Margaret Thatcher

The story of Margaret Thatcher’s post-premiership years is a tale of high drama and low farce, with, at its heart, one extraordinary woman.

Margaret Thatcher enjoyed perhaps one of the most consequential political afterlives in British history. No longer in office but never really out of power, she was not only one of the most impactful Prime Ministers the UK has ever had; she was also one of the most impactful former Prime Ministers the UK has ever had. British politics today undoubtedly reflects Thatcher’s time in No. 10, but it is also shaped by her later life and how people reacted and still react to it.

To mark the centenary of her birth, Margaret Thatcher: Life After Downing Street provides a radical reassessment of how Thatcher’s premier emeritus years have been viewed to date. Covering the four main areas of her work after Downing Street – philosophy, party, policy and performance – and analysing her continued and continuing influence on the Conservative leaders and Prime Ministers of all parties who followed her, it demonstrates why, however small the politics may or may not have got since 1990, Margaret Thatcher is still big.