Where there was harmony, she brought discord ...where there was hope, she brought despair

THE most conspicuous personality at last week's Conservative conference in Manchester wasn't even there. Margaret Thatcher, who would have been 100 today, was a dominant, ghostly presence.

- PAUL ROUTLEDGE

A giant "Maggie Mosaic" of polaroid pictures greeted the party faithful, invoking their lost leader who died more than a decade ago.

And life-size cardboard Margaret Thatcher cutouts, plus her most famous outfits from 11 years in office, piled on the nostalgia. There was even a cyber-Thatcher, a chilling chatbot saying: "If the party wishes to recover it must do more than mention my name. It must live up to it." Party leader Kemi Badenoch, reading the many biographies of her illustrious predecessor, likens her unsteady start as leader to Mrs T saying she, too, was "written off" to begin with.

Thatcher's legacy is remarkable, the most substantial since her hero Winston Churchill.

From relatively humble beginnings in the Lincolnshire market town of Grantham, she built a formidable reputation as the first female UK premier and international stateswoman.

And it was a long story. A Cambridgeeducated chemist, she was a tax lawyer before becoming MP for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath, later her most bitter critic, made her Education Secretary in his 1970 government, where she won the nickname "Milk Snatcher" after abolishing free milk in primary schools.

She was elected Conservative leader in 1975, and cruised into Downing Street in 1979 following the "Winter of Discontent" when much of Britain was strikebound.

On the steps of No10, she took on the mantle of St Francis of Assisi, uttering the prayer: Where there is discord, may we bring harmony: Where there is error, may we bring truth; Where is doubt, may we bring faith; And where despair, may we bring hope.

However, she went on to rule in quite the opposite manner, sowing division and unhappiness that culminated in poll tax riots on the streets of London.

Even the Queen, with whom her relations were sometimes less than cordial, found her policies "uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive" says the monarch's press secretary.