companies were privatized; and income tax was significantly lowered. However, rising indirect taxes, rising interest rates, rising inflation, plus the introduction of the hugely unpopular poll tax, meant that when a crisis erupted over Europe in 1990, Mrs Thatcher lacked the political support needed to survive.

Just as she had not been expected to win the Tory Party leadership in 1975, her rapid rise to international fame took many by surprise. There had been little in her record to suggest that she had any talent for diplomacy, yet from the start of her premiership, she made her mark in international affairs. In 1979 a peace settlement was negotiated at Lancaster House which ended the Rhodesian question and paved the way for an independent Zimbabwe. Such a settlement had eluded international negotiators since 1965, although it must be conceded that events in Africa, plus Lord Carrington's diplomacy, had more to do with the success than Mrs Thatcher's personal input. Her own triumph, which made her an international celebrity, came with victory over Argentina in the Falklands War of 1982, when, having been taken by surprise by the Argentine invasion (Carrington resigned), Mrs Thatcher dispatched a battle fleet to the South Atlantic, which recaptured the colony. The bravery and efficiency displayed by the armed forces, the collapse of the reactionary Argentine dictatorship, and the leadership provided by the prime minister, enabled Mrs Thatcher to win a remarkable triumph in the 1983 general election. Thereafter she developed a ‘very, very special relationship’ with the US president, Ronald Reagan, and despite some differences (the Soviet oil pipeline, Grenada, nuclear disarmament) worked very closely with him to end the Cold War. She also managed to develop a close relationship with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, of whom she remarked, after they first met: ‘That is a man I can do business with.’ British contacts with eastern Europe intensified and Gorbachev, like western leaders, used Mrs Thatcher as an intermediary with President Reagan. When she finally visited Moscow, she received a triumphal welcome. Other aspects of her diplomacy were more controversial. These included the Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985, the joint agreement with Peking over the future of Hong Kong (1984), her resistance to economic sanctions against South Africa, and the scepticism with which she greeted the prospect of German re-unification.

Her policy towards the European Community was, however, most controversial of all. Her first instincts had been conventional. She had campaigned enthusiastically for a Yes vote in the 1975 referendum and always believed that her approach was constructive. She helped achieve closer co-operation on foreign policy, and the Single European Act which was signed in 1986 received her full backing as a means of extending Thatcherite free enterprise across a European single market, despite the concessions involved to majority voting. On the other hand, she had had to battle mightily in order to secure the annual British rebates agreed on in the Fontainebleau accord (1984) and was horrified by Jacques Delors's ideas regarding a European Social Charter, and even more so by European economic and monetary union. In her famous Bruges speech (1988), she declared her opposition to future integration, although she was persuaded by her cabinet colleagues Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson to promise to enter the exchange rate mechanism, a move which came under John Major as chancellor and which proved a disaster. By 1990, however, after having rejected economic and monetary union at a summit in Rome, she was deserted by Sir Geoffrey Howe, who, bitter at having been dismissed as foreign secretary, and fearful lest his long-standing federalism be rendered futile, resigned from her government and challenged Michael Heseltine to contest the party leadership. In the ensuing contest, Mrs Thatcher won the first round, but was deserted by her cabinet—over whom she had never exercised full control and who were weary of her autocratic style—and withdrew from the leadership race. She was succeeded by John Major as Tory leader.

She was accused by many of having broken with the post-war consensus in British politics and, indeed, she herself regularly denounced the concept. In fact, she had responded to a changing consensus and had influenced that change by her personality and policies. The high unemployment of her years in power had not been intended. The welfare state had grown under her as never before. Her defence and foreign policies had been totally conventional. She had made no constitutional innovations and had if anything been slow to dismiss her cabinet critics. Privatization had proved popular. So too had trade union reform. In the end she contributed to her own undoing by retaining key ministers whose policies, priorities, and philosophies were fundamentally different from her own. In this sense, the Iron Lady proved an unexpectedly weak prime minister.

Andrew Sanders

Bibliography

Campbell, J. , Margaret Thatcher (2000);
Harris, K. , Thatcher (1988).

Thatcher, Margaret (b. 1925). Prime minister. Britain's first woman prime minister and one of the most controversial, she won three resounding election victories in a row for the Conservatives (1979, 1983, and 1987), before they rejected her as party leader and premier in 1990, a ruthless act of political ingratitude. Educated at Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School and Somerville College, Oxford, she entered Parliament in 1959. Beforehand she had been a research chemist (1947–54) and a lawyer (she was called to the bar in 1954). Between 1970 and 1974 she was secretary of state for education. As leader of the opposition, between 1975 and 1979, under the influence of Sir Keith Joseph, she moved towards that ideal of political patriotism, low taxes, private ownership, balanced budgets, and individual initiative which later became known as Thatcherism. However, if the goal was financial stability, permanently low inflation, reduced government spending, and lower taxes, it proved illusory. Her record as prime minister began and ended with severe recessions (the worst since the 1930s) leading to a reduced industrial base and low overall growth rates. The trade unions were tamed; most state‐owned companies were privatized; and income tax was significantly lowered. However, rising indirect taxes, rising interest rates, rising inflation, plus the introduction of the hugely unpopular poll tax meant that when a crisis erupted over Europe in 1990, Mrs Thatcher lacked the political support needed to survive.

