History UsefulNotes / MargaretThatcher

The subject of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcherInFiction is large enough to get a page to itself!

Since UsefulNotes/TheresaMay assumed the office in 2016, Thatcher is no longer the only Woman of Downing Street. However, she remains the only Prime Minister who was near [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII Queen Elizabeth II]]'s age at the time of her tenure. [[note]]Their birthdays were about six months apart. John Major is about 5 years older than the Queen's ''son'' UsefulNotes/CharlesIII, and the rest were even younger (indeed, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak were all born ''during'' Elizabeth's reign, and Brown was an infant when Elizabeth took the throne). Meanwhile, Thatcher's predecessors were either born in the [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill 1870s]], [[UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden 18]][[UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan 90s]], [[UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome 1900s]] or [[UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson 19]][[UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath 10]][[UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan s]].[[/note]] The relationship between these two ladies was often held to be strained at best, catty and adversarial at worst; however Thatcher herself denied any rumours of discord, chalking it up to the media being unable to resist the notion of two women in their position developing a rivalry. The Queen, being the Queen, neither confirmed nor denied any rumours. It has been revealed that after Thatcher made the faux pas of using the royal "We" in public, she was never again allowed a seat at her weekly audience with the monarch, having to brief the queen while remaining standing. This was Her Majesty's way of explaining the royal prerogative applied only to one woman in Britain -- and that one woman was not Margaret Thatcher. (It ''is'' worth noting that the Queen appointed Thatcher to both the Order of Merit -- an incredibly prestigious honour[[note]]The OM is, basically, the Commonwealth monarch's recognition that you, a Commonwealth citizen, are a once-in-a-generation individual in your field worldwide whose achievements have world-historical implications. Among politicians of Thatcher's era, the only other recipients are Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, and two Commonwealth Prime Ministers who literally preserved the territorial integrity of Her Majesty's realms (being [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]] of Canada, who worked hard on the "no" side of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and [[UsefulNotes/PrimeMinistersOfAustralia John Howard]] of Australia, who helped the monarchist side win in the 1999 republic referendum).[[/note]] completely within the monarch's discretion--almost immediately upon her departure (as in literally two weeks after Major had kissed hands) and also granted her the Order of the Garter (which is technically also discretionary with the monarch, though unlike the OM the monarch usually consults with the government about it) in 1995. Another PM she was known to personally dislike, UsefulNotes/TonyBlair, had to wait fourteen years for that honour.)

After seventeen months as a backbench MP, Thatcher stood down from the Commons in the 1992 General Election, and entered the House of Lords after being listed in the Dissolution Honours. To date, she is the most recent Prime Minister to be elevated to the Lords. In her maiden speech from the red benches, she savaged Major's government over the Maastricht Treaty. In the new millennium, she largely retired from public life and increasingly suffered mental health problems after the death of her husband, Sir Denis (this is the subject of the 2011 film, ''Film/TheIronLady''). Sir Denis, 1st Baronet, was the last person outside of the Royal Family to receive any kind of hereditary title; his son is now the 2nd Baronet.

When she finally died in April 2013, there was a simultaneous outpouring of tearful grief and ecstatic celebration (including literal street parties), with the song "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead!" from ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' having a sudden, controversial surge in popularity, reaching the top of charts in Scotland, and number 2 in England. Typically of Thatcher's legacy, it divided the country almost perfectly down the middle. The Baroness' body was given a ceremonial funeral in St. Paul's cathedral, attended by the Royal Family, several generations of British politicians and some visiting foreign statesmen. There were rumours about protesters disrupting the proceedings (angry at the £10m cost and the fact she was being given a state funeral at all), but they came to nothing and her coffin was pulled through the streets in near-total silence. Even Big Ben's chimes were suspended for the duration. Her remains were cremated and she was interred alongside her husband at the Royal Hospital Chelsea i.e. the home of the Chelsea Pensioners, where the de facto care home section is named after her.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts), Baroness Thatcher, [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever LG OM PC]] FRS (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) served as [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister]] of [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} the United Kingdom]] from 1979 to 1990. She is widely considered the most divisive figure in British political history since at least 1950. To adherents of [[UsefulNotes/EconomicTheories Neoclassical and Neoliberal economics]], she rescued the nation from the economic doldrums it was mired in since before World War II and pulled the trigger on what would become 25 years of a global shift to the right; to adherents of Keynesian economics, her tenure was among the most damaging to the British economy and society in a century (up there with TheGreatDepression and The Blitz); to The North and Wales, she is the Devil incarnate, to England south of London she might as well be Saint Maggie. The only things everyone can agree on are that she was an ideologue who truly believed that she was doing what was best for the country, and that she had the most impact on Britain of any PM since UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee.

