Former French President Francois Mitterrand famously described her as having “the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe.” But Margaret Thatcher is still widely remembered as “the Iron Lady,” a nickname that was given to her by the Russian media much to her delight.
The former British prime minister herself said, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” For most of her public life, she was a woman in a world dominated by men. But why was Thatcher such a divisive political figure in the UK and on the international scene?
Historian and biographer David Cannadine has written an extraordinarily concise summary of Thatcher’s achievements and failures. Margaret Thatcher: A Life and Legacy was initially meant to be included as an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It ended up as the longest entry for any 20th-century prime minister since Churchill. Oxford University Press then decided to publish it as a book in view of its outstanding qualities. Cannadine has succeeded very well in highlighting all the stages of Thatcher’s astonishing career and does so in a marvel of compression.
From the very first page, we learn from Shirley Ellis, a childhood friend, that Margaret Thatcher “always stood out because teenage girls don’t know where they’re going. She did.” She was also serious, competitive and hard working — qualities that were nurtured from a very early age with many of her character traits coming from her father, Alfred Roberts. He was from a large family and was forced to leave school at the age of 13, but he was determined to improve himself, be successful and to help his fellow citizens. More than anything, he wanted his daughters to have the education he had been denied. While her sister trained to be a physiotherapist, Margaret, who was brighter and more ambitious, went to Oxford. Besides obtaining a second-class degree, she became president of the Oxford University Conservative Association. This prepared her for a political career.
Although she worked for a time as a research chemist, she had a passion for politics. She met Denis Thatcher at an electoral meeting in Dartford and they married in 1951 after a two-year courtship. The connections she made at Oxford, combined with her constant attendance at party conferences, would pay off. But she had to wait until 1959 before she was finally elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Finchley.
Two years later she was appointed parliamentary secretary to the minister of pensions, a post she held for three years. Then in 1964, the rival Labour Party won the elections. From 1964 to 1970, during her years in opposition, she held six shadow posts.
During those years, her husband suffered a nervous breakdown and her marriage broke down. Her husband eventually left her and went to South Africa. He came back and sold his company to Castrol for a very large profit and it then employed him. He retired in 1975, the same year his wife won the Conservative Party leadership. From then until his death he continued to be her most loyal supporter “for virtually the whole of their marriage…he had played the part of prime ministerial consort to perfection, and he was the best and perhaps the only friend she ever had,” wrote Cannadine.
During her early months as the head of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher was eager to improve herself. Gordon Reece, a former television producer advised her about her clothes and she also trained with a voice coach to lower her pitch and soften her tone.
When the Conservatives were voted back into power in 1979, she became prime minister. “Yet, despite her confident manner and determined public demeanor, she was genuinely unsure of herself now that she had obtained the supreme office,” wrote Cannadine.
She was elected on the promise of implementing new policies; however, those policies increased the problems. But at the Tory Party conference in October 1980 she declared: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”
In April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and everything changed. Thatcher immediately appointed a small war Cabinet but was annoyed with Reagan who refused to support her because the US had friendly relations with both Britain and Argentina.
On May 21, the first amphibious landings took place on the Falklands, and on June 14 British soldiers recaptured Port Stanley. Soon after, Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, head of the military junta in power in Argentina, resigned.
The victory boosted her popularity. Just a year before, Thatcher had been the most unpopular prime minister but by July 1982, her ratings were 51 percent. She had taken huge military and political risks, but she was resolute in staying the course. She proved herself once more to be the Iron Lady.
In 1983, she won the general elections for the second time and it was during this second term that her economic policies, dubbed “Thatcherism” or “popular capitalism,” showed good results. One and a half million council houses had been sold, which brought £28 billion into the Treasury. According to Thatcher, increasing the number of homeowners would strengthen conservative values. Thanks to privatization, former national industries were more competitive. Between 1981 and 1987, average wages rose by 3 percent a year. Financial deregulation triggered a credit boom; the use of credit cards became widespread; shops stayed open later and people spent more and Britain had become what Thatcher called, a nation of consumers.
She won the elections again in 1987. By May 1989 she had been in power for 10 years and was the 20th century’s longest serving prime minister. At the party conference, she was feted and adulated to the words of “10 more years, 10 more years.” No one then imagined that within one year, she would be gone.
The economic situation was beginning to show a darker side. The boom times had not benefited the entire nation and inequality had increased sharply. Many homeowners who had recently bought their council houses were worse off. Thatcher was also becoming increasingly critical of the European Community. During her final months in power, the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 showed her declining influence on the world stage. George Bush was then in power and he, unlike Reagan, was not going to be intimidated by Thatcher. He was in charge of setting up an international coalition to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.
