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Margaret Thatcher is political career and achievements Every thing about him Part 5
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00:00Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979-1990
00:07Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
00:08Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher
00:11His political career and achievements
00:13Everything about the Jakugak and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
00:18Margaret Thatcher
00:20Her life and everything about him
00:22Part 6
00:24On the 14th of November, Michael Hesseltine mounted a challenge for the leadership of
00:29the Conservative Party
00:30Opinion polls had indicated that he would give the Conservatives a national lead over
00:35Labour
00:36Although Thatcher led on the first ballot with the votes of 204 Conservative MPs
00:4154.8% to 152 votes
00:4540.9% for Hesseltine
00:47With 16 abstentions
00:49She was 4 votes short of the required 15% majority
00:53A second ballot was therefore necessary
00:56Thatcher initially declared her intention to fight on and fight to win the second ballot
01:01But consultation with her cabinet persuaded her to withdraw
01:04After holding an audience with the Queen, calling other world leaders, and making one
01:09final common speech, on the 28th of November she left Downing Street in tears
01:14She reportedly regarded her ousting as a betrayal
01:17Her resignation was a shock to many outside Britain
01:20With such foreign observers as Henry Kissinger and Gorbachev expressing private consternation
01:25Chancellor John Major replaced Thatcher as head of government and party leader
01:29Whose lead over Hesseltine in the second ballot was sufficient for Hesseltine to drop out
01:34Major oversaw an upturn in Conservative support in the 17 months leading to the 1992 general election
01:40And led the party to a fourth successive victory on the 9th of April 1992
01:45Thatcher had lobbied for Major in the leadership contest against Hesseltine
01:49But her support for him waned in later years
01:52After leaving the Premiership, Thatcher returned to the backbenches as a constituency parliamentarian
01:58Her domestic approval rating recovered after her resignation
02:02Though public opinion remained divided on whether her government had been good for the country
02:06Aged 66, she retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election
02:12Saying that leaving the Commons would allow her more freedom to speak her mind
02:16On leaving the Commons, Thatcher became the first former British Prime Minister to set up a foundation
02:21The British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties
02:27She wrote two volumes of memoirs
02:30The Downing Street Years, 1993, and The Path to Power, 1995
02:35In 1991, she and her husband Dennis moved to a house in Chester Square
02:41A residential garden square in central London's Belgravia district
02:45Thatcher was hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris as a geopolitical consultant
02:50In July 1992 for $250,000 per year
02:54And an annual contribution of $250,000 to her foundation
02:59Thatcher earned $50,000 for each speech she delivered
03:02Thatcher became an advocate of Croatian and Slovenian independence
03:06Commenting on the Yugoslav wars
03:09In a 1991 interview for Croatian radio television
03:12She was critical of Western governments for not recognizing the breakaway republics of Croatia and Slovenia as independent
03:18And for not supplying them with arms after the Serbian-led Yugoslav army attacked
03:23In August 1992, she called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Garazde and Sarajevo
03:28To end ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian war
03:31Comparing the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the barbarities of Hitlers and Stalins
03:36She made a series of speeches in the Lords criticizing the Maastricht Treaty
03:40Describing it as a treaty too far and stated
03:43I could never have signed this treaty
03:45She cited A.V. Dicey when arguing that
03:48As all three main parties were in favor of the treaty
03:51The people should have their say in a referendum
03:53Thatcher served as Honorary Chancellor of the College of William and Mary in Virginia from 1993 to 2000
04:00While also serving as Chancellor of the Private University of Buckingham from 1992 to 1998
04:06A university she had formally opened in 1976 as the former Education Secretary
04:11After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party leader in 1994
04:15Thatcher praised Blair as probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gateskill
04:21Adding, I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr. Blair
04:25I think he genuinely has moved
04:27Blair responded in kind
04:29She was a thoroughly determined person, and that is an admirable quality
04:34In 1998, Thatcher called for the release of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
04:39When Spain had him arrested and sought to try him for human rights violations
04:44She cited the help he gave Britain during the Falklands War
04:47In 1999, she visited him while he was under house arrest near London
04:52Pinochet was released in March 2000 on medical grounds by Home Secretary Jack Straw
04:57At the 2001 general election, Thatcher supported the Conservative campaign
05:02As she had done in 1992 and 1997
05:05And in the Conservative leadership election following its defeat
05:09She endorsed Ayan Duncan Smith over Kenneth Clark
05:12In 2002, she encouraged George W. Bush to aggressively tackle the unfinished business
05:16of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and praised Blair for his strong, bold leadership in standing
05:21with Bush in the Iraq War
05:23Thatcher broached the same subject in her statecraft, Strategies for a Changing World, which was published
05:28in April 2002 and dedicated to Ronald Reagan, writing that there would be no peace in the Middle
05:33East until Saddam was toppled
05:36Her book also said that Israel must trade land for peace, and that the European Union
05:41was a fundamentally unreformable, classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals,
05:48a program whose inevitable destiny is failure
