2. The main aim of this
presentation is to share my
interest about Margaret
Thatcher – the first female
British Prime Minister,
leader of the Conservative
Party, and at the time the
longest serving PM since
1827, governing from 1979
– 90, and her way to
success.
Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher
3. «What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair
for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not
enough, that you have got to have hard work
and a certain sense of purpose».
Margaret Thatcher
4. Margaret Thatcher (Margaret Hilda
Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher of
Kesteven, née Roberts) was born on
October 13th 1925 in Grantham to
Alfred and Beatrice Roberts. The
Roberts family ran a grocery
business, bringing up two daughters
in a flat over the shop.
Margaret Thatcher's home and early
life in Grantham played a large part
in forming her political convictions.
Her parents were Methodists and her
father was a local councilor.
5. «I just owe almost everything to my father and it's
passionately interesting for me that the things that I
learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are
just the things that I believe have won the election».
Margaret Thatcher
6. Margaret Roberts attended Huntingtower
Road Primary School and won a
scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham
Girls' School.
From there won a place at Oxford,
where she studied chemistry at
Somerville College (1943-47). Her tutor
was Dorothy Hodgkin, a pioneer of X-
ray crystallography who won a Nobel
Prize in 1964.
7. After graduating, Roberts moved to
Colchester in Essex to work as a
research chemist. She joined the local
Conservative Association.
In her mid-twenties she ran as the
Conservative candidate for the strong
Labour seat of Dartford (1950 and
1951), winning national publicity as the
youngest woman candidate in the
country.
She lost both times, but cut the Labour
majority sharply enjoyed the experience
of campaigning.
8. In Dartford she met Denis Thatcher, a successful and wealthy
businessman, whom she married in December 1951. Denis funded
his wife's studies for the bar; she qualified as a barrister in 1953 and
specialized in taxation. The same year her twins, Carol and Mark,
were born.
9. Margaret Thatcher was elected to
Parliament in 1959 as Member of
Parliament for Finchley, a north
London constituency, which she
continued to represent until she was
made a member of the House of Lords
(as Baroness Thatcher) in 1992.
The Conservative party under Edward
Heath won the 1970 general election,
and Thatcher was subsequently
appointed Secretary of State for
Education and Science.
10. Margaret Thatcher was the leader of the Opposition in 1975–1979
The Heath government experienced difficulties with oil embargoes and
union demands for wage increases in 1973, and lost 1974 general
election. Labour went on to win a majority in 1974 general election.
Heath's leadership of the Conservative Party looked increasingly in
doubt. Thatcher became party leader in 1975.
The Labour government faced public unease about the direction of the
country and a damaging series of strikes during the winter of 1978–79.
A general election was called after James Callaghan's government lost
a motion of no confidence in early 1979.
11. The Conservatives won a majority in the House of
Commons, and Margaret Thatcher became the UK's
first female Prime Minister.
12. «If you want something said, ask a man; if you
want something done, ask a woman».
Margaret Thatcher
13. 1979-1983: Prime Minister – First Term
The new government pledged to check
and reverse Britain's economic decline.
Direct taxes were cut, indirect taxes
were increased. By the end of
Thatcher's first term, unemployment in
Britain was more than three million
and it began to fall only in 1986.
Inflation was checked and the
government created the expectation
that it would do whatever was
necessary to keep it low.
14. Political support flowed from this
achievement, but the re-election of the
government was only made certain by
the Falklands War. The Argentine
Junta's invasion of the islands in 1982
was met by Thatcher in the firmest
way.
Although she worked with the US
administration in pursuing the
possibility of a diplomatic solution.
When diplomacy failed, military action
was successful and the Falklands were
back under British control by 1982.
The cover of Newsweek magazine, 19
April 1982, depicts HMS Hermes, flagship
of the British Task Force.
15. 1983-1987: Prime Minister – Second Term
The economy continued to improve
during the 1983-87 Parliament and
the policy of economic liberalization
was extended. The government
began to pursue a policy of selling
state assets.
The British privatizations of the
1980s were the first of their kind
and proved influential across the
world.
16. In October 1984 the Irish Republican Army attempted to murder
Margaret Thatcher and many of her cabinet by bombing her hotel in
Brighton during the Conservative Party annual conference.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 was an attempt to improve security
cooperation between Britain and Ireland and to give some recognition to
the political outlook of Catholics in Northern Ireland, an initiative
which won warm endorsement from the Reagan administration and the
US Congress.
Margaret Thatcher & Ronald Reagan at Camp
David, 22 December 1984.
17. 1987-1990: Prime Minister – Third Term
The legislative platform of the third-
term Thatcher Government was
among the most ambitious ever put
forward by a British administration.
There were measures to reform the
education system (1988). There was a
new tax system for local government
(1989), the Community Charge. And
there was legislation to separate
purchasers and providers within the
National Health Service (1990).
18. The Soviets had dubbed her the 'Iron Lady' — a tag she relished —
for the tough line she took against them in speeches shortly after
becoming Conservative leader in 1975.
But when Mikhail Gorbachev emerged as a potential leader of the
Soviet Union, she invited him to Britain in 1984 and pronounced
him a man she could do business with. She did not soften her
criticisms of the Soviet system, making use of new opportunities to
broadcast to television audiences in the east to put the case against
Communism.
Margaret Thatcher & Gorbachev at
RAF Brize Norton, 7 December 1987.
19. «What Britain needs is an iron lady».
«It pays to know the enemy - not least
because at some time you may have the
opportunity to turn him into a friend».
Margaret Thatcher
20. After 1990 Lady Thatcher remained a potent political figure. She
wrote two best-selling volumes of memoirs - The Downing Street
Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995) - while continuing for a
full decade to tour the world as a lecturer. A book of reflections on
international politics - Statecraft - was published in 2002.
21. Margaret Thatcher remains an intensely
controversial figure in Britain.
Critics claim that her economic policies
were divisive socially, that she was
harsh in her politics.
Defenders point to a transformation in
Britain's economic performance over the
course of the Thatcher Governments.
Trade union reforms, privatization,
deregulation, a strong anti-inflationary
stance, and control of tax and spending
have created better economic prospects
for Britain than seemed possible when
she became Prime Minister in 1979.
22. The Labour Party leadership was transformed by her period of office and
the 'New Labour' politics of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would not
have existed without her. Her legacy remains the core of modern British
politics: the world economic crisis since 2008 has revived many of the
arguments of the 1980s, keeping her name at the centre of political
debate in Britain.
Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown
23. Critics and supporters alike recognize the Thatcher premiership as a
period of fundamental importance in British history. Margaret
Thatcher accumulated huge prestige over the course of the 1980s
and often compelled the respect even of her bitterest critics. Indeed,
her effect on the terms of political debate has been profound.
24. «I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard
work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top,
but should get you pretty near».
