Margaret Thatcher: 1925 – 2013

April 8, 2013

Margaret Thatcher, who died of a stroke on Monday at age 87, transformed Britain more thoroughly than any other prime minister of the past half-century. She was a pathbreaker from the moment she took office in 1979 as Britain’s first, and so far only, female prime minister. And she was the rare conservative leader to come not from the upper echelons of Britain’s class-obsessed society, but from a modest apartment above her father’s grocery.

But much more than that distinguished the 11 years of Mrs. Thatcher’s government, which followed years of tepid leadership, economic stagnation and high inflation. She tamed the power of Britain’s once powerful labor movement by shutting down inefficient coal mines and privatizing state-owned industries. She encouraged an entrepreneurial culture that had grown timid and somnolent. With her powerful, plain-spoken approach to issues large (like Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait) and relatively small (the brief war over the Falkland Islands), she reawakened Britain’s taste for military engagement. the rest image

Margaret Thatcher, the politician and Christian
Baroness Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday aged 87, was a leader of conviction and much of that conviction was rooted in her Christian faith....

The Amazing Margaret Thatcher
Along with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher was a giant of our era and, indeed, of history. These three leaders brought about the fall of Soviet communism and the resurgence of political and economic liberty around the world...

Movie: "The Iron Lady" -call it the Gospel According to Anna Quindlen
...A two-hour film obviously can’t include everything. But this movie’s choices all tend toward a consistent end. They drain the content out of Thatcher’s public role, making it little more than a vehicle for her ambition, while embellishing her private life to portray her husband and daughter as justifiably resentful and her old age as haunted by regret. (Her son, Mark, stays out of this picture.) You would never know that Carol describes her parents’ marriage as “truly a meeting of minds” or that she depicts her mother with great affection as a “superwoman” who crafted elaborate cakes for her children’s birthdays, faithfully attended school parents’ nights and took her kids to enjoy the pageantry of the opening of Parliament...