The Tory party was becoming increasingly divided over Europe and the economy was not in good shape, but Thatcher did not seem to care. She made a strong speech to the party conference reiterating her decision not to join the single European currency. Soon after, Howe, the only surviving member of her first Cabinet quit because he could no longer reconcile his loyalty to the prime minister with Britain’s real interests.
“It was a devastating performance, and all the more so coming from a mild-mannered and long-suffering minister, who was taking his belated revenge for the decade of bullying and humiliation he had endured at Thatcher’s hand,” wrote Cannadine
This unexpected resignation created an opportunity to challenge Thatcher for the Tory leadership. On the first ballot, she fell short of the majority required. Her Cabinet colleagues told her that she could not win on the second ballot having failed to gather the requisite votes. Thatcher then decided to withdraw. She showed extraordinary courage and dignity when she faced her enemies on both sides of the house for the last time. During this solo battle, she defended her record, refuted all interruptions and reiterated the fact that she had halted and reversed Britain’s decline.
But she had served her purpose, it was now time for her to leave. “The country had had enough of the bullying and berating, the hectoring and handbagging,” wrote Cannadine.
Thatcher left 10 Downing Street on Nov. 28, 1990. She would always feel bitter and resentful about the way she was suddenly and irreversibly discarded.
She was never really happy when she retired and she remained very much “herself.” She never forgave Oxford for not having awarded her an honorary degree and donated her massive archive to Churchill College, Cambridge. She wrote her memoirs, which were published in two volumes. As expected, the narrative was devoid of humor and she relished in describing everyone who opposed her in unflattering terms to say the least.
Her last years were sad and lonely. The first indication of her mental deterioration began in 1994 when she lost consciousness during a speech in Chile. She then began to experience memory losses and in 2002, following a stroke, it was announced that she would no longer make any public speeches.
In December 2012, she moved into the Ritz Hotel and she died the following year, following another stroke at the age of 87.
Cannadine’s book is a regal portrait of one of the world’s most famous women. It is incisive and full of interesting details. Thatcher is mostly remembered as being aggressive and uncompromising but there was another side to her. She was “a devoted and appreciative wife,” a loving mother who cried in public when for six days she had no news from her son who was taking part in a trans-Sahara race. She always did her best to look as attractive as possible. In that respect, the book’s cover photograph is awful and does not do her justice. She was always superbly coiffed with high heels to show off her legs and she changed her clothes several times a day. I can perfectly imagine her as Cannadine humorously describes her, “She also exploited her gender, treating her Cabinet colleagues in a way which no male prime minister could have done: brushing fluff from their shirt collars, straightening their ties, and buttoning (but not unbuttoning) their jackets.”
Brilliant and entertaining as this book is, I hope Cannadine is seriously considering writing a biography of Theresa May.
Book Review: Margaret Thatcher: The bully they called the ‘Iron Lady’
Book Review: Margaret Thatcher: The bully they called the ‘Iron Lady’
Santa and Mrs. Claus use military transports to bring Christmas to an Alaska Native village
- Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska
Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.
The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.
“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.
Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.
The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.
In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.
Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.
Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.
“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.
Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.
Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.
Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.
This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.
“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”
After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.
Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.
Scientists observe ‘negative time’ in quantum experiments
- The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time
TORONTO, Canada: Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.
Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea — it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.
The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.
The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time.
“This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time,” said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specializing in experimental quantum physics.
While the term “negative time” might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, Steinberg defends its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.
Years ago, the team began exploring interactions between light and matter.
When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or “excited” state before they return to normal.
In research led by Daniela Angulo, the team set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state. “That time turned out to be negative,” Steinberg explained — meaning a duration less than zero.
To visualize this concept, imagine cars entering a tunnel: before the experiment, physicists recognized that while the average entry time for a thousand cars might be, for example, noon, the first cars could exit a little sooner, say 11:59 am. This result was previously dismissed as meaningless.
What Angulo and colleagues demonstrated was akin to measuring carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel after the first few cars emerged and finding that the readings had a minus sign in front of them.
The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results.
Still, Steinberg and Angulo are quick to clarify: no one is claiming time travel is a possibility. “We don’t want to say anything traveled backward in time,” Steinberg said. “That’s a misinterpretation.”
The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.
Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations — some of which defy everyday intuition.
Critically, the researchers say, this doesn’t violate Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.
The concept of “negative time” has drawn both fascination and skepticism, particularly from prominent voices in the scientific community.
