Madrid plans to name street after Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher will have a street, square or avenue named after her in the Spanish capital of Madrid, after the city council proposed that the late former British prime minister's name should figure on its street map, the Guardian reported. "She will have her street," a spokesman for city hall confirmed on Friday. "The proposal goes to a city hall meeting later this month." With an absolute majority of seats in the hands of the conservative People's party (PP) the proposal is bound to receive a green light at the meeting despite the opposition of other parties. "We have said that we are against it, because she had nothing to do with Madrid," explained a spokeswoman for the city's socialists. David Ortega, of the centrist Union for Progress and Democracy, complained that the move was an attempt to politicise the city map. But mayor Ana Botella, wife of former Spanish prime minister Jos Mar a Aznar, praised the former British prime minister as a role model for female politicians around Europe. "Thanks to Lady Margaret Thatcher, there were many women who discovered that if they worked hard they could find a place in politics," she wrote in her blog. "Thatcher was a pioneer." "The firmness of her convictions, the clarity with which she took decisions and her authority allowed Great Britain to recover a position of leadership," she added. The nomination is likely to be agreed at a city hall meeting on 24 April, when Spanish actress Sara Montiel will also get a street named after her. A city hall spokesman said no street or square had yet been designated to receive Thatcher's name Botella's party features its own would-be Iron Lady, former regional president Ezperanza Aguirre. Aguirre, a self-proclaimed Thatcher admirer, is seen as a rival to the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and possible successor to him if the combination of economic crisis and corruption scandals afflicting his party were to drive him from office.