How this era is remembered varies considerably by where you live: In the south of England, she is fondly remembered as the hero who saved the country from "socialist deterioration". In the north, and especially Scotland, she ranks somewhere between Hitler and the Antichrist. There is also an occupational divide: private-sector professionals applaud her promotion of 'efficiency', while those from the public sector (and formerly state-owned industries) loathe and blame her for the destruction of professions and communities that they had taken pride in [[note]]For example, Germany still has a coal-mining sector, for instance, but Britain does not despite the two having similarly rich coking coal deposits, it was the staggering inefficiency of British mining that made it at least on paper easier to get rid of than to rescue and update it[[/note]]. The coal miners hate her ''especially'' intensely in no small part because the 1984–85 strike, which they organized to help keep their jobs, backfired against them. This was only partially due to a more effective system of rapidly transporting police reserves to achieve numerical superiority over the strikers and crush them, but also because the government had created large and decentralised coal stockpiles across the country. This in turn was made easier by the fact that it had become cheaper to import it from countries with cheaper workforces such as UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica (the Apartheid regime didn't deter British businessmen at all, including Maggie's husband Denis, although to be completelly fair to Thatcher, none of her predecessors did any serious efforts on the matter either).[[note]]This may be confusing to Americans, where the coal mining industry is considered the life and blood of the Appalachia region.[[/note]] An important part of Thatcherism was the belief that new industries and jobs would replace old ones, but for many people, especially in North England and South Wales, this never happened.

# Thatcher's relations with the European Economic Community (which was on the brink of becoming UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion) were turning sour. Having campaigned in the 1975 referendum to keep Britain in the common market, during her later premiership she became increasingly Euroskeptic as she could foresee that the EEC's logical conclusion would eventually be a French-inspired supra-national government that would creep upon the national sovereignty of its member states, thus inhibiting Thatcherism and frustrating her attempts to take the economy the way she wanted it. She developed a habit of publicly badmouthing other European leaders and announcing things that went against what her foreign office had agreed in negotiations without consulting anyone else in the government. This eventually culminated in Sir Geoffrey Howe, her Deputy Prime Minister, resigning in a Commons speech that devastated his former boss and resulted in her facing the second leadership challenge in just over a year.[[note]]The first had been by little-known backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer, who many suspected had been duped by Thatcher supporters into running so she could easily crush him and assert her authority over the party -- she did win the challenge without major difficulty, but with a significant number of [=MPs=] abstaining or spoiling their votes.[[/note]] Thatcher though would ultimately have the last laugh on this front: her public Euroskepticism and especially her [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges_speech Bruges speech]] in 1988 are, in hindsight, credited with sowing the ideological seeds that would lead to the Brexit vote in 2016 and its execution four years later.

One would be remiss to leave out Thatcher's foreign policies, which (if even more than her domestic policies) have been controversial since her heyday. A staunch anti-communist, Thatcher was a dear friend of former Chilean dictator UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet, criticized the ANC (the anti-apartheid party of which Nelson Mandela was a member), opposed sanctions on South Africa even when every other Commonwealth country supported them, and sent SAS commandos to train the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Of historic interest, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4dHRN2Dug here's]] a video of Thatcher explaining to school children who watch the UK program ''Series/BluePeter'' how Pol Pot is "bad" Khmer Rouge and how there exists "good" Khmer Rouge. She also receives criticism for Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which banned state schools from promoting homosexual relationships (although this proved largely symbolic, as no actual offence was created or penalty specified, the legislation scared many LGBT student support groups into closing themselves) or of publishing materials with that intention. On the other hand, she was an early herald of the dangers of climate change and environmental pollution (though many in her party today like to ignore this part of her legacy).

