CROW country MPs have paid tribute to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher following her death this week.

Lady Thatcher, who was Conservative Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, died peacefully following a stroke on Monday. She was 87-years-old.

MP for South Cambridgeshire Andrew Lansley said: “Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain. Sad today at her passing, we can even today recognise how she took Britain from ‘the sick man of Europe’ to a country respected, admired and emulated. She did it because she would not accept the consensus of managed decline. As her director of research in 1990, I saw at first hand her compass; an internal set of values she lived by. And, as private secretary to Norman Tebbit in 1984 and 1985, after the Brighton bomb, how the private Margaret Thatcher was immensely kind and caring in her support for her wounded colleague and his wife.”

North East Herts MP Oliver Heald said: “Margaret Thatcher was the pre-eminent statesman of her period and changed Britain forever. She made a huge impact on the lives of people in Britain and transformed the prospects of millions with reforms such as the sale of council houses and privatisation.

“On a personal level, she was very supportive when I was first a Conservative candidate and I will remember the warmth and magnetism of her personality, but above all, her resolute beliefs in what was right for the future of Britain.”

Les Baker, secretary of the North East Herts Constituency Labour Party and former editor of the Royston Crow, said: “I spent 13 years reporting on Mrs Thatcher when working for local newspapers in Finchley and saw her rise from the backbenches to become prime minister.

“Indeed, I was with her in her constituency office on the night she became prime minister and remember well both the look of delight and the desire to make a change.

“She was a controversial politician, but also one in which her determination had to be admired. Although it was difficult to agree with some of her policies she certainly earned respect. There was, too, a side of her not seen in the public eye: the woman who genuinely helped others away from the glare of publicity. She will be remembered for her political achievements and personal strength.”