Margaret Thatcher

The Right Honourable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October, 1925), is a British stateswoman and was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, also Leader of the Opposition from 1975, and the only woman to date to hold the former position. She is also the only woman to be in the latter position officially, though another has been the Acting Leader. She won 3 successive general elections and was the last person to do this until Tony Blair in 2005. However, although she had strong support from most voters for most of her reign she was eventually elected out of leadership by her own party and replaced by John Major in 1990 who went on to be re-elected himself in 1992. She is an elder stateswoman of the Conservative Party and the figurehead of a political philosophy that became known as Thatcherism, which involves reduced public spending, lower direct taxation, de-regulation, a monetarist policy, and a programme of privatisation of government-owned industries. Even before coming to power she was nicknamed the Iron Lady in Soviet media (because of her vocal opposition to communism), an appellation that stuck.

References

Books

• Statecraft: Strategies for Changing World by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 2002) ISBN 0060199733
• The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1999) ISBN 0060187344
• The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by Margaret Thatcher, Robin Harris (editor) (HarperCollins, 1997) ISBN 0002557037
• The Path to Power by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1995) ISBN 0002550504
• The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins, 1993) ISBN 0002553546

Biographies

• "The Anatomy of Thatcherism" by Shirley Robin Letwin (Flamingo, 1992) ISBN 0006862438
• Margaret Thatcher; Volume One: The Grocer's Daughter by John Campbell (Pimlico, 2000) ISBN 0712674187
• Margaret Thatcher; Volume Two: The Iron Lady by John Campbell (Pimlico, 2003) ISBN 0712667814
• Memories of Maggie Edited by Iain Dale (Politicos, 2000) ISBN 190230151X
• Britain Under Thatcher by Anthony Seldon & Daniel Collings (Longman, 1999) ISBN 0582317142
• Thatcher for Beginners by Peter Pugh and Paul Flint (Icon Books, 1997) ISBN 1874166536
• One of Us: Life of Margaret Thatcher by Hugo Young (Macmillan, 1989) ISBN 0333344391
• The Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher by Hugo Young (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1989) ISBN 0374226512
• Margaret, daughter of Beatrice by Leo Abse (Jonathan Cape, 1989) ISBN 0224027263
• Mrs. Thatcher's Revolution: Ending of the Socialist Era by Peter Jenkins (Jonathan Cape, 1987) ISBN 0224025163
• The Thatcher Phenomenon by Hugo Young (BBC, 1986) ISBN 0563204729
• My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years by Nicholas Ridley (Hutchinson, 1991) ISBN 0091750512