Monday, April 08, 2013

Margaret Thatcher dead from stroke at 87




BRITAIN’S longest serving prime minister of the 20th century, the ‘Iron Lady’ Baroness Thatcher, has died from a stroke.
Her spokesman Lord Bell issued a statement announcing the news.
She was one of the great prime ministers of all times. She changed people’s lives.
“It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother died peacefully following a stroke this morning,” he said.
Ms Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter and mother of two, was the first, and so far the only woman to be British prime minister.
From 1979 to 1990 she led the country through a turbulent decade of change, with her signature uncompromising style encapsulated by her famous phrase “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”
She deregulated the financial sector, privatised many state-owned companies, and took on the then-powerful trade unions.
The resulting ‘winter of discontent’ – a spike in unemployment accompanied by protests and inner-city riots - tested her early leadership, but with the 1982 Falklands war she cemented her popularity, going on to win two more general elections before her ‘poll tax’ proved a bridge too far.
Ms Thatcher also played a key role in the end of the Cold War, leading the West’s embrace of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
In the last decade her engagements have become fewer, as her health gradually deteriorated. In 2005 her daughter Carol revealed dementia had affected her memory, leaving her unable to end sentences or clearly remember events from her near and more distant past.
The BBC reported last night that in recent weeks she was living mostly at the Ritz Hotel in London, as she was unable to negotiate her way home any more.
Tributes have poured in through the media and on social media.
On Twitter, prime minister David Cameron wrote “It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher's death. We've lost a great leader, a great Prime Minister and a great Briton."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home