Britain’s only female Prime Minister

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(by Leonard Green, New York Post) – Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first and only woman prime minister and President Ronald Reagan’s fierce partner in a Cold War showdown against communism, died Monday. She was 87. …

Thatcher served from 1975 to 1990 as the…leader of the Conservative Party in Britain’s Parliament, where she gained a worldwide reputation for personal and political toughness.

“We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton,” said Prime Minister David Cameron. “Margaret Thatcher didn’t just lead our country – she saved our country.

“Margaret Thatcher took a country that was on its knees and made Britain stand tall again.”

Union Jack [British] flags flew at half staff over Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street.

Thatcher, credited with leading a decade of political and economic change in Britain, will be given a full ceremonial funeral with honors on April 17 or 18 at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, officials said.

The ceremony will be similar to the funeral held for Princess Diana, although it is a step short of the full state funeral of the kind accorded to monarchs and World War II PM Winston Churchill.

President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Washington, D.C. on November 16, 1988.

“The Queen was sad to hear the news of the death of Baroness Thatcher,” a statement from Buckingham Palace said. “Her Majesty will be sending a private message of sympathy to the family.”

Thatcher got the nickname “The Iron Lady” from the Soviet Army newspaper Red Star after she criticized Moscow in a 1976 speech for being bent on world domination.

It was a moniker that Thatcher seemed to cherish. “If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you,” she told an interviewer.

Known worldwide, …Thatcher ushered in a new era in a nation that featured a strong queen, but had never elected a female prime minister before she took office in 1979.

Among her many…accomplishments were free-market capitalism, a strong military defense and her shoulder-to-shoulder stance with President Ronald Reagan in the face of Soviet aggression.

But her brightest hour may have come on April 2, 1982, when she decided to send British forces to the Falkland Islands after Argentina invaded.

After a bloody, 74-day war, the outpost was recaptured and the Thatcher legacy was born.

By the time she left office in 1990 after three consecutive terms, she was Britain’s longest-serving prime minister and its most recognizable leader after Churchill. …

Written by Leonard Greene from wire reports. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from The New York Post.

Questions

1. Between what years did Margaret Thatcher serve as prime minister of Great Britain?

2. What was significant about Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as prime minister?

3. What was Prime Minister Thatcher’s nickname – how did she acquire it?

4. List Mrs. Thatcher’s accomplishments mentioned in the article.

5. How is Mrs. Thatcher’s death being marked in Great Britain?

CHALLENGE: Read at least one of the commentaries linked to under “Background” below.

Has this commentary changed your opinion of Margaret Thatcher (the perception you have of her from reading/watching news stories about her)? Explain your answer.
Many media outlets have shown opponents of Mrs. Thatcher’s political policies cheering her death. Why shouldn’t we revel in the death of a leader simply because we disagreed with his/her policies? Explain your answer. (This question does not refer to murderous dictators who kill or abuse their citizens, but to political opponents such as former presidents Democrat Bill Clinton or Republican George Bush.)

Background

Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to become prime minister of Britain and the first to lead a major Western power in modern times. Hard-driving and hardheaded, she led her Conservative Party to three straight election victories and held office for 11 years – May 1979 to November 1990 – longer than any other British politician in the 20th century. Read commentaries on Prime Minister Thatcher:

“Margaret Thatcher had more impact on the world than any woman ruler since Catherine the Great of Russia. Not only did she turn around – decisively – the British economy in the 1980s, she also saw her methods copied in more than 50 countries. “Thatcherism” was the most popular and successful way of running a country in the last quarter of the 20th century and into the 21st…” — Read the full article: The World-Changing Margaret Thatcher at The Wall Street Journal.

“One thing was clear — Margaret Thatcher brought an entirely new focus on individual responsibility to her nation. She was convinced that Britain’s dismal economic condition and lethargic business culture had been caused by the nation’s commitment to a comprehensive welfare state. She understood what others had missed – a failure to assume individual responsibility would lead to catastrophic economic stagnation and the breakdown of social structures…” — Read the full article:
“The Lady’s Not for Turning” – Margaret Thatcher and the Leadership of Conviction at AlbertMohler’s webpage.

“In that dreary winter of 1979, the piles of uncollected trash in London’s Finsbury Park seemed to stretch for miles. The garbagemen were on strike. So too, at one time or another, were hospital workers, ambulance drivers, truck drivers, railwaymen. Also gravediggers: In Liverpool, corpses had to be warehoused as they awaited burial—yet another long queue that socialist Britain had arranged for its patient masses…” — Read the full article: Not for Turning at The Wall Street Journal.

“Seldom does the emergence of a single individual undeniably change the course of history. It was true of Winston Churchill becoming prime minister in May 1940, of course, but normally one person’s efforts cannot significantly alter the tide of human events. Yet undoubtedly such a person was Margaret Thatcher, for it is no exaggeration to say that she saved Great Britain from bankruptcy, made it great again, won a war and with Ronald Reagan helped sound the death knell of Soviet communism…” — Read the full article: The Genius of Thatcherism Will Endure at The Wall Street Journal.