Just as she had not been expected to win the Tory Party leadership against Heath in 1975, her rapid rise to international fame took many by surprise. From the start of her premiership, she made her mark in international affairs. In 1979 a peace settlement was negotiated at Lancaster House which ended the Rhodesian question and paved the way for an independent Zimbabwe. Her next triumph, which made her an international celebrity, came with victory over Argentina in the Falklands War of 1982. The bravery and efficiency displayed by the armed forces, the collapse of the reactionary Argentine dictatorship, and the leadership provided by the prime minister, all enabled Mrs Thatcher to win a remarkable triumph in the 1983 general election. Thereafter she developed a ‘very, very special relationship’ with the US president, Ronald Reagan, and despite some differences worked closely with him to end the Cold War. She also managed to develop a close relationship with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. When she finally visited Moscow, she received a triumphal welcome.

Her policy towards the European Community was, however, most controversial of all. Her first instincts had been conventional. She had campaigned enthusiastically for a Yes vote in the 1975 referendum and always believed that her approach was constructive. On the other hand, she was horrified by Jacques Delors's ideas regarding a European Social Charter, and even more so by European economic and monetary union. In her famous Bruges speech (1988), she declared her opposition to future integration, although she was persuaded by her cabinet colleagues Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson to promise to enter the exchange rate mechanism. By 1990, however, after having rejected economic and monetary union at a summit in Rome, she was deserted by Sir Geoffrey Howe, who resigned from her government and challenged Michael Heseltine to contest the party leadership. In the ensuing contest, Mrs Thatcher won the first round, but withdrew from the leadership race, rather than submit to a second ballot. She was succeeded by John Major as Tory leader.

Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher Thatcher, Baroness 1925–, British political leader. Great Britain's first woman prime minister, Thatcher served longer than any other British prime minister in the 20th cent. In office she initiated what became known as the "Thatcher Revolution," a series of social and economic changes that dismantled many aspects of Britain's postwar welfare state.

Thatcher studied chemistry at Oxford and later became a lawyer. Elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1959, she held junior ministerial posts (1961–64) before serving (1970–74) as secretary of state for education and science in Edward Heath 's cabinet. After two defeats in general elections, the Conservative party elected her its first woman leader in 1975.

After leading the Conservatives to an electoral victory in 1979, Thatcher became prime minister. She had pledged to reduce the influence of the trade unions and combat inflation, and her economic policy rested on the introduction of broad changes along free-market lines. She attacked inflation by controlling the money supply and sharply reduced government spending and taxes for higher-income individuals. Although unemployment continued to rise to postwar highs, the declining economic output was reversed. In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands , a British colony, Britain's successful prosecution of the subsequent war contributed to the Conservatives' win at the polls in 1983.

Thatcher's second government privatized national industries and utilities, including British Gas and British Telecommunications. Her antiunion policies forced coal miners to return to work after a year on strike. In foreign affairs, Thatcher was a close ally of President Ronald Reagan and shared his antipathy to Communism. She allowed the United States to station (1980) nuclear cruise missiles in Britain and to use its air bases to bomb Libya in 1986. She forged (1985) a historic accord with Ireland, giving it a consulting role in governing Northern Ireland.

In 1987 Thatcher led the Conservatives to a third consecutive electoral victory, although with a reduced majority. She proposed free-market changes to the national health and education systems and introduced a controversial per capita "poll tax" to pay for local government, which fueled criticisms that she had no compassion for the poor. Her refusal to support a common European currency and integrated economic policies led to the resignation of her treasury minister in 1989 and her deputy prime minister in 1990.

Disputes over the poll tax, which took effect in 1990, and over European integration led to a leadership challenge (1990) from within her party. She resigned as prime minister, and John Major emerged as her successor. In 1992 Thatcher retired from the House of Commons and was created Baroness Thatcher. In the mid-1990s Thatcher was publicly critical of Major's more moderate policies, and she has continued to criticize publicly Conservative and Labour positions she disagrees with.

Bibliography: See her memoirs, The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995), and her collected speeches in The Revival of Britain, compiled by A. Cooke (1989); studies by R. Lewis (1984), P. Jenkins (1987), and H. Young (1989).

Thatcher, Margaret Hilda, Baroness (1925– ) British stateswoman, prime minister (1979–90). She was perhaps the most influential British political leader since Churchill. Thatcher was Secretary of State for education and science (1970–74) under Edward Heath, whom she succeeded as Conservative Party leader in 1975. In 1979, she defeated James Callaghan to become Britain's first woman Prime Minister. Her government embarked on a radical free-market programme that became known as ‘Thatcherism’. Her monetarist policies, especially cuts in public spending, provoked criticism and contributed to a recession, but her popularity was restored by victory in the Falklands War (1982). Thatcher's determination to curb the power of trade unions provoked a bitter miners' strike (1983–84). Controversial privatization of national utilities boosted government revenue in a period of rapidly rising incomes, except among the poor. In 1987, Thatcher won a third term, but clashed with cabinet colleagues over economic and social policy, and her hostile attitude to the European Union (EU). A poll tax (1989) was widely seen as unfair, and she was forced to resign. John Major succeeded her as prime minister.

http://www.margaretthatcher.com; http://www.number-10.gov.uk

Thatcher, Margaret (Hilda), Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven (1925– ) British Conservative stateswoman, Prime Minister (1979–90). She became Conservative Party leader in 1975 and in 1979 was elected the country's first woman Prime Minister; she went on to become the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century. Her period in office was marked by an emphasis on monetarist policies and free enterprise, privatization of nationalized industries, and legislation to restrict the powers of trade unions. In international affairs she was a strong supporter of the policies of President Reagan. She was well known for determination and resolve (she had been dubbed ‘the Iron Lady’ as early as 1976), especially in her handling of the Falklands War of 1982. She resigned after a leadership challenge and was created a life peer in 1992.