Second Thatcher ministry Second Thatcher ministry Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 4 May 1979 to 28 November 1990, during which time she led a Conservative government. She was the first woman to hold that office. During her premiership, Thatcher moved to liberalise the British economy through deregulation, privatisation, and the promotion of entrepreneurialism. This article details the second government Thatcher led at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II from 1983 to 1987. The Conservative government was re-elected in June 1983 with a majority of 144 seats, with Labour in opposition having a mere 209 seats after its worst
Diana Gould – Margaret Thatcher exchange she telephoned Tam Dalyell, a Labour MP who had been pressing for information about the sinking, and asked him to brief her. Thatcher and Sue Lawley, the anchor, were in the BBC's Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, west London, where the prime minister took questions from 18:25 until 19:00. Gould, in the BBC's Bristol studio, was the fourth member of the public to be invited to speak. "Mrs. Thatcher," she asked, "why, when the Belgrano, the Argentinian battleship, was outside the exclusion zone and actually sailing away from the Falklands, why did you give the orders to sink it?"