Thatcher, Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher, Baroness
The daughter of a grocer, Thatcher studied chemistry at Oxford (grad. 1947) and later (1953) became a lawyer, specializing in tax law. Elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1959, she held junior ministerial posts (1961–64) before serving (1970–74) as secretary of state for education and science in Edward Heath's cabinet. After two defeats in general elections, the Conservative party elected her its first woman leader in 1975.
After a season of crippling public-sector strikes, Thatcher led the Conservatives to an electoral victory in 1979 and became prime minister. She had pledged to reduce the influence of the trade unions and combat inflation, and her economic policy rested on the introduction of broad changes along free-market lines. She attacked inflation by controlling the money supply and sharply reduced government spending and taxes for higher-income individuals. Although unemployment continued to rise to postwar highs, the decline in economic output was reversed. In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British dependency in the South Atlantic, Britain's successful prosecution of the subsequent war contributed to Thatcher's soaring popularity and to the Conservative win at the polls in 1983.
Thatcher's second government privatized national industries and utilities. She also forced coal miners to return to work after a year on strike, then initiated policies that greatly curbed union power. In foreign affairs, Thatcher was a close ally of President Ronald Reagan and shared his antipathy to Communism. She allowed the United States to station (1980) nuclear cruise missiles in Britain and to use its air bases to bomb Libya in 1986. In 1985 she forged a historic accord with the Republic of Ireland, giving it a consulting role in governing Northern Ireland.
Thatcher led the Conservatives to a third consecutive electoral victory in 1987, although with a reduced majority. She proposed free-market changes to the national health and education systems and introduced a controversial per capita flat-rate “poll tax” to pay for local government, which fueled criticisms that she had no compassion for the poor. She was practically alone among major world leaders in refusing to condemn apartheid, and opposed sanctions for South Africa. Her refusal to support a common European currency and integrated economic policies and her opposition to what became the European Union led to the resignation of her treasury minister in 1989 and her foreign secretary and deputy prime minister in 1990.
Disputes over the unpopular poll tax, which took effect in 1990, and over her opposition to integration with Europe led to a leadership challenge (1990) from within her party. She resigned as prime minister, and John Major emerged as her successor. In 1992 Thatcher retired from the House of Commons and was created Baroness Thatcher. In the mid-1990s Thatcher was publicly critical of Major's more moderate policies, and she continued to speak out against Conservative and Labour positions with which she disagreed.
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