Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, dubbed the “Iron Lady” who shaped a generation of British politics, died following a stroke Monday at the age of 87. The former Conservative Party leader remains the only female premier in British history and was the 20th century's longest continuous occupant of Downing Street. The former premier, who led Britain from 1979 to 1990, suffered from dementia and appeared rarely in public in recent years. Behind the bouffant hair, trademark handbag and headmistress accent and tone was an uncompromising social conservative who regularly cut her male colleagues and opponents down to size with a sharp tongue and even sharper political mind. Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron led tributes to Thatcher, a key figure in the latter stages of the Cold War. Cameron cut short a trip to Europe, one of Thatcher's bugbears, following the death of the former premier. Michael Howard, Conservative leader from 2003-2005, told Sky News television: “She was a titan in British politics. I believe she saved the country, she transformed our economy and I believe she will go down in history as one of our very greatest prime ministers.” Not everyone would agree. Outside of the narrow Thatcherite wing of the Conservative Party, in her political lifetime Thatcher was often regarded as a liability rather than an asset. And beyond Westminster, she polarised the country, and was reviled by the youth. Accused of dismantling traditional industry, breaking the labour movement, unpicking the fabric of society while imposing a socially conservative vision of the family, Thatcher was also regarded as a right-wing popularist who played upon prejudice. On the world stage, she built a “special relationship” with US president Ronald Reagan that helped bring down Soviet communism. She went to war with Argentina over a group of islands deep in the South Atlantic over which Britain claims sovereignty. She fiercely opposed closer ties with Europe, especially the single currency. And she backed Chile's Pinochet, and South African Apartheid. Her enduring legacy can be summed up as “Thatcherism” — a set of policies supporters say pulled Britain from the doldrums of socialist failures, but that critics charge as exploding society and deepening class divisions. The abiding images of her premiership will remain those of conflict: fierce police confrontations with miners, her riding a tank in a white headscarf, and the near death experience of the bombing in Brighton that targeted the hotel in which she, and the Conservative Party leadership, were staying. To those who opposed her she was blunt: “The lady's not for turning.” To those who gained her favour, she was loyal. In turn, she was the gateway through which a generation of right-leaning politicians entered the political scene. Her right-wing views broke the mould of British politics, changing the status quo so profoundly that even subsequent Labour governments accepted many of her policies. Leading a liberal revival, Thatcher alongside Reagan championed market-oriented political economy, including “privatisation” and the deregulation of financial markets. “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money,” she once said. Founded on competition, private enterprise, thrift and self-reliance, her personal credo helped break the welfare state and move Britain from being an industrial to a service-based society. Her tough economic medicine put millions out of work, alienated a generation, and galvanised the youth, but it was her isolationism when it came to Europe that led to her downfall. One of her closest allies, Geoffrey Howe, resigned in 1990 with a devastating speech that painted Thatcher's fierce Euroscepticism as a threat to the country. She faced a leadership challenge soon afterwards and quit after failing to receive the expected level of support, to be replaced by her chancellor, John Major. After a tearful departure from Downing Street, she was appointed to the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. “A brilliant tyrant surrounded by mediocrities,” was how former premier Harold Macmillan described her. “That bloody woman,” was the less charitable verdict of Edward Heath, another prime minister and her predecessor as Conservative Party leader. In recent years, her public appearances became increasingly scarce as her health deteriorated. She was forced to miss a planned 85th birthday party at Downing Street. Thatcher did, however, live long enough to see another Conservative, David Cameron, return to Downing Street after a gap of 13 years — albeit as head of a coalition government. Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on 13 October 1925 in the market town of Grantham. The daughter of a grocer, after grammar school and a degree in chemistry at Oxford University, she married businessman Denis in 1951 and two years later had twins, Carol and Mark. She was first elected to the House of Commons in 1959 and succeeded former prime minister Edward Heath as opposition Conservative leader in 1975 before becoming premier four years later. Compiled from news agencies
