Plaza de Margaret Thatcher

A few steps from the Plaza de Colón, where the paseo de la Castellana meets Goya and calle del Marqués de Zurgena, Madrid dedicated a square to Margaret Thatcher in 2014. It covers over 2,000 square metres and holds a curious detail: the ground is not public. The land belonged to Banco de Madrid and the Gran Meliá Fénix hotel, so it is private property open to everyone’s passage. The decision went through with a single hand raised. In the full session of the Salamanca district, only the PP backed the name; the PSOE and IU voted against and UPyD abstained, with an argument residents still repeat: the British prime minister never had any link to the city. The plaque pays tribute to a woman who governed the United Kingdom for three consecutive terms and was the first woman to head a government in Western Europe. And there the best story of the name appears. The nickname everyone knows her by, the Iron Lady, was not born in London but in Moscow. It was coined by a Soviet captain, Yuri Gavrilov, who wrote those words in the military newspaper Red Star after an anti-communist speech in January 1976. The insult became a brand, and the brand reached this Madrid corner.