Premiership of Margaret Thatcher Premiership of Margaret Thatcher Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1979 to November 1990. She became Prime Minister after serving as Leader of the Conservative Party since 1975. In domestic affairs, Thatcher is best known for her sweeping policies concerning the affairs of the economy, including the privatisation of most nationalised industries. In foreign policy, she fought a war against Argentina and played a key role with President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in ending the Cold War. By the late 1980s, she was alienating many senior members of her Cabinet by
Margaret Thatcher Yugoslav conflicts; she recalled the pain of needing to tell her mother repeatedly that her husband Denis was dead. In 2006, Thatcher attended the official Washington, D.C. memorial service to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on the US. She was a guest of Vice President Dick Cheney, and met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit. In February 2007 Thatcher became the first living British prime minister to be honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. The bronze statue stands opposite that of her political hero, Sir Winston Churchill, and was unveiled on