Margaret Thatcher senior member of the party and former Minister of Defence, as Foreign Minister in 1979. Although he was considered a "wet", he avoided domestic affairs and got along well with Thatcher. The first issue was what to do with Rhodesia, where the five-percent white population was determined to rule the prosperous, largely-black ex-colony in the face of overwhelming international disapproval. After the collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa in 1975, South Africa, which had been Rhodesia's chief supporter, realised that country was a liability. Black rule was inevitable, and Carrington brokered a peaceful solution at the Lancaster House conference
Margaret Thatcher had been cremated. On 28 September, a service for Thatcher was held in the All Saints Chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea's Margaret Thatcher Infirmary. In a private ceremony, Thatcher's ashes were interred in the grounds of the hospital, next to those of her husband. Thatcherism represented a systematic and decisive overhaul of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry, and close regulation of the economy, and high taxes. Thatcher generally supported the welfare state, while proposing to rid it of abuses. She promised in 1982