MP - Thatcher legacy is a better Britain

Paying tribute to the former prime minister, Mr Reevell said that although Baroness Thatcher’s industrial polices were divisive, most people would agree on her handling on international issues like the Cold War and the Falklands.

Lady Thatcher died yesterday aged 87. She visited Dewsbury in 1990 to officially open Dewsbury and District Hospital. Her visit attracted a crowd of protesters, angry at her NHS policy.

Mr Reevell said: “It is always sad when somebody passes away and when it comes out of the blue. In terms of her legacy I think Britain in 1990 was a much better place than in 1979. For one person to be responsible for so much change is remarkable. It doesn’t mean that she got everything right but the Britain we enjoy today has a lot to do with her.

“National pride came back in the 1980s, not just in how we saw ourselves but in how other countries saw us. A lot of people will say she was divisive but if you talk about the Cold War or the Falklands or the IRA, there was no divisiveness there. It was the industrial policies divided opinion but the world was changing.

“My family was a mining family but my granddad wasn’t a miner in the hope that one day I would be, he was a miner in the hope that one day I would not have to be. Now we can say that more should have been done to help the families, but I think that she deserves parliament being recalled and the military funeral next week.”

It was announced earlier today (Tuesday), that parliament will be recalled tomorrow in the wake of Lady Thatcher’s death.

A funeral with military honours will be held in London on Wednesday.