German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, for one, criticized the work in a YouTube video viewed by over 250,000 people, noting, “The negative time in this experiment has nothing to do with the passage of time — it’s just a way to describe how photons travel through a medium and how their phases shift.”
Angulo and Steinberg pushed back, arguing that their research addresses crucial gaps in understanding why light doesn’t always travel at a constant speed.
Steinberg acknowledged the controversy surrounding their paper’s provocative headline but pointed out that no serious scientist has challenged the experimental results.
“We’ve made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results,” he said, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t currently have a path from what we’ve been looking at toward applications,” he admitted. “We’re going to keep thinking about it, but I don’t want to get people’s hopes up.”
‘Don’t hit him too hard!’: Zelensky tells Usyk not to endanger British arms deal
- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky jokes for Oleksandr Usyk to be gentle with British rival Tyson Fury to not harm UK weapon supplies
PARIS: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with boxing star Oleksandr Usyk to be gentle with British rival Tyson Fury in their world heavyweight clash in case a battering delivers a knockout blow to a crucial arms deal.
Usyk defeated Fury in May to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and the two men meet again in Riyadh on Saturday.
“All Ukrainians are on your side. Of course, Britain is helping Ukraine in a fight against Russia,” Zelensky told Usyk on Friday in a video on Zelensky’s Telegram account.
“We respect our partners. That’s why when you beat Fury, don’t hit him too hard, because we don’t want them to ban Storm Shadow.”
British media reported last month that Ukraine had fired Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time after London gave Kyiv the green light for such strikes.
The UK government refused to confirm or deny the reports.
Britain’s Stonehenge is yet again a source of fascination ahead of the winter solstice
LONDON: It’s that time of year when crowds of pagans, druids, hippies and tourists head to Stonehenge in Britain to celebrate the winter solstice, with the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere.
Thousands are expected on Saturday at the megalithic circle on a plain in southern England as the first rays of sun break through the giant stones that make up one of world’s most famous prehistoric monuments.
Rain has been forecast but there is no doubt it won’t be able to drown out the drumming, chanting and cheering.
Beyond the fascination of the ritual, the eternal question may still linger in the back of the minds of many visitors: What was the real meaning and purpose of Stonehenge?
The site has been the subject of vigorous debate, with some theories seemingly more outlandish, if not alien, than others.
This year, those gathering will have something new to discuss.
In a paper published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers from University College London and Aberystwyth University say that the site on Salisbury Plain, about 128 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of London, may have had some unifying purpose in ancient times.
They base that on a recent discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones — the unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument, dubbed the “altar stone” — originated in Scotland, hundreds of miles north of the site.
What was surprising was that it came from so far away. It was long known that the other stones come from all over Britain — including the so-called bluestones, the smaller stones at the site that came from Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) away.
That varied geology is what makes Stonehenge unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain.
“The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions ... suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose,” said lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology.
It may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos,” Parker Pearson said.
Whatever its original purpose, Stonehenge today retains an important place in Britain’s culture and history and remains one of the country’s biggest tourist draws — despite the seemingly permanent traffic jams on the nearby A303 highway, a popular route for motorists traveling to and from the southwest of England.
Stonehenge was built on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain in stages, starting 5,000 years ago, with the unique stone circle erected in the late Neolithic period, about 2,500 B.C.
English Heritage, a charity that manages hundreds of historic sites, including Stonehenge, has noted several explanations — from the circle being a coronation place for Danish kings, a druid temple, a cult center for healing, or an astronomical computer for predicting eclipses and solar events.
So as far as symbolism and unification go — maybe Stonehenge really was a Mount Rushmore of its day?
Starbucks workers’ union to strike in LA, Chicago, Seattle before Christmas
The workers’ union representing more than 10,000 Starbucks baristas said its members will strike at stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle on Friday morning during the busy holiday season.
Workers United, representing employees at 525 Starbucks stores across the United States, said that walkouts are expected to escalate daily, potentially reaching hundreds of stores nationwide by Christmas Eve, unless Starbucks and the union finalize a collective bargaining agreement.
The union and Starbucks created a “framework” in February to guide organizing and collective bargaining. Negotiations between the company and Workers United began in April, based on the framework, that could also help resolve numerous pending legal disputes.
“Since the February commitment, the company repeatedly pledged publicly that it intended to reach contracts by the end of the year, but it has yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal,” the union said in a statement late on Thursday.
Starbucks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The coffee chain is undergoing a turnaround under its newly appointed top boss Brian Niccol, who aims to restore “coffee house culture” by overhauling cafes, adding more comfortable seating, reducing customer wait-time to less than four minutes, and simplifying its menu.
