Prime Minister David Cameron tells the Commons that his Conservative predecessor Margaret Thatcher was an “extraordinary leader and woman” who made Britain great again.
Speaking at the start of an all-day parliamentary tribute to the former prime minister, Mr Cameron said she had “overcome the great challenges of her age”, breaking through the glass ceiling to become an MP and leader of her country, and spending much of her life under threat from the IRA.
He said she was “a woman of great contrasts” who was “formidable in argument” but “faultlessly kind to her staff”.
Today’s special session, during the easter recess, was called to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday. It began with warm words from the party leaders, but several Labour MPs criticised her record, drawing attention to the social consequences of her economic policies.
She made the political weather, she made history, and – let this be her epitaph – she made our country great again. David Cameron
Mr Cameron acknowledged that many MPs present “profoundly disagreed” with the former Tory leader, adding that their “generosity of spirit does you great credit”.
The prime minister ended his speech by saying: “They say ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’. Well in 1979 came the hour and came the lady.
“She made the political weather, she made history, and – let this be her epitaph – she made our country great again.”
Labour leader Ed Miliband said his party had disagreed with Baroness Thatcher over the miners’ strike, section 28 and South African sanctions.
But he paid tribute to her “extraordinary life and unique achievements”, calling her a “unique and towering figure” and saying that “at every stage of her life she broke the mould”.
Read Gary Gibbon's blog: Miliband - "Thatcher was right .." but not often
He said she had been correct to recognise that people had aspirations and right about the Falklands and the Soviet Union, describing her as “someone with deep convictions willing to act on them”.
But his Labour colleague David Winnick said it would be “wrong and hypocritical” for critics of Baroness Thatcher to hold back today.
Amid muttering on the Conservative benches, he talked of the social effects of her policies, saying they had been “highly damaging” and “caused immense pain and suffering to working people”.
Labour MP Michael Meacher accused her of embarking on a “scorched earth policy” to destroy political opponents, saying her policies had “wiped out” the textile industry in his Oldham constituency.
He added that Baroness Thatcher had “polarised the country, which is why even today, she is lionised in the south …. but remembered with a very different memorial in the north”.
Glenda Jackson, another Labour MP, talked about the “heinous social, economic and spiritual damage wreaked upon the country”, with shop doorways in urban areas becoming “the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom for the homeless”.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “Those of us who are not from her party can shun the tenets of Thatcherism and yet still respect Margaret Thatcher is part of what was so remarkable about her.”
Speaking in the upper house, Lord Tebbit spoke of Baroness Thatcher’s resignation under pressure from her ministerial colleagues in 1990 and said he regretted standing down from the cabinet three years beforehand.
“I think I do regret that because of the commitments I had made to my own wife that I did not feel able either to continue in government after 1987 or to return to government when she later asked me to do, and I left her, I fear, at the mercy of her friends. That I do regret.”