Margaret Thatcher at 100: the people of Leeds reflect on life under a PM who polarised political opinion
Margaret Thatcher - the country’s first female Prime Minister - was a polarising figure in British politics who would have celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this week.
Dubbed the ‘Iron Lady’, she was a leader who defined a political and cultural era, winning three consecutive terms in office from 1979 to 1990.
Her policies put emphasis on individual liberty, the privatisation of state-owned companies and reducing the power of the trade unions.
She led the country to victory in the Falklands War, survived an assassination attempt by the IRA and allowed thousands of council tenants to buy their homes.
She is remembered perhaps most notably in Yorkshire for her dispute with the National Union of Mineworkers led by Arthur Scargill in the miners’ strike.
This week the people of Leeds have been having their say on a Prime Minister who divided opinion across the city and the country.
Ewen Pearson was full of praise for a PM who he believes ‘rescued Britain from the brink of bankruptcy’: “She got inflation under control after Labour doubled prices in a single parliament. She stopped the unions crippling the country after the three-day week, power cuts and the winter of discontent. She enabled millions of people to own their own homes and buy shares. She brought the top rate of income taxes down from 97% to 40%.
“She won three elections hands down in landslides. She laid the foundations for 25 years of sustained growth until Brown screwed it up. She was the best Prime Minister we’ve ever had and transformed the country for the better.
“She won the arguments on trade union reform and privatisation so convincingly that Blair, Brown and Starmer haven’t dared reverse her policies.”
His views were backed up by Adrian Pettitt: “A strong and competent leader not afraid to do what she believed in! It’s a shame we don't have her now as I believe if we did, things would be very different!
And Stuart Curtis agreed: “I have always been a fan. She took on the unions when no one else would. Our family owned a house thanks to her policies.”
Susan Judith Thomson fondly remembered her famous speech when she said ‘this lady isn’t for turning’ and said that while ‘she wasn’t perfect, she put the Great back into Great Britain’.
Dave Butterfield said that ‘she was the last PM to say what she was going to do and then do it’, adding: “You might not have agreed with what it was, but no PM since has done that.”
Several readers had less affectionate memories of life under Margaret Thatcher's Government.
Simon Duke said: “Tony Benn summed her up best. Her politics were based on knowing the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
Scott Murphy added: “I’m young enough not to have any memories of her but feel her appalling legacy every day.”
Mark Aulton, meanwhile, said she is ‘the woman who single handedly destroyed British industry’, while Rupert Slade added that although he loathed her politics, ‘unlike many we have now, she was a public servant’.
Jon Bennett blamed her for the ‘mess we are in today’: “The greed is good mantra. Privatised gas, electricity and water and sold the oil from under us.”
Andrew Roberts added: “She destroyed the fabric of society. Dividing towns, turning families against each other. She made the whole country angry with each other.”
Stu Moore concluded: “I can't see our current PM generating this much interest in 37 years’ time.”