05:52She argued that Britain should renegotiate its terms of membership or else leave the EU and
05:57join the North American Free Trade Area
06:00That, on doctor's advice, she would cancel all planned speaking engagements and accept no more
06:06Following several small strokes, her doctors advised her not to engage in further public speaking
06:12In March 2002, she announced on the 26th of June 2003, Thatcher's husband, Sir Dennis, died aged 88
06:22His body was cremated on the 3rd of July at Mortlake Crematorium in London
06:26On the 11th of June 2004, Thatcher, against doctor's orders, attended the state funeral service for Ronald Reagan
06:35She delivered her eulogy via videotape
06:38In view of her health, the message had been pre-recorded several months earlier
06:42Thatcher flew to California with the Reagan entourage and attended the memorial service
06:47and interment ceremony for the president at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
06:52In 2005, Thatcher criticized how Blair had decided to invade Iraq two years previously
06:59Although she still supported the intervention to topple Saddam Hussein, she said that, as a scientist,
07:05she would always look for facts, evidence, and proof before committing the armed forces
07:10She celebrated her 80th birthday on the 13th of October at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, London
07:18Guests included the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alexandra, and Tony Blair
07:24Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Abravan, was also in attendance, and said of his former leader,
07:29her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party, but two, so that when Labour did eventually
07:34return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible
07:39In 2006, Thatcher attended the official Washington Memorial Service to commemorate the fifth anniversary
07:45of the 9-11 attacks on the U.S. She was a guest of Vice President Dick Cheney and met Secretary of State
07:51Condoleezza Rice during her visit In February 2007, Thatcher became the first living British
07:57Prime Minister to be honored with a statue in the Houses of Parliament
08:01The bronze statue stood opposite that of her political hero Winston Churchill,
08:05and was unveiled on the 21st of February 2007 with Thatcher in attendance. She remarked in the
08:11members' lobby of the Commons, I might have preferred iron, but bronze will do it won't rust
08:17Thatcher was a public supporter of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism,
08:22and the resulting Prague process, and sent a public letter of support to its preceding conference.
08:27After collapsing at a House of Lords dinner, Thatcher, suffering low blood pressure, was
08:32admitted to St. Thomas' Hospital in central London on the 7th of March 2008 for tests. In 2009,
08:39she was hospitalized again when she fell and broke her arm. Thatcher returned to 10 Downing Street in
08:44late November 2009 for the unveiling of an official portrait by artist Richard Stone, an unusual honor
08:51for a living former Prime Minister. Stone was previously commissioned to paint portraits of the
08:56Queen and Queen Mother. On the 4th of July 2011, Thatcher was to attend a ceremony for the unveiling
09:01of a 10-feet, 3.0-metre statue of Ronald Reagan outside the US Embassy in London, but was unable to
09:08attend due to her frail health. She last attended a sitting of the House of Lords on the 19th of July 2010,
09:15and on the 30th of July 2011 it was announced that her office in the Lords had been closed.
09:20Earlier that month, Thatcher was named the most competent Prime Minister of the past 30 years in an Ipsos
09:25Maury poll. Thatcher's daughter Carol first revealed that her mother had dementia in 2005,
09:32saying mom doesn't read much anymore because of her memory loss. In her 2008 memoir, Carol wrote
09:38that her mother could hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end.
09:43She later recounted how she was first struck by her mother's dementia when, in conversation,
09:49Thatcher confused the Falklands and Yugoslav conflicts. She recalled the pain of needing to tell her
09:54mother repeatedly that her husband Dennis was dead. Thatcher died on the 8th of April 2013,
09:59at the age of 87, after suffering a stroke. She had been staying at a suite in the Ritz Hotel in
10:05London since December 2012, after having difficulty with stairs at her Chester Square home in Belgravia.
10:12Her death certificate listed the primary causes of death as a cerebrovascular accident and repeated
10:17transient ischemic attack. Secondary causes were listed as a carcinoma of the bladder and dementia.
10:23Reactions to the news of Thatcher's death were mixed across the UK, ranging from tributes lauding
10:28her as Britain's greatest ever peacetime prime minister, to public celebrations of her death and
10:33expressions of hatred and personalized vitriol. Details of Thatcher's funeral had been agreed
10:38upon with her in advance. She received a ceremonial funeral, including full military honors, with a
10:44church service at St. Paul's Cathedral on the 17th of April. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of
10:50Edinburgh attended her funeral, marking only the second and final time in the Queen's reign that
10:55she attended the funeral of any of her former prime ministers, after that of Churchill, who received
11:01a state funeral in 1965. After the service at St. Paul's, Thatcher's body was cremated at Mortlake,
11:07where her husband's had been cremated. On the 28th of September, a service for Thatcher was held in the
11:13All Saints Chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea's Margaret Thatcher Infirmary. In a private ceremony,
11:20Thatcher's ashes were interred in the hospital's grounds, next to her husband's. Thatcherism
11:25represented a systematic and decisive overhaul of the postwar consensus, whereby the major political
11:30parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalized industry,
11:36and close regulation of the economy, and high taxes. Thatcher generally supported the welfare state,
11:42while proposing to rid it of abuses. She promised in 1982 that the highly popular National Health
11:49Service was safe in our hands. At first, she ignored the question of privatizing nationalized industries.
