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(Reuters) - Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" who transformed Britain and inspired conservatives around the world by radically rolling back the state during her 11 years in power, died on Monday following a stroke. She was 87.

Britain's only woman prime minister, the unyielding, outspoken Thatcher led her party to three election victories, governing from 1979 to 1990, the longest continuous term in office for a British premier in over 150 years.

A grocer's daughter with a steely resolve, she was loved and loathed in equal measure as she crushed trade unions, privatized vast swathes of British industry, clashed with allies in the European economic bloc and fought a distant and improbable war to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentinian invaders.

She struck up a close relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the Cold War, backed the first President George Bush during the 1991 Gulf War, and declared that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a man she could "do business with".

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Let me give one anecdote to which I can personally attest. In leaving office she became a “consultant” to US tobacco giant Phillip Morris. She immediately used her influence on behalf of Phillip Morris to persuade the FCO to lobby the Polish government to reduce the size of health warnings on Polish cigarette packets. Poland was applying to join the EU, and the Polish health warnings were larger than the EU stipulated size.

I was the official on whose desk the instruction landed to lobby for lower health warnings. I refused to do it. My then Ambassador, Michael Llewellyn Smith (for whom I had and have great respect) came up with the brilliant diplomatic solution of throwing the instruction in the bin, but telling London we had done it.

So as you drown in a sea of praise for Thatcher, remember this. She was prepared to promote lung cancer, for cash.

slutpuppy

Tue Apr 9, 2013 4:49 am

and my dad worked for philip morris. big deal. it didnt make him less of a person.

stigmata

Tue Apr 9, 2013 4:54 am

slutpuppy

Tue Apr 9, 2013 4:49 am

and my dad worked for philip morris. big deal. it didnt make him less of a person.

Presumably your dad needed a steady job and an income, Thatcher didn't. She marketed cigarettes to developing countries because she wanted to, like a weird hobby or something.

Alisium

Tue Apr 9, 2013 5:27 am

Is there a list for what products should and should not be marketed to LDC's? I don't understand. They already smoke. I haven't been to a nation that doesn't smoke (or is as smoke free as the USA). Or, are we supposed to treat them like children and artificially reduce their options?

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Perhaps, I'll agree with your general opinion about the nefarious dealings of corporations. But, certainly you must recognize the government's role in making corporations what they are. That is readily apparent in this case.

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Alisium

Tue Apr 9, 2013 5:27 am

Is there a list for what products should and should not be marketed to LDC's? I don't understand. They already smoke. I haven't been to a nation that doesn't smoke (or is as smoke free as the USA). Or, are we supposed to treat them like children and artificially reduce their options?

I think we all have a sense of what's right and what's wrong. If i'm the only one who thinks that fighting against a government's non-coercive anti-smoking campaign is a bad thing, so be it I guess.

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That it took place in a developing country (a post-Soviet nation where people were unprepared for Western-style advertising bombardment) is icing on the cake. Her son's involvement in selling weapons to the Saudis is a similar thing.

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Perhaps, I'll agree with your general opinion about the nefarious dealings of corporations. But, certainly you must recognize the government's role in making corporations what they are. That is readily apparent in this case.

Aye, there was certainly a boom in corporate shenanigans in the 80s, as publicly owned industries and services were broken up and sold off. Funnily enough Thatcher's ministers tended to end up as executives on the boards of these new private companies. Nothing suspicious about that, no sir

Mojochi

Tue Apr 9, 2013 6:27 pm

Meh, it's a shame someone important has died. Death is... you know, not pleasant, but I couldn't really say I think highly of her in any palpable degree, beyond being formidable enough to rise to power. I mean... any friend of Ronald Reagan is a friend of...... I dunno... somebody who isn't me. Guess I'm too old to have romanticized her or that era.

Alisium

Tue Apr 9, 2013 5:00 pm

Different perspective. Here in the US it's very coercive. Smoking is banned and the banning continues to creep closer and closer to one's own home. In parts, like NYC (I shall resist the urge to describe the nanny-statism there), there's an actual black market for cigarettes, and people go to jail for purchasing and selling on that market.

But, for me it's a matter of freedom of choice. One should be allowed to do with one's own body as they see fit, including ingesting that which they desire, even unto their own detriment. I don't feel that it's the government's place to use my money to attempt to change minds in that regard. There are plenty of private advocacy groups to take up that mantle.

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Regarding the celebrations of Ms. Thatcher's death, I think they are in extremely poor taste. It seems to me the height of buffoonery and thuggery. One needs only to read stories like this, to righteously impugn the character of anyone out in the streets celebrating Ms. Thatchers death. I think one can disagree, even vehemently, with someone's policies, and still connect with them on a human level and show a tinge of compassion in the end. Were Jimmy Carter to pass today or Obama thirty years hence, I certainly wouldn't celebrate. And there is almost no other person, that affects my life, on this earth, I dislike more than Mr. Obama.