30 Years On, Thatcher Still Divides

Britain's first female PM polarized during her rule, and after
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted May 4, 2009 8:47 AM CDT
30 Years On, Thatcher Still Divides
4th May 1979: Margaret Thatcher, with her husband Denis, outside 10 Downing Street after she had been elected Britain's first woman prime minister, succeeding James Callaghan, on May 4, 1979.   (Getty Images)

Thirty years ago today British voters elected Margaret Thatcher in a landmark election, ushering in 18 years of Conservative rule. She remains a polarizing figure: her enemies still regard her as nearly diabolical, while her admirers speak of her as a saint. The Telegraph looks back on her tumultuous 11-year premiership, from her surprise decision to invade the Falklands to her ignominious fall.

Britain went from the "sick man of Europe" to a major economic power under Thatcher, who liberalized markets and crushed the power of trade unions. A close friend of Ronald Reagan and a pragmatist with Mikhail Gorbachev, Thatcher ruled unrivaled until 1990, when her own ministers engineered her downfall while she was away in Paris. Britain's first female PM never appointed a single woman MP to her cabinet, and feminists loathed her—only one of many contradictions of a leader who still divides Britain today.
(More Margaret Thatcher stories.)

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