11:55Heavily influenced by right-wing think tanks, and especially by Sir Keith Joseph,
12:00Thatcher broadened her attack. Thatcherism came to refer to her policies as well as aspects of her
12:06ethical outlook and personal style, including moral absolutism, nationalism, liberal individualism,
12:12and an uncompromising approach to achieving political goals. Thatcher defined her political
12:18philosophy in a major and controversial break with the one-nation conservatism of her predecessor
12:23Edward Heath in a 1987 interview published in Woman's Own Magazine. I think we have gone through a period
12:29when too many children and people have been given to understand, I have a problem, it is the government's
12:34job to cope with it. Or I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it. I am homeless,
12:40the government must house me, and so they are casting their problems on society, and who is society?
12:45There is no such thing. There are individual men and women, and there are families, and no government
12:51can do anything except through people, and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after
12:56ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbor. And life is a reciprocal business,
13:01and people have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. The number of adults
13:06owning shares rose from 7% to 25% during her tenure, and more than a million families bought their council
13:13houses, increasing from 55% to 67% in owner-occupiers from 1979 to 1990. The houses were sold at a discount of
13:2233% to 55%, leading to large profits for some new owners. Personal wealth rose by 80% in real terms
13:29during the 1980s, mainly due to rising house prices and increased earnings. Shares in the privatized
13:35utilities were sold below their market value to ensure quick and wide sales rather than maximize
13:40national income. The Thatcher years were also marked by periods of high unemployment and social unrest,
13:46and many critics on the left of the political spectrum falter economic policies for the unemployment
13:51level. Many of the areas affected by mass unemployment as well as her monetarist economic
13:56policies remain blighted for decades by such social problems as drug abuse and family breakdown.
14:02Unemployment did not fall below its May 1979 level during her tenure, only falling below its April 1979
14:09level in 1990. The long-term effects of her policies on manufacturing remain contentious. Thatcher served as
14:16Honorary Chancellor of the College of William & Mary in Virginia from 1993 to 2000, while also
14:22serving as Chancellor of the Private University of Buckingham from 1992 to 1998, a university she had
14:29formally opened in 1976 as the former Education Secretary. After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party
14:35leader in 1994, Thatcher praised Blair as probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gateskill, adding,
14:42I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr. Blair. I think he genuinely has moved.
14:49Blair responded in kind. She was a thoroughly determined person, and that is an admirable quality.
14:56In 1998, Thatcher called for the release of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet when Spain had him
15:02arrested and sought to try him for human rights violations. She cited the help he gave Britain during
15:07the Falklands War. In 1999, she visited him while he was under house arrest near London. Pinochet was
15:14released in March 2000 on medical grounds by Home Secretary Jack Straw. At the 2001 general election,
15:21Thatcher supported the Conservative campaign as she had done in 1992 and 1997, and in the Conservative
15:28leadership election following its defeat, she endorsed Iain Duncan Smith over Kenneth Clark. In 2002,
15:34she encouraged George W. Bush to aggressively tackle the unfinished business of Iraq under Saddam Hussein,
15:41and praised Blair for his strong, bold leadership in standing with Bush in the Iraq War. Thatcher
15:47broached the same subject in her statecraft, Strategies for a Changing World, which was published
15:52in April 2002 and dedicated to Ronald Reagan, writing that there would be no peace in the Middle East until
15:58Saddam was toppled. Her book also said that Israel must trade land for peace, and that the European
16:03Union, EU, was a fundamentally unreformable, classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of
16:10intellectuals, a program whose inevitable destiny is failure. She argued that Britain should renegotiate
16:16its terms of membership, or else leave the EU and join the North American Free Trade Area. Following
16:22several small strokes, her doctors advised her not to engage in further public speaking. In March 2002,
16:28she announced that, on doctors, advice, she would cancel all planned speaking engagements and accept no
16:34more. On the 26th of June 2003, Thatcher's husband, Sir Dennis, died aged 88. His body was cremated on the
16:433rd of July at Mortlake Crematorium in London. On the 11th of June 2004, Thatcher, against doctors' orders,
16:51attended the state funeral service for Ronald Reagan. She delivered her eulogy via videotape.
16:56In view of her health, the message had been pre-recorded several months earlier.
17:01Thatcher flew to California with the Reagan entourage and attended the memorial service
17:05and internment ceremony for the president at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
17:09In 2005, Thatcher criticized how Blair had decided to invade Iraq two years previously. Although she still
17:17supported the intervention to topple Saddam Hussein, she said that, as a scientist, she would always
17:23look for facts, evidence, and proof before committing the armed forces. She celebrated her 80th birthday on
17:29the 13th of October at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, London. Guests included the Queen,
17:36the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alexandra, and Tony Blair.
17:40I stop at this point today. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep exploring
17:47the world's incredible stories. Soon we will publish part 7. If you have any comments,
17:52please leave us your comments. Because they are important to us. Thank you for watching.
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