The Right Honorable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Privy Counselor, Fellow of the Royal Society, has passed away from a stroke at the age of 87. She was the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain, serving from 1979 to 1990, and is widely considered to be the greatest one since Winston Churchill.
Her husband passed away in 2003; Baroness Thatcher is survived by one son, one daughter, and two grandchildren… but not by Soviet Communism, which died in 1991 of complications stemming from prolonged exposure to Margaret Thatcher.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: And so passes the Cold War era. For both good and for ill.
Moe, a little nit-pick: everyone is saying that the Iron Lady was the ‘first’ female Prime Minister of Great Britain, yet there have been no other female Prime Ministers of Great Britain to date. While it is perhaps likely true there will be another female Prime Minister in the future, it is not necessarily true that there will be one. Especially as it seems that UK Conservatives seem to prefer leaders a bit wobbly and Labour men seem to have issues with Labour women.
Not only that Lady Thatcher also gave a lesson on how to deal with radical, extremist religious butthurt. When the Ayatollah put out a death fatwa on Salman Rushdie, the Iron Lady let it be known if the little thugs wanted to head to paradise by sacrificing their lives, she’d be more than willing to help them along as a result, Rushdie is still consuming oxygen. Contrast with other politicians (looking at you Mr. President and HRC) whose lack of fortitude in the face of radicalism got people killed.
“If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.”
The Baroness is heartily laughing over the ugliness, to be sure!
Moe, you choked me up a little with your riff about Baroness Thatcher NOT being survived by Soviet Communism. All too many millions did not outlive that particular menace; good to know that the Baroness Thatcher, President Reagan, and Pope John Paul II all did.
The Lady had more steel in her her spine than most of the British politicians of the age combined. We’ll not see her like again.
More the pity.
She did what she could, she changed Britain for the better. Too bad the modern Tories have for the most part not pulled their weight.
She was one of the best, so rare, and now she has made a certain place better, and left another place worse.