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
Diana Gould – Margaret Thatcher exchange the Falklands, but Thatcher avoided repeating that it had not. She said the full facts would be published in about 30 years, adding: "I think it could only be in Britain that a Prime Minister was accused of sinking an enemy ship that was a danger to our navy, when my main motive was to protect the boys in our navy." Gould suggested the sinking had put an end to a Peruvian peace proposal, but according to Thatcher, the proposal had not arrived in London until after the sinking. At several points the women clearly became irritated with one another.