Pop History Moment: Thatcher Sweeps To Power

On this day in 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman elected Prime Minister of Great Britain. Her twelve years in power were marked by the callousness of her policies - this is a woman who once labelled compassion as 'patronising', after all - and the usual social activism which ought, in a healthy society, to accompany the rise of a tyrant.

Yet, as much as it pains me to say it, it seems to have taken such a scold and a harridan to reunite the Great with Britain after years of slide into recession and apathy brought on by the loss of the British Empire. Thanks to shows like Spitting Image, the Prime Minister and her cabinet not only rapidly became the most recognized in modern times but were held to a degree of accountability which her predecessors would have found unconscionable.

Which counts for something, I guess...
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