Editing Margaret Thatcher (section)

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 |quote  = Margaret Thatcher was not merely the first woman and the longest-serving Prime Minister of modern times, but the most admired, most hated, most idolised and most vilified public figure of the second half of the twentieth century. To some she was the saviour of her country who [...] created a vigorous enterprise economy which twenty years later was still outperforming the more regulated economies of the Continent. To others, she was a narrow ideologue whose hard-faced policies legitimised greed, deliberately increased inequality [...] and destroyed the nation's sense of solidarity and civic pride. There is no reconciling these views: yet both are true.{{refn|group=nb|name=Campbell}}
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Thatcher's [[List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by length of tenure|tenure of 11 years and 209 days]] as British prime minister was the longest since [[Lord Salisbury]] in the late 19th century (13 years and 252 days, in three spells) and the longest continuous period in office since [[Lord Liverpool]] in the early 19th century (14 years and 305 days).{{sfnp|Gardiner|Thompson|2013|page=12}}<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mackay |first=Robert |date=28 December 1987 |title=Thatcher longest serving British prime minister |url=http://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/12/28/Thatcher-longest-serving-British-prime-minister/8486567666000 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303004520/http://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/12/28/Thatcher-longest-serving-British-prime-minister/8486567666000 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |access-date=26 June 2017 |work=United Press International}}</ref>

Having led the Conservative Party to victory in three consecutive general elections, twice in a landslide, she ranks among the most popular party leaders in British history regarding votes cast for the winning party; over 40&nbsp;million ballots were cast in total for the party under her leadership.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kimber |first=Richard |date=n.d. |title=UK General Election May 1979: Results and statistics |url=http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge79/results.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170428175636/http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge79/results.htm |archive-date=28 April 2017 |access-date=19 March 2017 |website=Political Science Resources}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=9 June 1983 |title=General Election Results |url=https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m09.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161029150237/http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m09.pdf |archive-date=29 October 2016 |access-date=31 December 2016 |publisher=UK Parliament}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=11 June 1987 |title=General Election Results |url=http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m11.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107031834/http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m11.pdf |archive-date=7 January 2017 |access-date=31 December 2016 |publisher=UK Parliament}}</ref> Her electoral successes were dubbed a "historic [[wikt:hat trick|hat trick]]" by the British press in 1987.<ref>{{YouTube |id=P0p5r_ibGT4 |title=UK General Election Results}}{{Retrieved|prepend=.{{sp}}|access-date=21 March 2017|note=Broadcast 12 June 1987}}</ref>

Thatcher ranked highest among living persons in the 2002 BBC poll ''[[100 Greatest Britons]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Great Britons – Top 100 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/greatbritons/list.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021204214727/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/greatbritons/list.shtml |archive-date=4 December 2002 |access-date=11 April 2013 |magazine=[[BBC History]]}}</ref> In 1999, [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] deemed Thatcher one of the [[Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century|100 most important people of the 20th century]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Quittner |first=Joshua |author-link=Josh Quittner |date=14 April 1999 |title=Margaret Thatcher – Time 100 People of the Century |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,26473,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308133259/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,26473,00.html |archive-date=8 March 2013 |access-date=22 December 2012 |magazine=Time}}</ref> In 2015 she topped a poll by [[Scottish Widows]], a major financial services company, as the most influential woman of the past 200 years;<ref>{{Cite news |last=Boult |first=Adam |date=1 December 2015 |title=Margaret Thatcher voted most influential woman of past 200 years |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/12027994/Margaret-Thatcher-voted-most-influential-woman-of-past-200-years.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231075046/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/12027994/Margaret-Thatcher-voted-most-influential-woman-of-past-200-years.html |archive-date=31 December 2016 |access-date=30 December 2016 |work=The Telegraph}}</ref> and in 2016 topped [[BBC Radio 4]]'s ''[[Woman's Hour]] Power List'' of women judged to have had the biggest impact on female lives over the past 70 years.<ref>{{Cite web |title=''Woman's Hour'' – The 7 women who've changed women's lives – BBC Radio 4 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/PnqpZRvgbvMFBCtrwHhhTZ/the-7-women-whove-changed-womens-lives |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111173034/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/PnqpZRvgbvMFBCtrwHhhTZ/the-seven-women-whove-changed-womens-lives |archive-date=11 January 2021 |access-date=15 December 2016 |publisher=BBC |quote=Topping the 2016 Power List – in our only ranked position – is the UK's first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=14 December 2016 |title=Margaret Thatcher tops ''Woman's Hour Power List'' |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38303886 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180404063443/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38303886 |archive-date=4 April 2018 |access-date=22 October 2020 |work=BBC News}}</ref> In 2020, ''Time'' magazine included Thatcher's name on its list of 100 Women of the Year. She was chosen as the Woman of the Year in 1982 when the Falklands War began under her command, resulting in the British victory.<ref>{{Cite web |date=5 March 2020 |title=1982: Margaret Thatcher |url=https://time.com/5793666/margaret-thatcher-100-women-of-the-year/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200307064451/https://time.com/5793666/margaret-thatcher-100-women-of-the-year/ |archive-date=7 March 2020 |access-date=7 March 2020 |magazine=Time}}</ref>

In contrast to her relatively poor average approval rating as prime minister,{{r|Ipsos}} Thatcher has since [[Historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom|ranked highly in retrospective opinion polling]] and, according to [[YouGov]], is "see[n] in overall positive terms" by the British public.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Matthew |date=10 August 2016 |title=David Cameron was the best Prime Minister since Thatcher |url=https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/08/10/cameron-best-prime-minister-since-thatcher |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111173134/https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/08/10/cameron-best-prime-minister-since-thatcher |archive-date=11 January 2021 |access-date=7 December 2018 |publisher=YouGov}}</ref> Just after her death in 2013, according to a poll by ''[[The Guardian]]'', about half of the public viewed her positively while one third viewed her negatively.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Clark |first=Tom |date=9 April 2013 |title=Opinion on Margaret Thatcher remains divided after her death, poll finds |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/09/opinion-sharply-divide-margaret-thatcher |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202174723/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/09/opinion-sharply-divide-margaret-thatcher |archive-date=2 December 2016 |access-date=5 December 2021 |website=The Guardian}}</ref> In a 2019 opinion poll by YouGov, most Britons rated her as Britain's greatest post-war leader (with Churchill coming second).<ref name="YouGov">{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Matthew |date=3 May 2019 |title=Margaret Thatcher: the public view 40 years on |url=https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/05/03/margaret-thatcher-public-view-40-years |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211205080201/https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/05/03/margaret-thatcher-public-view-40-years |archive-date=5 December 2021 |access-date=5 December 2021 |publisher=YouGov}}</ref> According to the poll, more than four in ten Britons (44%) think that Thatcher was a "good" or "great" prime minister, compared to 29% who think she was a "poor" or "terrible" one.<ref name="YouGov" /> She was voted the fourth-greatest British prime minister of the 20th century in a 2011 poll of 139 academics organised by [[MORI]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rating British Prime Ministers |url=http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=661 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110912105223/http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=661 |archive-date=12 September 2011 |access-date=24 August 2012 |publisher=Ipsos MORI}}</ref> In a 2016 [[University of Leeds]] survey of 82 academics specialising in post-1945 British history and politics, she was voted the second-greatest British prime minister after the Second World War.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cowburn |first=Ashley |date=13 October 2016 |title=David Cameron rated the third worst Prime Minister of the past 71 years |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-worst-prime-minister-ranking-third-since-ww2-a7358171.html |access-date=16 May 2022 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref>