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LONDON: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in a
stable condition in a London hospital Saturday after being admitted
for tests, an official said.
The 82-year-old spent the night at St Thomas’
Hospital where she was driven from her home in the capital late
Friday after complaining she felt unwell.
A spokeswoman for the hospital was quoted
saying, “Baroness Thatcher has remained stable overnight and we
have nothing further to add at this stage.”
Britain’s first female prime minister,
nicknamed “the Iron Lady” for her uncompromising stance on
policy issues, has appeared in public less and less frequently after
doctors banned her from addressing large audiences in 2002.
She has suffered a series of minor strokes,
which friends say have affected her short-term memory, leading her
to occasionally lose track mid-conversation.
Her biographer Charles Moore said he was
“optimistic” she would recover.
“Things are not too bad,” he told BBC radio.
“I’ve just spoken to some people close to her, and I think what
seems to have happened, Lady Thatcher is susceptible to heat and it
sometimes gives her, as it does sometimes with old people, a
turn.”
Sporting her trademark bouffant hairstyle and
handbag, Thatcher forced through sweeping changes during her
premiership between 1979 and 1990, advocating individualism and the
breakdown of Britain’s class system.
At home, she is a divisive figure, hailed by the
right who say she revived the economy by clamping down on trade
unions and crushing a major strike by miners protesting against pit
closures in 1985.
But the left accuse her of heavy-handedness and
intransigence, saying her reforms helped to unpick the fabric of
society, particularly in traditional manufacturing heartlands such
as northern England.
Her popularity soared when she sent troops to
the Falkland Islands in 1982 after Argentina’s invasion. Britain
secured victory in two months
Ultimately, though, it was her perceived
inflexibility, which brought her down—her resistance to closer
European ties triggered a revolt within the Conservatives that led
to John Major taking over in 1990.
-- AFP
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