A fight to the bitter end

AT SOME point in her 11-year rule, Margaret Thatcher adopted the royal prerogative of referring to herself in the plural — as when she announced the birth of a child to her son Mark in 1989.

“We have become a grandmother,” she declared archly, suggesting to those Britons who resented her hectoring style that their first woman prime minister may be on the verge of usurping the Queen of England.

So when Thatcher abruptly fell from power in a few tense weeks at the end of 1990, it had all the drama of a Shakespearean tragedy. Reporters watched in stunned surprise as a historic, transformational leader was toppled by hubris and a fierce political attack by a once-loyal courtier.