Thatcher's spirit lives on, not least in self-reliant Hong Kong

Margaret Thatcher did not inspire me to go into politics - I decided that at a very young age - but she did allow me to believe that politicians could be a force for good, despite the pressures of politics.

She stated her beliefs to the electorate and moved ahead on a "back me or sack me" basis. She inherited a bankrupt country and transformed the economy. She was so successful that I was inspired to fly back to Britain from Hong Kong just for a weekend to walk the streets and knock on hundreds of doors for her.

She will not be mourned by the bully-boy unions that she defeated or by those who opposed her tax or benefit cuts. But the reality was that she put the Great back into Britain not that long after the International Monetary Fund had to bail out the pound.

She had many battles with Europe. French president Francois Mitterrand famously said she had the "eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe", part of the reason she was subsequently able to negotiate a huge rebate from the European Union for Britain.

Her strength and persistence finally won through the cold war and her personal relationship with the Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, developed a real warmth for the future.

I stood before her at Conservative Party conferences for many years in a row, transfixed by her oratory. Yet she was not an orator - her speeches were team efforts worked on well into the early hours - but she was a phenomenal communicator. As young politicians, we were all deeply cynical but we were more than willing to lay that aside for her because she spoke basic sense.

You knew what she thought and she was never going to move the goalposts on you. You either followed her or you didn't, and millions came round to her. She appealed to a wide range of people.