Since UsefulNotes/TheresaMay assumed the office in 2016, Thatcher is no longer the only Woman of Downing Street. However, she remains the only Prime Minister who was near [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII Queen Elizabeth II]]'s age at the time of her tenure. [[note]]Their birthdays were about six months apart. John Major is about 5 years older than the Queen's ''son'' Prince Charles, and the rest were even younger (indeed, Blair, Cameron, May, and Johnson were all born ''during'' Elizabeth's reign, and Brown was an infant when Elizabeth took the throne). Meanwhile, Thatcher's predecessors were either born in the [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill 1870s]], [[UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden 18]][[UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan 90s]], [[UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome 1900s]] or [[UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson 19]][[UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath 10]][[UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan s]].[[/note]] The relationship between these two ladies was often held to be strained at best, catty and adversarial at worst; however Thatcher herself denied any rumours of discord, chalking it up to the media being unable to resist the notion of two women in their position developing a rivalry. The Queen, being the Queen, neither confirmed nor denied any rumours. It has been revealed that after Thatcher made the faux-pas of using the royal "We" in public, she was never again allowed a seat at her weekly audience with the monarch, having to brief the queen while remaining standing. This was Her Majesty's way of explaining the royal prerogative applied only to one woman in Britain -- and that one woman was not Margaret Thatcher. (It ''is'' worth noting that the Queen appointed Thatcher to both the Order of Merit -- an incredibly prestigious honour[[note]]The OM is, basically, the Commonwealth monarch's recognition that you, a Commonwealth citizen, are a once-in-a-generation individual in your field worldwide whose achievements have world-historical implications. Among politicians of Thatcher's era, the only other recipients are Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, and two Commonwealth Prime Ministers who literally preserved the territorial integrity of Her Majesty's realms (being [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]] of Canada, who worked hard on the "no" side of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and [[UsefulNotes/PrimeMinistersOfAustralia John Howard]] of Australia, who helped the monarchist side win in the 1999 republic referendum).[[/note]] completely within the monarch's discretion--almost immediately upon her departure (as in literally two weeks after Major had kissed hands) and also granted her the Order of the Garter (which is technically also discretionary with the monarch, though unlike the OM the monarch usually consults with the government about it) in 1995. Another PM she was known to personally dislike, UsefulNotes/TonyBlair, had to wait fourteen years for that honour.)

# Thatcher's relations with the European Economic Community (which was on the brink of becoming UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion) were turning sour. Having campaigned in the 1975 referendum to keep Britain in the common market, during her later premiership she became increasingly Euroskeptic as she could foresee that the EEC´s logical conclusion would eventually be a French-inspired supra-national government that would creep upon the national sovereignty of its member states, thus inhibiting Thatcherism and frustrating her attempts to take the economy the way she wanted it. She developed a habit of publicly badmouthing other European leaders and announcing things that went against what her foreign office had agreed in negotiations without consulting anyone else in the government. This eventually culminated in Sir Geoffrey Howe, her Deputy Prime Minister, resigning in a Commons speech that devastated his former boss and resulted in her facing the second leadership challenge in just over a year.[[note]]The first had been by little-known backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer, who many suspected had been duped by Thatcher supporters into running so she could easily crush him and assert her authority over the party -- she did win the challenge without major difficulty, but with a significant number of [=MPs=] abstaining or spoiling their votes.[[/note]] Thatcher though would ultimately have the last laugh on this front: her public Euroskepticism and especially her [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges_speech Bruges speech]] in 1988 are, in hindsight, credited with sowing the ideological seeds that would lead to the Brexit vote in 2016 and its execution four years later.

When she finally died in April 2013, there was a simultaneous outpouring of tearful grief and ecstatic celebration (including literal street parties), with the song “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead!” from ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' having a sudden, controversial surge in popularity, reaching the top of charts in Scotland, and number 2 in England. Typically of Thatcher's legacy, it divided the country almost perfectly down the middle. The Baroness' body was given a ceremonial funeral in St. Paul's cathedral, attended by the Royal Family, several generations of British politicians and some visiting foreign statesmen. There were rumours about protesters disrupting the proceedings (angry at the £10m cost and the fact she was being given a state funeral at all), but they came to nothing and her coffin was pulled through the streets in near-total silence. Even Big Ben's chimes were suspended for the duration. Her remains were cremated and she was interred alongside her husband at the Royal Hospital Chelsea i.e. the home of the Chelsea Pensioners, where the de facto care home section is named after her.

