Thatcher to Seek Unprecedented 4th Term in Britain

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, already the West’s longest-serving leader after nearly a decade in power, says she will seek an unprecedented fourth term, a newspaper reported today.

The 63-year-old Conservative chief of state said she plans to lead her party into the next election and remain prime minister for another five-year term if it wins, according to an interview in the Times of London. The election must be held by 1992.

The Conservatives named Thatcher prime minister in May, 1979, after they defeated a Labor Party government. She has championed individual initiative and hands-off government as an ideological partner of President Reagan.

“Some time, there will come along a person who can do it better than I can,” she was quoted as saying. “And I’m always on the lookout. But I expect myself to do it for the fourth term.”

Asked if she had a date in mind to retire, she was quoted as saying, “No, but obviously one isn’t indestructible.”