The death of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was announced on Monday. She was suffering from poor health from many years and yesterday’s stroke brought an end to the most influential political figure of 20th century.
Margaret Thatcher was the first woman prime minister of Britain who was elected for the third time in 1987. She became the first woman prime minister of Britain after being successful in the elections of 1979 and then was elected for third consecutive time in 1987. After the criticism and political difficulties, she resigned from her post in 1990 and became the longest serving prime minister of Britain for 20th century.
After getting away from politics, she remained busy in delivering lectures in different universities and on different political platforms. She also wrote a number of books about her political career and experiences which were greatly honored and admired. She always expressed her views about the different political events of the world and her views were given much importance.
Born in 1925, she graduated from Oxford University in chemistry but later on discovered her abilities in being a successful public figure and thus took more interest in politics and gradually reached to the premiership.
During her political career, she had to take many harsh decisions and faced the storm of criticism from public and media but she always stood firm in her decisions and it is the reason why she was given the title of ‘Iron Lady’. When she was the minister for education and science, she decided the abolition of milk for schoolchildren aged seven to eleven. Her aim was to cut the expenditure and use the money on other necessary fields of education but her decision was greatly criticized and she defended bravely the worsening situations and never gave up.
Similarly, on the conflict of Falkland Islands with Argentina, she took the bold decision of mobilizing British troops against the capture of the islands by Argentina. This decision turned out in her favor and British were able to win the war and it brought a lot of fame to Margaret Thatcher, winning her the general elections of 1983.
She took a number of bold decisions for the economic betterment of the country like privatization and increasing general taxes for which she faced great criticism like strike of labor unions and others but she never changed her decisions and stood firm.
Although she departed but left behind a number of lessons like straight-forwardness and perseveration and will always be remembered in the world politics for these worthy qualities.