Thatcher marks 80th birthday with dinner attended by Queen

Oct 14, 2005, 9:20 GMT

London - Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher kept Queen Elizabeth II and 650 other guests waiting at a dinner for her 80th birthday Thursday because she was accepting congratulations over the telephone from U.S. President George W. Bush, aides said.

The former 'Iron Lady' arrived 15 minutes late for the party at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in central London, where the Queen, Prince Philip and Prime Minister Tony Blair were among the guests.

Thatcher, dressed in a navy-blue coat and dress ensemble, looked frail but nonetheless defied doctor's orders by speaking at the event, participants said.

She replied to a toast by Lord Carrington, her former foreign secretary, who resigned at the start of the Falklands conflict in 1982.

Aides said she had been delayed by talking to U.S. President George W. Bush on the phone.

'To everybody's surprise she made a speech, which was very witty and entertaining', said former close aide and Conservative Party chairman Cecil Parkinson.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, former Conservative prime minister John Major, singer Shirley Bassey, actress Joan Collins and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber were among the guests.

'I've always adored her. She is the Iron Lady, and I want to be like her when I grow up', said Collins, a long-time friend of Thatcher.

John Profumo, who resigned as war secretary and from the House of Commons in 1963 over an affair with call-girl Christine Keeler, was also at the party.

Michael Howard, outgoing leader of the Conservative Party, Thursday praised praised Thatcher's 'political will and iron courage'.

'What Churchill did in wartime, Margaret Thatcher did in peacetime,' Howard said.

Tony Benn, the Labour veteran and leftwing politician, said of Thatcher's 11 years as prime minister from 1979 to 1990: 'Mrs Thatcher said what she meant and meant what she said. And did it.'

Longtime Labour politician Tam Dalyell, who was twice ejected from the House of Commons for calling Thatcher a 'liar' over the 1982 Falklands war, said, 'Thatcher's untruths pale into insignificance compared to the lies Blair has told us in relation to the Iraq war.'

Former Conservative foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe, who was sacked by Thatcher, credited his former boss with a double triumph.

'The real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible,' said Howe.

For Thatcher, who has been banned by doctors from speaking in public after a series of strokes, the birthday celebrations are likely to be her last major appearance in the public eye.

Her aide, Cynthia Crawford, said Thursday: 'She cannot believe she is 80, and neither can I. She looks absolutely wonderful.'