I’ve decided to write about Margaret Thatcher  because from my point of view she has been an important woman for British Political History. She was born in Grantham, United Kingdom in 1925. She managed to win three consecutive elections and was the first European woman to serve as Prime Minister.

Her name is Margaret Hilda Roberts and after studying chemical science at Oxford University, she worked for four years as a chemical researcher. She joined the conservative party of which her husband was a member and in 1959 she won a seat in the House of Commons. Two years later she was appointed Secretary of State for Social Affairs, and then Minister of Education and Science. She was considered the strongest leader of the right wing of the Conservative party and developed a rigorous programme to solve the crisis of the British economy by reducing state intervention.

Therefore, her main postulates were strict: Liberalism and Monetarism. She studied the renegotiation for participation of the United Kingdom in the EEC and the abolition of Union power. During her office the Government succeeded in reducing inflation and improved the exchange rate of the sterling pound. However, industrial production decreased with the consequent increase in unemployment, which tripled since her rise to power.

In 1982 Thatcher intervened in the Falklands conflict. Her attitude was well regarded by the British public opinion and in the same year she obtained her second electoral victory.

In 1984 she faced serious social conflicts, especially with the miners’ strike which she suppressed with hardness. In October of that year, during a her party’s  Congress at Brighton hotel, a bomb, planted by a group of Republican Irish extremists, exploded. As the head of Government she continued her neoliberal policy, privatization of state enterprises, education and the media of social aid, the fight against unemployment and the limitation of strikes.

Her refusal to the social and political Union of the United Kingdom with Europe and the imposition of the regressive tax, the poll tax, caused widespread controversy in her own party. Therefore she had no alternative and resigned being succeeded by John Major.

Finally in 1993 she published her memoirs, which were a great success. Her firmness to direct the Affairs of State, her strict dominance over her Cabinet Ministers and its strong monetarist policy earned her the nickname of  ”the Iron Lady”