Lord Norton of Louth is a Conservative Peer and leading authority on British politics. He is a professor of government at the University of Hull ...
Margaret Thatcher will always be a divisive figure. Her politics by nature were divisive.
But we must not underestimate the role Margaret Thatcher played both internationally and domestically.
On the world stage she was in power at that crucial time of Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev and her influence helped bring about the huge changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Reagan did not have the intellectual clout to challenge Gorbachev. Thatcher was able to reinforce him intellectually and morally and help ensure the west did not back-down. In a way it was the Soviets who recognised that. It was they who named her the Iron Lady and that gave her a title she had to live up to throughout her life.
On the national stage she changed the face of British politics. She transformed the way politics worked and how a Prime Minister behaved.
Prior to her arrival Prime Ministers looked for stability, looked at the here and now. She was the first Prime Minister to have a clear thought about where she wanted to go and how she would do it, and that was Thatcherism.
And she achieved that without a Thatcherite cabinet or party. Yes there were Thatcherites on her cabinet and in her party but she never had a full cabinet to support her. Yet she achieved what she set out to. She led in a forceful way and she got what she wanted.
I was speaking to a former cabinet member and he told me that what Thatcher was able to do was recognise a brick wall when she saw one. Her predecessors would have run straight into it. Thatcher didn't. She would negotiate her way around it and continue in pursuit of what she wanted. In that respect she was a very adept politician.
Of course there was always going to be division with her policies. There is no doubt it was painful period to get where we are today. Her policies were radical and disruptive and of course attracted criticism and controversy. But where we are as a result is a more prosperous country with a much more competitive economy. You only have to look at the fact that successive governments have maintained her policies to see that these were necessary and are still relevant today.
For many her legacy will always be one of division. But as a Prime Minister she was in a class of her own.
• Pictures: Margaret Thatcher in Hull and East Yorshire
• Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher dies after stroke
