Labour leader Ed Miliband used the backdrop of King’s and Clare Colleges to deliver a statement to reporters about the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher today.

Miliband had launched the Labour Party’s local election campaign in Ipswich this morning, and a speech and walkabout had been scheduled outside the Guildhall for this afternoon. On hearing the news of Baroness Thatcher’s death on the train to Cambridge, however, the decision was made to suspend local election campaigning. A brief trip was nevertheless made to the Backs to deliver his statement to reporters.   

Miliband acknowledged that the country’s first female leader was ‘controversial’, and that the Labour Party disagreed with many of her decisions during her time in power. However, he applauded her dignity in her final years, and described her as “a huge, towering figure on the world stage’. “Now is not the time for party politics”, he added.

Not all were enticed by the prospect of Miliband’s visit to Cambridge today, as revealed by City resident Daniel Dorling's post on Twitter: 

Cambridge Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert released a statement noting that Thatcher’s politics were ‘radical and divisive’. “She will be remembered, however,” he added, “not only as Britain’s first woman Prime Minister but also as a huge force in 20th-century politics."

"Although I disagree strongly with her ideology, she did do some positive things. For example, she played a key role in developing needle exchange programs in the UK – against the wishes of her colleagues – significantly reducing the spread of HIV.”

Lord Jeffrey Archer, who lives with his wife Mary in Grantchester, was deputy chairman of the Conservative party under Thatcher in 1985. He revealed that he had been very close to her, and that she had in fact stayed with them on fourteen occasions.

“We last saw her at Christmas, and of course she had been ill for some time. It was tricky to see her ill, of course, because she had been such a forceful and determined person.” But when they left her last, at Christmas”, Archer revealed, “and Mary put her arm around her and apologised that we’d stayed so long, for two hours, Margaret said: ‘It hasn’t been long enough.”

Churchill College houses Baroness Thatcher’s papers. The college’s master, Sir David Wallace, express his gratitude on behalf of the University for her “great personal generosity” in donating these to the college. A new wing was constructed for the Archives Centre where the collection is stored, which she opened in 2002.