Andrew Lansley CBE MP, Leader of the House of Commons, writes: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain. Sad today at her passing, we can even today recognise how she took Britain from "the sick man of Europe" to a country respected, admired and emulated. She did it because she would not accept the consensus of managed decline.

As her Director of Research in 1990, I saw at first hand her compass; an internal set of values she lived by. And, as Private Secretary to Norman Tebbit in 1984 and 1985,after the Brighton bomb, how the private Margaret Thatcher was immensely kind and caring in her support for her wounded colleague and his wife.