Iron Lady is no more
Her profound influence on British affairs remembered
Margaret Thatcher who died of a brain stroke on April 08 was British Prime Minister for eleven years from 1979 to '90. She was Britain's first woman prime minister and led her party to victory in successive parliamentary elections in 1979, '83 and '87. Her rule evoked strong emotions on both sides of the political aisle.
Lady Thatcher will be best remembered for taming of the powerful British labour movement, i.e. the trade unions of the coal mines. She transformed the economy by shutting down coal mines and embarking on privatisation and encouraging entrepreneurship a stark departure from the left-of-centre Labour party policies that had dominated British politics for decades prior to her arrival. In matters of foreign policy, she rekindled the spirit of "Britannia rules the waves" when she despatched a naval flotilla to fight a war with Argentina over the Falklands islands situated 12,000km away in '82. Britain won the war and Argentina's strongman General Galtierie ultimately lost power over the humiliating defeat.
Her iron will in dealing with matters, both domestic and foreign earned her the title "Iron lady" from Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist-minded President of the erstwhile Soviet Union. US President Ronald Reagan found in her an ideological compatriot. The special relationship that developed between these two allied countries manifested in the resurgence of neo-conservatism that culminated in the demise of the Soviet Union.
Yet, her rule was not without caveats. While she broke new grounds in engaging the provisional Irish Republican Army in talks over a lasting peace in Northern Ireland, she shied away from tougher sanctions on the apartheid regime of South Africa. All said and done, Margaret Thatcher will be remembered as one of the most decisive political figures in her day one who never shied away from donning her armour to do battle for what she believed in.
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