Andrew Sparrow
Politics Blog
The Guardian [UK]
8 Apr 2013
[7:58 am EDT] The Press Association has filed an obituary from Chris Moncrieff, its former political editor. Here is how it starts.
Margaret Thatcher was the woman who, virtually single-handed and in the space of one tumultuous decade, transformed a nation.
In the view of her many admirers, she thrust a strike-infested half-pace Britain back among the front-runners in the commanding peaks of the industrial nations of the world.Her detractors, many of them just as vociferous, saw her as the personification of an uncaring new political philosophy known by both sides as Thatcherism.
Tireless, fearless, unshakeable and always in command, she was Britain’s first woman Prime Minister – and the first leader to win three General Elections in a row.
Mrs Thatcher, who became Baroness Thatcher, resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990 after a year in which her fortunes plummeted.It was a year in which she faced a series of damaging resignations from the Cabinet, her own political judgments were publicly denounced by her own colleagues, catastrophic by-election humiliations, internal party strife, and a sense in the country that people had had enough of her after 11 years in power.
But history will almost certainly proclaim her as one of the greatest British peacetime leaders.
Her supporters believe she put the drive back into the British people.
And as she transformed the nation – attempting to release the grip of the state on massive industries and public services alike – she strode the earth as one of the most influential, talked-about, listened-to and dominant statesmen of the Western world.
When Argentina invaded the Falklands, she despatched a task force to the South Atlantic which drove the enemy off the islands in an incomparable military operation 8,000 miles from home.
She successfully defied Arthur Scargill’s nationwide and year-long miners’ strike, which threatened to cripple Britain’s entire economic base.
Her triumphant achievement of power in May 1979 signalled the end of the era when trade union leaders trooped in and out of 10, Downing Street, haggling and bargaining with her Labour predecessors…
There is rolling coverage at The Guardian.
Related:
“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”
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) April 8, 2013
Here’s a tribute from Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader.
I have always said that Mrs Thatcher was a great inspiration to me personally. Whether you loved her or hated her nobody could deny that she was a great patriot, who believed passionately in this country and her people. A towering figure in recent British and political history has passed from the stage. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.
H/T and photo Ace of Spades HQ
Update: BREAKING: Former British Prime Minister, the Great Margaret Thatcher has Died at Freedom’s Lighthouse:
BREAKING: Reuters and other news outlets are now reporting that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher las died. . . . Developing
WATCH Margaret Thatcher destroy liberal socialists by summing up their bankrupt philosophy in one sentence!…
‘My job is to stop Britain going red” – Margaret Thatcher
— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) April 8, 2013
And more at Freedom’s Lighthouse.
More coverage from The Guardian of London.
Update 2: How Margaret Thatcher turned around Great Britain, in one chart
“My job is to stop Britain going red.” – Margaret Thatcher, Nov. 3, 1977.
But the former UK prime minister, who died today, did far more than that. The Iron Lady reversed decades of statist policies that had turned Britain into the sick man of Europe. And in the process, Thatcherism provided inspiration for the burgeoning free-market revolution in America, as well. She privatized. She cut taxes. She busted unions. As economist Scott Sumner has noted, “Britain had lagged other European economies for decades, growing far more slowly than most economies on the continent. Thatcher’s reforms were among the most comprehensive in the world.”…
Read the whole thing!
‘I’ve lost faith in our youth’: Twitter users ask, ‘Who is Margaret Thatcher’?
Update 3: Margaret Thatcher Has Died
Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul I [sic] were the triumvirate that together brought down the Soviet Union, and helped re-established the freedom of markets and economic stability in the Western World.Thank God that such giants once walked among us…
Baroness Thatcher succumbs to stroke at age 87
Baroness Margaret Thatcher, known as the “greengrocer’s daughter” who revitalized Britain with conservative economic policies and brought down Soviet communism in cooperation with Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, died today of a stroke at the age of 87.
Her passing marks the end of an era, as her fellow victorious cold warriors preceded her in finding their ultimate rewards. She was known as the “Iron Lady” with good reason: her famous advice to not “go wobbly” provided the iron backbone necessary to stare down communist tyrants and Argentine generals alike…
An excellent article at the American Thinker.