One would be remiss to leave out Thatcher's foreign policies, which (if even more than her domestic policies) have been controversial since her heyday. A staunch anti-communist, Thatcher was a dear friend of former Chilean dictator UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet, criticized the ANC (the anti-apartheid party of which Nelson Mandela was a member), opposed sanctions on South Africa even when every other Commonwealth country supported them, and sent SAS commandos to train the Red Khmers in Cambodia. Of historic interest, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4dHRN2Dug here's]] a video of Thatcher explaining to school children who watch the UK program ''Series/BluePeter'' how Pol Pot is "bad" Khmer Rouge and how there exists "good" Khmer Rouge. She also receives criticism for Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which banned state schools from promoting homosexual relationships (although this proved largely symbolic, as no actual offence was created or penalty specified, the legislation scared many LGBT student support groups into closing themselves) or of publishing materials with that intention. On the other hand, she was an early herald of the dangers of climate change and environmental pollution (though many in her party today like to ignore this part of her legacy).

Ironically, Thatcher's nickname of "the Iron Lady" originated from the Soviet military newspaper ''Red Star'', which it bestowed on her for an anti-communist speech in 1976, not intended as a compliment. Never one to let a newspaper get one over on her, Thatcher simply embraced the 'insult', embodied it, and eventually had a movie (''The Iron Lady'') named after it while everybody knew exactly who it was. Whatever people think of her, no one denies that she was a strong leader, able to steer a cabinet of men for 11 years. She was not only the first female Prime Minister, but the first female leader of the Conservative Party, a body not particularly noted as a bastion of female empowerment. Thus, she is always the cited comparison for any other female leader in any other country, however tenuous the comparison. On the other hand, she deserves her share of credit for founding the model of “presidential” leadership followed by Tony Blair and for practically inventing the entire economic environment of modern Britain. Few today could imagine returning to the politics and economics of the seventies. As with most things about Thatcher, whether this is good or bad remains a topic of heated debate. Her legacy also cast a long shadow on the Conservative Party; without her they would not win a solid majority again until 2019, nearly three ''decades'' after she left office.[[note]]The Conservatives did not win more than 336 seats in any election between 1992 and 2017.[[/note]]

Since UsefulNotes/TheresaMay assumed the office in 2016, Thatcher is no longer the only Woman of Downing Street. However, she remains the only Prime Minister who was near [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII Queen Elizabeth II]]'s age at the time of her tenure. [[note]]Their birthdays were about six months apart. John Major is about 5 years older than the Queen's ''son'' Prince Charles, and the rest were even younger (indeed, Blair, Cameron, May, and Johnson were all born ''during'' Elizabeth's reign, and Brown was an infant when Elizabeth took the throne). Meanwhile, Thatcher's predecessors were either born in the [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill 1870s]], [[UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden 18]][[UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan 90s]], [[UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome 1900s]] or [[UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson 19]][[UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath 10]][[UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan s]].[[/note]] The relationship between these two ladies was often held to be strained at best, catty and adversarial at worst; however Thatcher herself denied any rumours of discord, chalking it up to the media being unable to resist the notion of two women in their position developing a rivalry. The Queen, being the Queen, neither confirmed nor denied any rumours. It has been revealed that after Thatcher made the faux-pas of using the royal "We" in public, she was never again allowed a seat at her weekly audience with the monarch, having to brief the queen while remaining standing. This was Her Majesty's way of explaining the royal prerogative applied only to one woman in Britain - and that one woman was not Margaret Thatcher. (It ''is'' worth noting that the Queen appointed Thatcher to both the Order of Merit--an incredibly prestigious honour[[note]]The OM is, basically, the Commonwealth monarch's recognition that you, a Commonwealth citizen, are a once-in-a-generation individual in your field worldwide whose achievements have world-historical implications. Among politicians of Thatcher's era, the only other recipients are Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, and two Commonwealth Prime Ministers who literally preserved the territorial integrity of Her Majesty's realms (being [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]] of Canada, who worked hard on the "no" side of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and [[UsefulNotes/PrimeMinistersOfAustralia John Howard]] of Australia, who helped the monarchist side win in the 1999 republic referendum).[[/note]] completely within the monarch's discretion--almost immediately upon her departure (as in literally two weeks after Major had kissed hands) and also granted her the Order of the Garter (which is technically also discretionary with the monarch, though unlike the OM the monarch usually consults with the government about it) in 1995. Another PM she was known to personally dislike, UsefulNotes/TonyBlair, had to wait fourteen years for that honour.)

