Margaret Hilda Thatcher, the first female British
Prime Minister was born on October 13, 1925, at
Grantham to Alfred and Beatrice Roberts. She
married Denis Thatcher in 1951 and they had two
children, twins Mark and Carol.Her father was a
local businessman and grocery store owner. Her
father served as both alderman and Mayor of
Grantham. Margaret Thatcher attended Oxford
University where she graduated with a degree in
Chemistry. While attending Oxford she served as
president of the Oxford University Conservative
Association. After graduating in 1947 she got a job
working as a chemist. After running for the
parliamentary seat in Dartford twice, losing both
times, she then went back to Oxford and earned her
law degree in 1953 to better prepare her for a career
in public life. In 1959 Thatcher won a seat on the
House of Commons representing Finchley. She
served there in same manner for 30 years. In 1970
Margaret was appointed to the position of Education
Secretary. While Secretary of Education she ended a
free milk program in the schools and was known for
a time as “Thatcher, the milk snatcher”.
Her position in the Conservative Party continued to
rise over the next few years. In 1975 when the
Conservative Party lost the majority position, she
took over the leadership of the party, becoming the
first woman to become Leader of the
Opposition. Thatcher became Prime Minister on
May 4, 1979, a position she held for over 10 years.
Under Thatcher’s term, British armed forces took
back the Falklands on June 14, 1982 from Argentina
which had invaded the Falkland Islands on April 2,
1982. She played an important role in the Cold War.
Aligning with President Ronald Reagan of the US,
who held a very hard line against communism and
worked with Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold
War. She was nicknamed “The Iron Lady” from
Soviet Captain Yuri Gavrilov in response to her
strong opposition to communism.
Margaret Thatcher was a controversial figure of
conservative ideology during her time in office. It is
recalled that during the general crisis and
depression of the 1930s, John Keynes had
emphasised the need for the state to intervene in the
economy through appropriate fiscal and monetary
policies to ensure stability and provide welfare. The
application of the Keynesian programme led to the
post-World War II boom with its prolonged period of
full employment. But its large government became
too difficult to finance, and its bureaucracy too large
to control. The state’s inefficiency was linked to a
claim that it had succumbed to workers’ interest
through social expenditure.
The stagflation of the 1970s and the unemployment
of the 1980s finally ended the reign of Keynesian
economics. Thatcher’s government intervened in the
economy to create a free market by lowering taxes,
privatizing state industries and increasing restraints
on trade unionism. She stood her ground in a major
face off with miners. As many as 200,000 miners lost
their jobs while mining communities were destroyed
as pits that were still economically viable were shut
down. At first things did not go well. Unemployment
skyrocketed and crime went up. There were riots
against the Poll Tax, a regressive taxation that hit the
poor the hardest. But after a few years the economy
began to improve, witnessing the rise of the financial
banks. Her policies are believed to have provided
the foundation for the economic crisis that gripped
the world since 2008. Thatcher never had faith in
society. She claimed it didn’t exist. Her belief in the
individual led to selling off council homes and
refusing to build new ones, leading to record waiting
lists for social housing and homelessness. On
October 12, 1984 a bomb went off at the Brighton
Hotel where Thatcher was staying. But she was not
hurt.
Thatcher’s economic policies, Thatcherism, were
transmitted through World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). Her policies
also affected Africa negatively. Africa’s economic
crisis was ascribed to the expansion of the
interventionist state and public expenditures,
worsened by the falling prices of primary
commodities, low workers’ productivity, high wages
and low savings. The IMF and the World Bank
therefore promoted a Structural Adjustment
Programme (SAP) to withdraw the government from
the economy through cuts in subsidies on social
services, across-the-board privatisation and
commercialisation of public enterprises, and
currency devaluation.
These measures adversely affected the living
conditions of workers, the urban and rural poor,
causing upheavals in the process.
Indeed, in the face of this resistance, the World Bank
and the IMF encouraged African leaders to become
tougher with civil servants and other actors who are
undermining public policies, thereby directly
promoting authoritarianism. Thatcher never
supported the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa
and she branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist.
On November 28, 1990 Thatcher resigned from office
under pressure from the conservatives that her
policies on taxes were going to hurt them in the
coming elections. She passed away on April 8, 2013
at the ripe age of 87 years after suffering a stroke in
a London hotel.

Source: tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/editorial/item/10150-the-exit-of-margaret-thatcher