Nicknamed the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher (1925–) was the first woman prime minister of the United Kingdom and an icon of conservative politics in the late twentieth century. An ideological ally of US president Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), she urged a hard-line stance against the Soviet Union, privatized government-owned industries in the United Kingdom, and waged a long battle with trade unions over the fundamental economic direction of her country.
Thatcher was born into a middle-class family in Grantham, Lincolnshire, where her father was a grocer. She graduated from Oxford with a degree in chemistry, then briefly worked for a plastics firm. In 1951, she married Denis Thatcher (1915–2003), a businessman and World War II artillery veteran; the couple had two children.
She ran for Parliament as a Conservative in 1950. Thatcher lost her first two campaigns by wide margins. She was finally elected in 1959 and quickly rose through the party’s ranks. She became the party’s leader in 1975, putting her in line for the premiership in the 1979 general election.
The election took place against a backdrop of high inflation, high interest rates, and high unemployment. Blaming the nation’s woes on the socialist policies of the Labour Party, Thatcher promised to make sweeping changes in Britain’s economic system by lowering taxes, promoting entrepreneurship, and breaking unions.
While in office, Thatcher acquired a reputation for an uncompromising, sometimes imperious style of governing. But she was reelected by a landslide in 1983 and again in 1987 by a comfortable margin. In addition to her economic reforms, Thatcher won a brief war against Argentina in 1982 to reclaim the Falkland Islands, a tiny, British-owned archipelago in the South Atlantic.
Thatcher was deposed by the Conservatives in 1990 over differences about leadership style and European policy. The Labour Party won control of Parliament in 1997, but retained many of Thatcher’s reforms. Opinion polls show she ranks as one of the most respected British leaders of the twentieth century.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Thatcher’s term as prime minister—eleven years and 209 days—was the longest since the Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828), who held the office from 1812 to 1827.
- Queen Elizabeth II (1926–) is reputed to have had a frosty personal relationship with Thatcher. However, after Thatcher left office, the queen elevated her to the House of Lords.
- Thatcher’s son, Mark, was arrested in South Africa in 2004 and charged with funding a coup to overthrow the government of the oil-rich African nation of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. He pleaded guilty, was given a suspended sentence, and returned to the United Kingdom.
