Free Republic

LONDON - As Britain’s longest-serving 20th century prime minister and the only woman to hold the job, Margaret Thatcher presided over a decade of radical conservative change in Britain. On her 80th birthday on Thursday, Thatcher will throw a lavish party for 650 guests, a brief return to the limelight for the woman made Baroness Thatcher in 1992, two years after she stepped down. From the day in May 1979 that she arrived at Downing Street with her trademark handbag, Thatcher used no-nonsense rhetoric and a steely power over her male acolytes to take stagnant Britain on a path of...

High unemployment, a struggling economy, and widespread pessimism. Great Britain managed to break out of its downward spiral in the 1980s by sending Margaret Thatcher to 10 Downing Street. Germany may soon emulate England by electing reform-minded Angela Merkel. But the country may not be desperate enough for her to be successful.

The divorced daughter of a Protestant minister, Angela Merkel, 50, Germany's conservative leader and its version of the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher could become the first woman Chancellor this autumn. She would then become the most powerful woman in the German-speaking world since the Hasburg Empress Maria Theresa. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder whose party the SDP lost badly in the biggest state North-Rhine Westhpalia was left with no option but to request the President to call an early election. People said the Chancellor was a man preparing his own funeral. When elected the leader of of the Christian Democrats after Helmut...

Conservative challenger Michael Howard is trailing Prime Minister Tony Blair in the British polls, and Margaret Thatcher has had enough. Facing the possibility of her cherished Tory Party losing to Blair again, and upset at the possibility that Labour will be leading England's government again, Thatcher skipped town for a little holiday - just days before the election. She is not campaigning for Howard, and British papers quote a close friend of the baroness as saying, "She wants to see a Conservative government again. She is frustrated that is not going to happen, despite the Labour Government's serious shortcomings and...

Former Prime Minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher paid tribute to Pope John Paul II as the greatest pontiff of modern times and the "moral force" behind victory in the Cold War. "We should remember Pope John Paul II not just as the greatest pope of modern times but also as a valiant fighter for the truth," she said. "His life was a long struggle against the lies employed to excuse evil. By combating the falsehoods of communism and proclaiming the true dignity of the individual, his was the moral force behind victory in the Cold War. "Millions owe him their freedom...

Thatcher knew how to fight terroristsBy Robin Harris(Filed: 13/10/2004) Twenty years ago yesterday, the IRA blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton, killing five people and injuring 34 others. The prime target was Margaret Thatcher. Memories in Ireland are long. And as she celebrates her 79th birthday today, Lady Thatcher will know that she is still on some terrorist's list. After the outrage, the IRA issued a statement. It sneered: "Today we were unlucky, but remember, we only have to be lucky once; you will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no war." Mrs...

Margaret Thatcher has made a dramatic return to the political front line with a searing attack on Tony Blair's "Left-wing" tax-and-spend policies and his failure to carry the nation in the war on Iraq. The former prime minister's broadside came as she defied doctor's orders to make a speech last night marking the 25th anniversary of her rise to power. Having once praised the rise of New Labour as her greatest legacy, Baroness Thatcher turned her fire on Mr Blair - to denounce his adoption of some of her policies as a "conversion of convenience". To loud cheers from an...

May 2004 marks the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's election as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. I was 14 when she was elected and can remember discussing with some friends the novelty of having a woman in charge of the country. Most of them were apathetic - 14-year old boys aren't usually interested in politics, after all. One of them, however, quoted his father's opinion of her. It went something like - "Women are weak. They can't think straight. This country will be taken advantage of by unions and foreigners. She'll be gone by the next election, back...

Irina Khakamada is running for president but her campaign headquarters are not bustling. Phones aren't ringing off the hook and no one is barking instructions. This is no Clinton-style war room, yet this lone warrior still looks battle-weary. She says she harbors no illusions of unseating President Vladimir Putin, but that's not the point. "We're fighting so that people raise their voices," she says, not fighting to win. "That costs less." But it's not clear just who is raising their voices in support. Speculation that she is a mercenary front for the Kremlin or oligarch interests has made it difficult...

Lady Thatcher is considering coming out of retirement to join the campaign for a national referendum on the new European constitution that she fears will further erode British sovereignty. The former prime minister, 77, retired from public speaking in March last year after suffering a series of minor strokes. Now, however, her aides say she may join the campaign for a referendum, which is being resisted by the Government. "It's being considered," said her spokesman yesterday. "We haven't decided yet." The Telegraph has also learned that Lady Thatcher intervened this month in the European Union debate in Estonia, one of...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is the only country able to fight a "twin-headed'' monster -- Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein -- in its efforts to eradicate terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said Monday. "Evil has never been so technically difficult, never been so elusive,'' she told about 800 people after receiving the Clare Boothe Luce award from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Thatcher, who was prime minister from 1979 to 1990, was nicknamed the "Iron Lady'' for her forceful brand of conservatism. She led Britain out of...