In global politics, few figures embody determination like Britain’s “Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher. On October 13, her Conservative Party commemorated 100 years since her birth, a fitting tribute to the woman who reshaped modern Britain.
Thatcher became the United Kingdom’s first female prime minister in 1979, at a time of industrial unrest, inflation, and Cold War tension. She responded with fierce conviction—privatising industries, confronting unions, and redefining Britain’s global stance. Her tenure was marked by decisive, often polarising acts that won both admiration and animosity.
Her iron persona was born of both policy and style: sharp rhetoric, ideological clarity, and unbending will. “This lady’s not for turning,” she declared—and she never did.
Today, in Trinidad and Tobago, our first female Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has also made it abundantly clear that softness has no place in leadership. Her speeches bristle with warnings to drug cartels, criminals, corrupt officials, economic predators, indisciplined students, and even her own party members.
While others pussyfooted around the rising tide of violent crime and home invasions, Persad-Bissessar offered a blunt solution—to “empty the clip” and “light them up”. Her words resonated with citizens tired of being victims, even as critics accused her of going too far.
Persad-Bissessar’s confrontations read less like ideology and more like urgent responses to law-and-order breakdowns and institutional weakness: challenging cartels, demanding financial fairness, and insisting on discipline within public life. Her message to party members to “stay in line or step aside” showed her unwillingness to tolerate corruption.
She also confronted what she called “forex cartels”, accusing banks of crippling smaller businesses and vowing reform: “We cannot do things the same way and expect things to change.”
On the drug trade, she was even more uncompromising:
“The slaughter of our people is fuelled by evil cartel traffickers. The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers—the US military should kill them all violently.”
In response to the UWI administration’s failure to open the Debe Campus, she said, “Do not test me,” warning that she would take back the campus if necessary. These stances earned her both applause and criticism. Admirers saw a decisive protector of the public; detractors called her rhetoric inflammatory. But that tension only reinforced her identity—much as it did for Thatcher.
Thatcher’s toughness stemmed from ideology. She believed in free markets, national sovereignty, and moral discipline—a worldview that redefined British politics. Persad-Bissessar’s toughness, by contrast, is pragmatic and immediate. She confronts crime, economic inequity, and political indiscipline as direct threats to the nation’s well-being.
Yet the essence of their leadership is strikingly similar: both had to assert authority in male-dominated spaces that questioned whether a woman could be firm without being “harsh”. Thatcher answered through doctrine; Persad-Bissessar through defiance. Both share a core instinct—to fight openly and loudly when national interest demands it.
Thatcher’s downfall came from within her own Conservative Party in 1990. Persad-Bissessar too has faced betrayal from within, vilified and mocked not only by political opponents but by members of her own party—some of whom she once elevated to Parliament. For years, whispers spread that “once Kamla is there, the PNM will win”. Many repeated the claim. Yet she proved them wrong. With constant attacks from all sides, a weaker leader would have folded. She stood firm, outlasting rivals and proving that endurance itself can be a strategy.
For both, leadership carried a political price. Thatcher’s economic reforms divided Britain but cemented her as the most influential British leader of the late 20th century. Persad-Bissessar’s confrontational tone may have alienated some Caricom allies, but it established her as a formidable defender of national interest—unafraid to do what she believes necessary for change.
Each, in her own context, shattered the myth that female leaders must temper strength to gain respect. Whether on the cold stages of Westminster or under the Caribbean sun, their message is timeless: leadership demands conviction, and conviction demands courage.
Ten days before Thatcher left office in 1990, she told her critics:
“I am still at the crease, though the bowling has been pretty hostile of late. And in case anyone doubted it, can I assure you there will be no ducking the bouncers, no stonewalling, and no playing for time. The bowling’s going to get hit all round the ground. That is my style.”
To Persad-Bissessar, one might say the same: keep on batting hard—maybe, just maybe, things will change.
