THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 4th 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
She had defeated James Callaghan the Labour leader and Prime Minister, after he had been forced to hold a General Election due to losing a Vote of No Conficdence in the House of Commons. Margaret Thatcher, had been the Conservative Party leader since 1975, and had led a new media style election campaign, most famous for its poster of a unemployed people queuing (a dole queue) to receive unemployment benefit, with the title '1 Million Unemployed - Labour isn't Working'. Margaret Thatcher won three elections in all, in 1979, 1983, and 1987, before resigning in November 1990. She is the longest serving Post-War Prime Minister. Her strong stance in foreign policy, repulsing the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, and her stand against Communism with US President Ronald Reagan, as well as her negotiations within the EU to gain the UK a rebate, led to her nickname of the 'Iron Lady'. A conviction politician, her policies have been labelled New Right or Thatcherite, by rolling back the state, and reducing dependence on the Welfare State, thus overturning the Post War Consensus that had existed since 1945, so as to free up and stimulate enterprise to kick-start an economy suffering high unemployment and inflation via Laissez-Faire capitalism. Within this approach was the process of privatising nationalised utilitles such as gas and telecommunications, and the sale of Council Houses in the 'Right to Buy' scheme. Her critics emphasise the toll that this approach took on poorer working class communities, who saw a dramatic decline in job opportunities in their community, with little provision to safeguard them from the downside of such policies, as well as her reduction of the rights and power of the Trades Unions.
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