Over in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, the singer Music/{{Cher}} was surprised to be asked how she felt about being dead. This was due to a confusion on Website/{{Twitter}}; the hashtag "[[TheProblemWithPenIsland #nowthatcherisdead]]" was misinterpreted as "now that Cher is dead". Music/OneDirection member Harry Styles also infamously tweeted “RIP Baroness Thatcher” to a fanbase who responded with blank stares.

Since UsefulNotes/TheresaMay assumed the office in 2016, Thatcher is no longer the only Woman of Downing Street. However, she remains the only Prime Minister who was near [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Queen Elizabeth II]]'s age. [[note]]Their birthdays were about six months apart. John Major is about 5 years older than the Queen's ''son'' Prince Charles, and the rest are even younger (indeed, Blair, Cameron, May, and Johnson were all born ''during'' Her Majesty's reign, and Brown was an infant when the Queen took the throne). Meanwhile, Thatcher's predecessors were either born in the [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill 1870s]], [[UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden 18]][[UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan 90s]], [[UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome 1900s]] or [[UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson 19]][[UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath 10]][[UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan s]].[[/note]] The relationship between these two ladies was often held to be strained at best, catty and adversarial at worst; however Thatcher herself denied any rumours of discord, chalking it up to the media being unable to resist the notion of two women in their position developing a rivalry. The Queen, being the Queen, neither confirmed nor denied any rumours. It has been revealed that after Thatcher made the faux-pas of using the royal "We" in public, she was never again allowed a seat at her weekly audience with the monarch, having to brief the queen while remaining standing. This was Her Majesty's way of explaining the royal prerogative applied only to one woman in Britain - and that one woman was not Margaret Thatcher. (It ''is'' worth noting that the Queen appointed Thatcher to both the Order of Merit--an incredibly prestigious honour[[note]]The OM is, basically, the Commonwealth monarch's recognition that you, a Commonwealth citizen, are a once-in-a-generation individual in your field worldwide whose achievements have world-historical implications. Among politicians of Thatcher's era, the only other recipients are Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, and two Commonwealth Prime Ministers who literally preserved the territorial integrity of Her Majesty's realms (being [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]] of Canada, who worked hard on the "no" side of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and [[UsefulNotes/PrimeMinistersOfAustralia John Howard]] of Australia, who helped the monarchist side win in the 1999 republic referendum).[[/note]] completely within the monarch's discretion--almost immediately upon her departure (as in literally two weeks after Major had kissed hands) and also granted her the Order of the Garter (which is technically also discretionary with the monarch, though unlike the OM the monarch usually consults with the government about it) in 1995. Another PM she was known to personally dislike, UsefulNotes/TonyBlair, had to wait fourteen years for that honour.)

Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts), Baroness Thatcher, [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever LG OM PC]] FRS (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) served as [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister]] of [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} the United Kingdom]] from 1979 to 1990. She is widely considered the most divisive figure in British political history since at least 1950. To adherents of [[UsefulNotes/EconomicTheories Neoclassical and Neoliberal economics]], she rescued the nation from the economic doldrums it was mired in since the World War II and pulled the trigger on what would become 25 years of a global shift to the right; to adherents of Keynesian economics, her tenure was among the most damaging to the British economy and society in a century (up there with TheGreatDepression and The Blitz); to The North and Wales, she is the Devil incarnate. The only things everyone can agree on are that she was an ideologue who truly believed that she was doing what was best for the country, and that she had the most impact on Britain of any PM since UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee.

