MOLE Valley's Member of Parliament paid a glowing tribute to Baroness Thatcher at the House of Commons yesterday.
All members were called back to Parliament for a special meeting to remember the Iron Lady, who died on Monday at the age of 87, following a stroke.
Conservative member Sir Paul Beresford told the House of his memories of encounters with the former Prime Minister, the first and only woman to hold the role.
Sir Paul said: "Other members have touched on Margaret Thatcher's compassion and understanding for the people at the bottom, the lowly people—an aspect of her character that does not often come out.
"I found out about that myself, when I was a lowly London councillor having trouble with English, my second language.
"I had come from New Zealand, and I found, to my amazement, a polite request to see the Prime Minister, explained, was generally accepted."
He added: "The way to stimulate a conversation with Margaret Thatcher was to disagree. If somebody disagreed, her eyes lit up and she launched into the argument.
"If somebody had a proposition, or she had a proposition, she turned the discussion into a friendly argument.
"My hon. Friend used to sit to one side, but between us, like an umpire at Wimbledon, with his head moving from side to side, with a faint grin, and I would peer out of the corner of my eye to see if I was winning.
"In any discussion with Margaret Thatcher at that time, I had to be very well prepared, and I was never quite sure when starting an argument disagreeing with her whether she was actually disagreeing with me or testing my hypothesis."
Lady Thatcher's politics and leadership style were renowned, and her brand of policy implemented during her time in office from 1979 to 1990 has come to be known as Thatcherism.
Sir Paul continued: "Margaret Thatcher's saying, 'the lady's not for turning', has come up several times today.
"That might have been true at that particular time, but I found in practice that she would listen to an argument, particularly if there was a political aspect to it, and be prepared to change her position, if the argument was suitable and good enough."
He added: "This country, as someone has already said, was the sick man of Europe. We were in a desperate state. Our balance of payments was appalling and there were all the other things that many of us have mentioned.
"Margaret Thatcher's arrival as Prime Minister could not have been any later, because we were on the edge; I just wish it had been sooner."
