Last Updated 20:10 10/04/2013
Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent
Tory grandees from Cabinets of the 1980s and young MPs who were barely born when she became Prime Minister joined forces to pay tribute to Baroness Margaret Thatcher in the Lords and Commons.
Led by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, MPs and peers claimed she was a prime minister who brought lasting change to the UK and praised her personal qualities as well as her brand of conviction politics.
On a day when the Commons and Lords were recalled two days after her death, there were warm tributes too from senior Labour politicians, including Ed Miliband, who acknowledged that she had been a towering figure.
But amid the affectionate and at times emotional tributes from former ministers who served in her Cabinets and MPs who worked for her in No. 10, there was also rancour and hostility from some left-wing Labour MPs.
Labour MP and former Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson was shouted down by Tory MPs as she launched a bitter onslaught on Lady Thatcher and her policies later during the tributes in the Commons.
Before the speeches got underway in the Lords and Commons at 2.30pm, MPs had started to leave flowers and messages at the feet of Lady Thatcher's bronze statue in the Members' Lobby next to the Commons chamber.
One anonymous note read: "You were an inspiration to women."
And attached to a big bunch of white lillies was a note from Tory MP and Commons Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans saying: "Thank you so much."
Opening the tributes in the Commons, the Prime Minister said: "She rescued Britain from post-war decline and her policies, while controversial at the time she was in government, were now accepted by politicians of all colours.
"They say 'cometh the hour, cometh the man', well in 1979 came the hour and came the lady.
"She made the political weather, she made history, and - let this be her epitaph - she made our country great again."
In a difficult balancing act, torn between showing respect and dignity and acknowledging opposition to Lady Thatcher from many in his party, Ed Miliband told MPs: "Whatever your view of her, Margaret Thatcher was a unique and towering figure.
"I disagreed with much of what she did but I respect what her death means for many, many people who admired her and I honour her personal achievements.
"On previous occasions to remember the extraordinary prime ministers who have served our nation. Today we also remember a prime minister who defined her age."
Over in the House of Lords, the youthful leader Lord Hill was flanked by many of the giants of the Thatcher Cabinets of the 1980s as he opened the tributes by peers.
In a conciliatory speech, he said: "Whatever our views and whatever our backgrounds, I think we would all agree that she made a huge difference to the country she loved, that she helped to pick Britain up off its knees, that she changed our place in the world and that she transformed the very shape of our political debate."
There were powerful and emotional tributes to Lady Thatcher from senior figures in the Lords, both from Conservatives and other parties.
Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown said she had "courage in abundance" and was "frightened of nothing".
Former Tory leader Lord Howard said: "There are very, very few people who have made a difference on the scale Margaret Thatcher achieved.
"She saved our country, she helped bring freedom to half our continent. The light of her legacy will shine like a beacon down the generations."
But the most emotional tribute came from one of her most loyal friends and allies, Lord Tebbit, who hit out at her successors as prime minister and members of her own Cabinet.
He said proudly that as party chairman he was never asked by Mrs Thatcher to consult a focus group.
But recalling her demise in 1990, he said: "She was brought down in the end not by the electorate, but by her colleagues."
And with his voice quivering with emotion, he said: "My regrets? I think I do regret that because of the commitments I had made to my own wife that I did not feel able either to continue in Government after 1987 or to return to Government when she later asked me to do and I left her, I fear, at the mercy of her friends. That I do regret."
In the Commons, there were witty and affectionate speeches from those who had served under her or been her close friends.
Former Cabinet minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind provoked laughter from MPs as he told a series of amusing anecdotes from her time in office.
"I recall on one occasion she was asked (Mrs Thatcher) do you believe in consensus and to our surprise we heard her say 'yes I do believe in consensus, there should be a consensus behind my convictions'," he said.
And close friend and latterly regular visitor Conor Burns, who was only six when she won her first election victory in 1979, brought warm laughter to the Commons with his recollections.
He recounted stories of how he and Lady Thatcher would go through the papers, recounting an occasion when she had told him Mr Cameron should properly be even further behind in the polls two years from an election.
And sparking laughs around the Commons, Mr Burns recounted how Lady Thatcher agreed with a taxi driver's assessment that "we haven't had a good'un since".
But while there were generous tributes to Lady Thatcher from senior Labour MPs Frank Field and Barry Sheerman, Glenda Jackson's attack was acrimonious and vitriolic.
Deriding Thatcherism, she said: "There was a heinous social, economic and spiritual damage wreaked upon this country, upon my constituency and my constituents.
"By far the most dramatic and heinous demonstration of Thatcherism was not only in London but across the whole country in metropolitan areas, where every single shop doorway, every single night, became the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom for the homeless.
"Greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker. Sharp elbows and sharp knees, this was the way forward. People saw the price of everything and the value of nothing."
The former actress said women who helped run the country during the war would not have recognised the idea of "womanliness" embodied in Baroness Thatcher.
She said: "The first prime minister of female gender, OK. But a woman? Not on my terms."
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