WEBVTT 00:14:39.969 --> 00:14:43.273 Loved, loathed, never ignored. 00:14:43.273 --> 00:14:46.361 For a generation Margaret Thatcher defined leadership, 00:14:46.361 --> 00:14:53.598 around the world she WAS Britain, at home, she divided a nation. 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 00:14:58.790 --> 00:15:02.191 as the first and so far the last woman Prime Minister. 00:15:02.191 --> 00:15:08.589 "Where there discord may we bring harmony, where there is error, may we bring truth, 00:15:08.589 --> 00:15:12.116 "Where there is doubt, may we bring faith." 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, 00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:21.385 to get elected to Parliament, to unseat her party leader Edward Heath, 00:15:21.385 --> 00:15:24.529 to reach a job even she once thought unobtainable. 00:15:24.529 --> 00:15:29.985 "I don't think that there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime..." 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, 00:15:36.185 --> 00:15:38.436 she might well have been right 00:15:38.436 --> 00:15:43.242 The Thatcherite cure: anti-union laws, high interest rates, soaring unemployment, 00:15:43.242 --> 00:15:46.192 split even her first cabinet. 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. 00:15:56.826 --> 00:16:00.726 Calls mounted for the Prime Minister to change course. 00:16:00.726 --> 00:16:12.353 "You turn if you want to, (cheers and laughter) the Lady's not for turning." 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. 00:16:20.336 --> 00:16:26.058 Against all advice Margaret Thatcher sent a task force 8000 miles to the South Atlantic 00:16:26.058 --> 00:16:29.226 and launched a risky and contraversial war. 00:16:29.226 --> 00:16:32.012 Hundreds of lives were lost, but victory was secured. 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 00:16:37.836 --> 00:16:43.823 who went on to secure a landslide victory at the election which followed. 00:16:43.823 --> 00:16:47.034 Mrs. Thatcher's second term in office took her onto battle at home 00:16:47.034 --> 00:16:49.637 it was with those she dubbed "the enemy within" 00:16:49.637 --> 00:16:53.842 -the powerful miner's union, and it's leader Arthur Scargill. 00:16:53.842 --> 00:16:56.661 "We will roll back the years of Thatcherism!" 00:16:56.661 --> 00:17:00.870 The confrontation between police and strikers left communities scarred, 00:17:00.870 --> 00:17:05.219 the union defeated, and everyone clear who was running the country. 00:17:09.742 --> 00:17:12.550 And this was her answer to the threat from without- 00:17:12.550 --> 00:17:15.509 American cruise missiles based on British soil 00:17:15.509 --> 00:17:19.543 to threaten the Soviet Union with mutually assured destruction. 00:17:19.543 --> 00:17:25.736 Together, American president Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher confronted what he dubbed the evil empire 00:17:25.736 --> 00:17:29.068 while she wooed the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev 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. 00:17:36.705 --> 00:17:40.539 Margaret Thatcher went on to win a 3rd historic election victory, 00:17:40.539 --> 00:17:42.611 it would be her last. 00:17:42.611 --> 00:17:45.052 The poll tax enraged middle England, 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. 00:17:50.740 --> 00:17:55.235 She had angered her chancellor Nigel Lawson and his predecessor Geoffrey Howe, 00:17:55.235 --> 00:18:00.781 they disagreed with her on economic policy and her policy of confrontation with Europe. 00:18:00.781 --> 00:18:05.081 "The president of the commission Mr. Delor said at press conference the other day 00:18:05.081 --> 00:18:09.888 that he wanted the European parliament to be the democratic body of the community 00:18:09.888 --> 00:18:12.145 he wanted the commision to be the executive 00:18:12.145 --> 00:18:15.156 and he wanted the council of ministers to be the senate. 00:18:15.156 --> 00:18:19.426 NO, no, no! 00:18:19.426 --> 00:18:21.586 Michael Heseltine was manouvering to replace her 00:18:21.586 --> 00:18:23.617 all he needed was an excuse. 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. 00:18:30.132 --> 00:18:35.612 "It's rather like sending your opening batsman to the crease only for them to find 00:18:35.612 --> 00:18:39.853 the moment the first balls are bowled that their bats have been broken before the game 00:18:39.853 --> 00:18:42.559 by the team captain." 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:49.013 A red eyed Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street for last time on the 28 November 1990 00:18:49.013 --> 00:18:52.349 Having been told by her cabinet that she had to go. 00:18:52.349 --> 00:18:55.507 They concluded that country had simply had enough 00:18:55.507 --> 00:18:59.271 of the longest serving Prime Minister of the 20th Century. 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 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:09.769 and of course by labour, who'd loathed her so much. 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 00:19:15.933 --> 00:19:19.364 the surest sign that even those who'd been her bitter enemies 00:19:19.364 --> 00:19:24.071 now saw at least some of the benefits of the Thatcher reveolution. 00:19:24.071 --> 00:19:28.833 In failing health, and now alone after the Death of her loyal husband Dennis, 00:19:28.833 --> 00:19:32.987 Margaret Thatcher unveiled her own statue in the House of Commons. 00:19:32.987 --> 00:19:37.223 She would never speak in public again, but she must have known that for many 00:19:37.223 --> 00:19:41.681 she still pointed the way that Britain ought to follow.