Since UsefulNotes/TheresaMay assumed the office in 2016, Thatcher is no longer the only Woman of Downing Street. However, she remains the only Prime Minister who was near [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Queen Elizabeth II]]'s age. [[note]]Their birthdays were about six months apart. John Major is about 5 years older than the Queen's ''son'' Prince Charles, and the rest are even younger (indeed, Blair, Cameron, May, and Johnson were all born ''during'' Her Majesty's reign, and Brown was an infant when the Queen took the throne). Meanwhile, Thatcher's predecessors were either born in the [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill 1870s]], [[UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden 18]][[UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan 90s]], [[UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome 1900s]] or [[UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson 19]][[UsefulNotes/EdwardHeath 10]][[UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan s]].[[/note]] The relationship between these two ladies was often held to be strained at best, catty and adversarial at worst; however Thatcher herself denied any rumours of discord, chalking it up to the media being unable to resist the notion of two women in their position developing a rivalry. The Queen, being the Queen, has neither confirmed nor denied any rumours. It has been revealed that after Thatcher made the faux-pas of using the royal "We" in public, she was never again allowed a seat at her weekly audience with the monarch, having to brief the queen while remaining standing. This was Her Majesty's way of explaining the royal prerogative applied only to one woman in Britain - and that one woman was not Margaret Thatcher. (It ''is'' worth noting that the Queen appointed Thatcher to both the Order of Merit--an incredibly prestigious honour[[note]]The OM is, basically, the Commonwealth monarch's recognition that you, a Commonwealth citizen, are a once-in-a-generation individual in your field worldwide whose achievements have world-historical implications. Among politicians of Thatcher's era, the only other recipients are Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, and two Commonwealth Prime Ministers who literally preserved the territorial integrity of Her Majesty's realms (being [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]] of Canada, who worked hard on the "no" side of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and [[UsefulNotes/PrimeMinistersOfAustralia John Howard]] of Australia, who helped the monarchist side win in the 1999 republic referendum).[[/note]] completely within the monarch's discretion--almost immediately upon her departure (as in literally two weeks after Major had kissed hands) and also granted her the Order of the Garter (which is technically also discretionary with the monarch, though unlike the OM the monarch usually consults with the government about it) in 1995. Another PM she is known to personally dislike, UsefulNotes/TonyBlair, had to wait fourteen years for that honour.)

Of course, New Labour under Tony Blair upheld the ideological adherence to the Neoliberal-Neoclassical socioeconomic consensus Thatcher established. In 1997 Blair was keen to criticise her successor, UsefulNotes/JohnMajor, but not Thatcher herself — with the result that Thatcher actually said "the country is safe in his hands,"[[labelnote:Fun fact]]"Tony Blair PM" is an anagram of "I'm Tory plan B".[[/labelnote]] and the politics of Britain in the twenty-first century are sometimes described as the “Thatcherite Consensus” in that most people accept it as natural that the economy rent-seeking activity on the logic that the profits reaped from the masses shall trickle back down to them in the form of jobs created to maximise profits further somehow (at least until Jeremy Corbyn hit the national stage big-time).

Paradoxically, Thatcher had the lowest average approval rating of any Prime Minister and yet still managed to win two landslide election victories in 1983 and 1987. This was helped by the disarray, entryism, and militancy that crippled the then abysmally incompetent Labour Party throughout the 1980s. Under Michael Foot things got so bad that the “Gang of Four” moderate members split off to form the Social Democratic Party, which formed an alliance with the Liberals (the remains of UsefulNotes/HerbertHenryAsquith and UsefulNotes/DavidLloydGeorge's party, reduced since UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to a dozen seats or so), and for a while it looked as if the Alliance would replace Labour as the main opposition. They eventually fell away and morphed into the modern day Liberal Democrats, but it highlighted an interesting quirk of the British political system: the more split the left vote, the more favourable the proportion of Conservative votes that translate into Tory [=MPs=] become. This allowed the Conservatives, on a reduced voting outcome, to keep grabbing dozens of formerly safe Labour constituencies, and actually increase the number of [=MPs=] they had.

# Thatcher's relations with the European Economic Community (which was on the brink of becoming UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion) were turning sour. Having campaigned in the 1975 referendum to keep Britain in the common market, during her later premiership she became increasingly Euroskeptic as she could foresee that the EEC´s logical conclusion would eventually be a gallic-inspired supra-national government that would creep upon national sovereignty thus inhibiting Thatcherism and frustrating her attempts to take the economy the way she wanted it. She developed a habit of publicly badmouthing other European leaders and announcing things that went against what her foreign office had agreed in negotiations without consulting anyone else in the government. This eventually culminated in Sir Geoffrey Howe, her Deputy Prime Minister, resigning in a Commons speech that devastated his former boss and resulted in her facing the second leadership challenge in just over a year.[[note]]The first had been by little-known backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer, who many suspected had been duped by Thatcher supporters into running so she could easily crush him and assert her authority over the party -- she did win the challenge without major difficulty, but with a significant number of [=MPs=] abstaining or spoiling their votes.[[/note]] Thatcher though would ultimately have the last laugh on this front: her public Euroskepticism and especially her bitter [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges_speech Bruges speech]] in 1988 are, in hindsight, credited with sowing the ideological seeds that would lead to the Brexit vote in 2016 and its execution four years later.