1 00:14:39,969 --> 00:14:43,273 Loved, loathed, never ignored. 2 00:14:43,273 --> 00:14:46,361 For a generation Margaret Thatcher defined leadership, 3 00:14:46,361 --> 00:14:53,598 around the world she WAS Britain, at home, she divided a nation. 4 00:14:53,598 --> 00:14:58,790 If all Margaret Thatcher had done was reach number 10, she was guaranteed a place in history 5 00:14:58,790 --> 00:15:02,191 as the first and so far the last woman Prime Minister. 6 00:15:02,191 --> 00:15:08,589 "Where there discord may we bring harmony, where there is error, may we bring truth, 7 00:15:08,589 --> 00:15:12,116 "Where there is doubt, may we bring faith." 8 00:15:12,116 --> 00:15:17,320 Inspired by her beloved father, Margaret had to fight to get on in a man's world, 9 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:21,385 to get elected to Parliament, to unseat her party leader Edward Heath, 10 00:15:21,385 --> 00:15:24,529 to reach a job even she once thought unobtainable. 11 00:15:24,529 --> 00:15:29,985 "I don't think that there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime..." 12 00:15:29,985 --> 00:15:36,185 If it hadn't been for the "winter of dicontent", a series of strikes that left rubbish on the streets and the dead unburied, 13 00:15:36,185 --> 00:15:38,436 she might well have been right 14 00:15:38,436 --> 00:15:43,242 The Thatcherite cure: anti-union laws, high interest rates, soaring unemployment, 15 00:15:43,242 --> 00:15:46,192 split even her first cabinet. 16 00:15:48,987 --> 00:15:56,826 It drove thousands onto the streets in protest and it led to inner city rioting unseen before in mainland Britain. 17 00:15:56,826 --> 00:16:00,726 Calls mounted for the Prime Minister to change course. 18 00:16:00,726 --> 00:16:12,353 "You turn if you want to, (cheers and laughter) the Lady's not for turning." 19 00:16:12,353 --> 00:16:20,336 That resolve was put to the test in 1982, when the Argentine flag was raised on British territory- the Falkland Islands. 20 00:16:20,336 --> 00:16:26,058 Against all advice Margaret Thatcher sent a task force 8000 miles to the South Atlantic 21 00:16:26,058 --> 00:16:29,226 and launched a risky and contraversial war. 22 00:16:29,226 --> 00:16:32,012 Hundreds of lives were lost, but victory was secured. 23 00:16:32,012 --> 00:16:37,836 The nation celebrated the success of its armed forces, and the woman who'd ordered them into battle 24 00:16:37,836 --> 00:16:43,823 who went on to secure a landslide victory at the election which followed. 25 00:16:43,823 --> 00:16:47,034 Mrs. Thatcher's second term in office took her onto battle at home 26 00:16:47,034 --> 00:16:49,637 it was with those she dubbed "the enemy within" 27 00:16:49,637 --> 00:16:53,842 -the powerful miner's union, and it's leader Arthur Scargill. 28 00:16:53,842 --> 00:16:56,661 "We will roll back the years of Thatcherism!" 29 00:16:56,661 --> 00:17:00,870 The confrontation between police and strikers left communities scarred, 30 00:17:00,870 --> 00:17:05,219 the union defeated, and everyone clear who was running the country. 31 00:17:09,742 --> 00:17:12,550 And this was her answer to the threat from without- 32 00:17:12,550 --> 00:17:15,509 American cruise missiles based on British soil 33 00:17:15,509 --> 00:17:19,543 to threaten the Soviet Union with mutually assured destruction. 34 00:17:19,543 --> 00:17:25,736 Together, American president Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher confronted what he dubbed the evil empire 35 00:17:25,736 --> 00:17:29,068 while she wooed the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev 36 00:17:29,068 --> 00:17:36,705 who went on to dismantle communism, to end the cold war with the Iron Lady able to claim victory. 37 00:17:36,705 --> 00:17:40,539 Margaret Thatcher went on to win a 3rd historic election victory, 38 00:17:40,539 --> 00:17:42,611 it would be her last. 39 00:17:42,611 --> 00:17:45,052 The poll tax enraged middle England, 40 00:17:45,068 --> 00:17:50,740 people thought that a dustman and a duke should not have to pay the same for local services. 41 00:17:50,740 --> 00:17:55,235 She had angered her chancellor Nigel Lawson and his predecessor Geoffrey Howe, 42 00:17:55,235 --> 00:18:00,781 they disagreed with her on economic policy and her policy of confrontation with Europe. 43 00:18:00,781 --> 00:18:05,081 "The president of the commission Mr. Delor said at press conference the other day 44 00:18:05,081 --> 00:18:09,888 that he wanted the European parliament to be the democratic body of the community 45 00:18:09,888 --> 00:18:12,145 he wanted the commision to be the executive 46 00:18:12,145 --> 00:18:15,156 and he wanted the council of ministers to be the senate. 47 00:18:15,156 --> 00:18:19,426 NO, no, no! 48 00:18:19,426 --> 00:18:21,586 Michael Heseltine was manouvering to replace her 49 00:18:21,586 --> 00:18:23,617 all he needed was an excuse. 50 00:18:23,617 --> 00:18:30,132 Geoffrey Howe's resignation provided it and his attack on his betrayal by his own team captain. 51 00:18:30,132 --> 00:18:35,612 "It's rather like sending your opening batsman to the crease only for them to find 52 00:18:35,612 --> 00:18:39,853 the moment the first balls are bowled that their bats have been broken before the game 53 00:18:39,853 --> 00:18:42,559 by the team captain." 54 00:18:42,559 --> 00:18:49,013 A red eyed Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street for last time on the 28 November 1990 55 00:18:49,013 --> 00:18:52,349 Having been told by her cabinet that she had to go. 56 00:18:52,349 --> 00:18:55,507 They concluded that country had simply had enough 57 00:18:55,507 --> 00:18:59,271 of the longest serving Prime Minister of the 20th Century. 58 00:18:59,271 --> 00:19:05,680 For years, though people queued up to read and hear her views she was shunned by her own party leadership 59 00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:09,769 and of course by labour, who'd loathed her so much. 60 00:19:09,769 --> 00:19:15,933 Until that is Gordon Brown tried to get some of the old Thatcher magic to rub off on his premiership 61 00:19:15,933 --> 00:19:19,364 the surest sign that even those who'd been her bitter enemies 62 00:19:19,364 --> 00:19:24,071 now saw at least some of the benefits of the Thatcher reveolution. 63 00:19:24,071 --> 00:19:28,833 In failing health, and now alone after the Death of her loyal husband Dennis, 64 00:19:28,833 --> 00:19:32,987 Margaret Thatcher unveiled her own statue in the House of Commons. 65 00:19:32,987 --> 00:19:37,223 She would never speak in public again, but she must have known that for many 66 00:19:37,223 --> 00:19:41,681 she still pointed the way that Britain ought to follow.