Loved, loathed, never ignored.
For a generation Margaret Thatcher defined leadership,
around the world she WAS Britain, at home, she divided a nation.
If all Margaret Thatcher had done was reach number 10, she was guaranteed a place in history
as the first and so far the last woman Prime Minister.
"Where there discord may we bring harmony, where there is error, may we bring truth,
"Where there is doubt, may we bring faith."
Inspired by her beloved father, Margaret had to fight to get on in a man's world,
to get elected to Parliament, to unseat her party leader Edward Heath,
to reach a job even she once thought unobtainable.
"I don't think that there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime..."
If it hadn't been for the "winter of dicontent", a series of strikes that left rubbish on the streets and the dead unburied,
she might well have been right
The Thatcherite cure: anti-union laws, high interest rates, soaring unemployment,
split even her first cabinet.
It drove thousands onto the streets in protest and it led to inner city rioting unseen before in mainland Britain.
Calls mounted for the Prime Minister to change course.
"You turn if you want to, (cheers and laughter) the Lady's not for turning."
That resolve was put to the test in 1982, when the Argentine flag was raised on British territory- the Falkland Islands.
Against all advice Margaret Thatcher sent a task force 8000 miles to the South Atlantic
and launched a risky and contraversial war.
Hundreds of lives were lost, but victory was secured.
The nation celebrated the success of its armed forces, and the woman who'd ordered them into battle
who went on to secure a landslide victory at the election which followed.
Mrs. Thatcher's second term in office took her onto battle at home
it was with those she dubbed "the enemy within"
-the powerful miner's union, and it's leader Arthur Scargill.
"We will roll back the years of Thatcherism!"
The confrontation between police and strikers left communities scarred,
the union defeated, and everyone clear who was running the country.
And this was her answer to the threat from without-
American cruise missiles based on British soil
to threaten the Soviet Union with mutually assured destruction.
Together, American president Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher confronted what he dubbed the evil empire
while she wooed the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev
who went on to dismantle communism, to end the cold war with the Iron Lady able to claim victory.
Margaret Thatcher went on to win a 3rd historic election victory,
it would be her last.
The poll tax enraged middle England,
people thought that a dustman and a duke should not have to pay the same for local services.
She had angered her chancellor Nigel Lawson and his predecessor Geoffrey Howe,
they disagreed with her on economic policy and her policy of confrontation with Europe.
"The president of the commission Mr. Delor said at press conference the other day
that he wanted the European parliament to be the democratic body of the community
he wanted the commision to be the executive
and he wanted the council of ministers to be the senate.
NO, no, no!
Michael Heseltine was manouvering to replace her
all he needed was an excuse.
Geoffrey Howe's resignation provided it and his attack on his betrayal by his own team captain.
"It's rather like sending your opening batsman to the crease only for them to find
the moment the first balls are bowled that their bats have been broken before the game
by the team captain."
A red eyed Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street for last time on the 28 November 1990
Having been told by her cabinet that she had to go.
They concluded that country had simply had enough
of the longest serving Prime Minister of the 20th Century.
For years, though people queued up to read and hear her views she was shunned by her own party leadership
and of course by labour, who'd loathed her so much.
Until that is Gordon Brown tried to get some of the old Thatcher magic to rub off on his premiership
the surest sign that even those who'd been her bitter enemies
now saw at least some of the benefits of the Thatcher reveolution.
In failing health, and now alone after the Death of her loyal husband Dennis,
Margaret Thatcher unveiled her own statue in the House of Commons.
She would never speak in public again, but she must have known that for many
she still pointed the way that Britain ought to follow.