Margaret Thatcher dies after stroke - Tributes paid to Iron Lady
[gallery] Tributes have flooded in for Baroness Thatcher, after the former prime minister died aged 87 following a stroke.
The former prime minister, who has suffered bouts of illness for many years, was said to have died peacefully.
Her spokesman, Lord Bell, said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother, Baroness Thatcher, died peacefully following a stroke this morning."
The woman who became the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century will receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul's Cathedral, Downing Street said.
Adored and despised - Margaret Thatcher's legacy to live on
Buckingham Palace said the Queen was "sad to hear the news" and would be sending a private message of sympathy to the family.
Flags at Downing Street were at half mast. And Prime Minister David Cameron, who was returning home early from Spain this afternoon, where he had been in the country for talks with EU leaders, said: "Today is a truly sad day for our country. We've lost a great prime minister, a great leader, a great Briton.
"As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about her is that she didn't just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she'll go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.
"Today is obviously a day we should most of all think of her family. We've lost someone great in public life but they've lost a much-loved mother and grandmother and we should think of them today.
"Her legacy will be the fact she served her country so well, she saved our country and that she showed immense courage in doing so." Baroness Thatcher was the first woman to hold the post of prime minister when she led the Conservative Party to a general election victory in 1979. She held the post until 1990, winning three general elections.
Live reaction to the death of Baroness Thatcher:
She spent the next decade curbing the power of trade unions, signalling the end of an era when trade union leaders trooped in and out of 10 Downing Street, haggling and bargaining with her Labour predecessors.
Instead she stripped the unions of many of their powers, with the aim of transferring them to managements and individual consumers.
She successfully defied Arthur Scargill's nationwide and year-long miners' strike, which threatened to cripple Britain's entire economic base. And as she transformed the nation – attempting to release the grip of the state on massive industries and public services alike – she became one of the most influential, talked-about, listened-to and dominant leaders of the Western world.
When Argentina invaded the Falklands, she despatched a task force to the South Atlantic that drove the enemy off the islands in an incomparable military operation 8,000 miles from home.
She has been in fragile health since she suffered a series of minor strokes more than a decade ago. Former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major described Baroness Thatcher as a "true force of nature" and a "political phenomenon".
12 pages of reaction to Baroness Thatcher's death in tonight's Shropshire Star
