Labels:text | human face | smile | clock | screenshot | person | woman OCR: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Thatcher, Margaret Margaret Thatcher Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister this century, was an advocate of thrift, self-reliance, and hard work. A surprise victory in the 1975 Conservative party leadership contest led to the development of her distinctive Thatcherite agenda. This included reduced state control, privatization of state-owned industries, hostility toward the "dependency culture" of the welfare state, sale of public housing to tenants, and reduction in trade-union power. Defeat of Argentina's attempt to seize the Falkland Islands (1982), negotiations to reduce Britain's financial contributions to the European Community, and advocacy of intervention in the Gulf War boosted her reputation as the "Iron Lady." Ultimately her hostility to further Margaret Thatcher, European Union integration and her insistence on British politician, 1925 - an unpopular universal local tax (the "poll tax" or Community Charge) made her an electoral liability in the view of many Conservative Members of Parliament who forced her out of office. She was made a life peer, Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, in 1992. CHRONOLOGY
