Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was born on 13th October 1925, Lincolnshire, England.
She was a prominent and powerful leader of British Conservative Party and she was the Prime Minister of U.K. with effect from 1979 to 1990 (total 11 years).
She was the first woman Prime Minister of European region and the British Prime Minister in the 20th century to win three consecutive Prime Ministerial terms. She was also the longest serving Prime Minister of U.K. since 1827.
While she was studying Chemistry main subject from Oxford University, she joined in British Conservative party and she was the women wing leader of her party in Oxford University. She has continued her political activities after leaving from the Oxford University. Her Husband Denis Thatcher was always been supporting Thatcher while she was proceeding with her political activities for British Conservative party.
She has become a member of House of Commons in 1959 after winning the election from Finchley in Northern London. Gradually she has increased her political clout within the Conservative party circle and she started serving one post after another for Conservative party that are given below:-
- Parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (1961–64),
- Chief opposition spokesman on education (1969–70)
- Secretary of state for education and science (1970–74) in the Conservative government headed by Ted Heath.
- She was the second women to hold a cabinet portfolio in a Ted Heath lead Conservative government. Ted Heath served as a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with effect from 1970 to 1974.
Ever since Ted Heath lost the elections in 1974, no other leader was in the Conservative party to challenge Ted Heath rather than Margrat Thatcher. She has successfully challenged Ted Heath in a leadership battle of Conservative party and in February 1975 she was elected as a leader of Conservative party and that was the real turning point of her political life.
In 1979, under Margarat Thatcher’s able and efficient leadership, Conservative party won 339 seats in House of Commons and Thatcher became first ever female Prime Minister of United Kingdom. James Kallagam lead Labour party won only 269 seats.
During her first term prime ministerial tenure she commenced on an ambitious program of privatization of state-owned industries and public services, including Aerospace, Television and radio, gas and electricity, water, the state airline, and British Steel.
She tried her level best in revamping and accelerating British economy and her vehement efforts in this regard succeeded in a drastic manner.
Prior to Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister of U.K., she promised that she would to curb the power of the trade unions that had shown their ability to bring the country to a standstill during their six weeks long strikes in 1978–79 period.
Ever since she became Prime Minister of U.K. she started curtailing the power of trade unions. To achieve her goal, she enacted stringent law in the parliament that has helped her in effectively controlling the trade unions and their continuous strike, violence and destruction of public and private properties in U.K.
Under the new law, the trade union and it’s leaders are responsible and accountable for those Trade Union activists who are carrying out the damage of public and private properties during the strike period. Apart from the same, prior to declaring any strike in the country, trade union supposed to conduct an internal poll and they supposed to get majority votes from it’s members.
In 1984 Margaret Thatcher refused to meet the leaders of the trade union of mine workers who started nationwide strike to stop closing down of 20 unproductive coal mines in the country. The adamant Margaret Thatcher completely neglected their strike and she refused to meet any of it’s leaders for the mutual discussion to sort out the problems. Her adamant attitude towards the mine workers strike finally lost the steam and at the end miners returned to work without winning any single concession from the government.
Few Years after becoming Prime Minister of U.K., Margaret Thatcher realized that her popularity among the common public has reduced drastically due to raising of unemployment and wide spread social problems in U.K. and it was highly unlikely that she could win another election.
But her great success in winning the war against Argentina in 1982 over the control of Falkland islands immensely helped her party in winning 362 seats in the House of Commons that has paved the way she has come back to the power to a second term with thumping majority.
In 1984 Irish Republican Army has carried out a massive terrorist bombing attack at a Conservative Party Conference in Brighton that has caused killing of many senior members of Thatcher’s government and she narrowly escaped from the blast.
Margaret Thatcher’s third term was with many strain with setbacks. She faced dissension from her party over her tarnishing image, monetary policy, taxes, economic recession etc. On 22 November 1990 Thatcher resigned from the Prime Minister ship post and John Major became Prime Minister of U.K.
Margaret Thatcher was the main instrumental in changing the face of British economy. She has immensely helped western nations to winning the cold war. Considering her daring policy decisions and her iron willed capacity to implement the same was the main reason to call her as an “Iron Lady”.