Thinking Paper #150 - Happy Birthday, Lady Thatcher

By Jacinta Burrow

Abstract

Margaret Hilda Thatcher (née Roberts), aka Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, and our forty-ninth Prime Minister, “The Thatch” is 86 today. The IIPBA (especially your humble author) salutes her.


Key achievements

In The Good Old Days before Tony Blair went and spoiled it all and turned Labour into a credible party of government, The Blessed Margaret won three elections on the bounce. The Sisterhood would like to pretend that she was actually a man, but she WAS the first female Prime Minister and that is awesome. Just imagine what Harriet Harperson could achieve if she didn’t spend all her time arguing for special treatment (I know. It just doesn’t bear thinking about).

Whilst Tony and Cherie popped out a fourth child for the benefit of the Murdoch press, The Thatch would not let a little thing like childbirth distract from the business of carving out a career. She squeezed out twins, had a quick shower and then went straight out and qualified as a barrister specialising in taxation.

Maggie had no idea who Monty Python was and was by all accounts very mean to Geoffrey Howe, but she enjoyed a close relationship with Ronald “The Gipper” Reagan after waving her trademark handbag around and ending the Cold War. The trick came in handy again when she told those pesky Argies to get the hell out of the Falkland Islands. That photo of her atop a British tank is to this day laminated and handed out to adolescent male delegates at Conservative Party Conference.

In 1996, Geri Halliwell declared that Maggie was the “first Spice Girl” and originator of “Girl Power”, which surely explains Eminem’s dilemma in the 1999 hit My Name Is (“I can’t figure out which Spice Girl I want to impregnate”). The Russkies nicknamed her “The Iron Lady” and Arthur Scargill had several names for her that it is impossible to repeat on a family think-site.

She may have done a bit of milk snatching and tried to introduce the Poll Tax, but she also let lots of people buy their own houses, she told the trade unions that they wouldn’t fall down dead if they occasionally turned up to work and she told the EU that Britain was jolly well going to grow crooked carrots if it wanted to.

Conclusion

If you’re still not convinced, ask yourself how many times you’ve eaten a 99 with a flake and enjoyed it. That ice cream, my doubting friends, was based on a chemical formula developed by the one, the only, The Thatch. She also remains one of the only people in the world recognisable solely by her hairstyle. Happy birthday, Maggie!