News analysis

LONDON -- The Justice Department's secret seizure of phone records from the Associated Press was prompted by a leak that put considerable strain on the relationship between American and British intelligence agencies.

The leak was the basis of an AP story in May 2012 about a CIA operation in Yemen that foiled an al Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed for the United States. 

There was anger in the British government over the leak and subsequent news reports that disclosed U.K. spies had been heavily involved in the operation.

The alleged details of the operation, which were never officially confirmed, were straight out of a John Le Carre novel. According to reports, a U.K. passport holder of Yemeni descent was recruited by British security officials and sent to Yemen to infiltrate an al Qaeda group.

The details of alleged U.K. involvement were attributed by many American media outlets to U.S. security sources. According to London's Times newspaper, the level of detail made public had left British officials "slack-jawed." 

"I understand there is an investigation under way, being led by the Americans. It is clearly a matter for the U.S. authorities,", the official spokesperson for Britain's prime minister said at the time. "Clearly, we think that sensitive information should be protected."

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, went even further and said leaks about operations could be "extremely harmful."

"It can prevent the effective involvement of intelligence officers or agencies in operations that are designed to save lives either in this country or other countries," he added. "Whether a leak arises in the U.S., the U.K. or elsewhere it is equally serious."

In the wake of the leak, it was claimed that the double agent had managed to smuggle out a bomb that would have been used to blow up an airliner. The bomb was described as even more sophisticated than the underwear bomb that attempted to bring down an jet landing in Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

The British double agent was also said to have provided vital information about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and about its master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri. Around the same time as the leak, a drone strike in Yemen killed a senior al Qaeda leader, Fahd al Quso, who had been involved in the USS Cole bombing. However, it not been confirmed that this killing was connected to the undercover operation.

The leaked news potentially did more than put the operation it at risk. It also threatened the life of the double agent and his family and had an impact on the prospects for similar operations in the future. After all, why would similar recruits co-operate with the British knowing that information about what they did would go public?

"The revelations about the British agent in al Qaeda remind us that Beltway leaking is a major security threat," said Nigel Inkster, a former assistant chief of the British intelligence agency MI6.

Raffaelllo Pantucci, senior research fellow at London-based think tank RUSI, added: "It, of course, undermines  the trust between the agencies. It’s a big problem."

The Saudis also substantially assisted in the operation, according to experts. Could their connections have been compromised? In 2010, Saudi intelligence had helped foil an attack out of Yemen involving bombs disguised as printer cartridges smuggled onto airplane cargo.

Did British disquiet help spur the U.S. investigation into the leak? British government sources would not say whether a complaint was lodged.

"It is a long standing policy of successive governments not to comment on intelligence matters," an official with the U.K.'s Foreign Office said Wednesday.

NBC News' Michele Neubert contributed to this report.

Related: 

• AP, DOJ clash over seriousness of leak that prompted phone records seizure

A girl who died while vacationing in India was missing her internal organs when her body was returned to Britain, according to her parents who fear she may have been the victim of the illegal trade in human body parts.

But the hospital in India where her body was taken reportedly denied the girl's organs were harvested for sale, insisting they were removed for additional investigation as to the cause of death.

Gurkiren Kaur, 8, died moments after a doctor treating her for dehydration in India’s Punjab region gave her an injection two weeks ago, according to her family. 

BPM Media

Gurkiren Kaur, 8

A member of parliament in the girl’s home city of Birmingham, England, has demanded an international investigation into the case. Shabana Mahmood, the lawmaker, told ITV News she had raised the “deeply suspicious circumstances” of the case with British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

The Birmingham Mail newspaper, which first reported the story, said the commercial trade of human organs remained big business in India, despite having been banned in 1994.

A local politician, who is a friend of the family, said there were "many unanswered questions" about Gurkiren's death and suggested it was "very possible" the girl was deliberately killed for her organs.

"It does happen in India, and since this case was first reported we have been contacted by other families who say their relatives have died and had organs removed without an explanation," Birmingham City Councillor Narinder Kooner said.

The state-owned hospital in Punjab where the girl’s first autopsy took place denied late Wednesday that her organs had been stolen, according to Indian media reports.

Vijay Sharda, Medical Superintendent of the Rajindra Hospital, told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that organs and tissue were sent for further examination, the English-language newspaper Deccan Herald reported.

He told the PTI that doctors attributed her death to a congenital heart defect for which she had already undergone surgery in the UK, according to the report.

Gurkiren was visiting India on her first overseas vacation when she became ill on April 2 with a mild case of dehydration, according to her family. After being given an injection at a clinic, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she quickly became unresponsive, her parents said. 

BPM Media

Gurkiren Kaur is seen with brother Simram and parents Santokh Singh Loyal and Amrit Kaur as they set off for their holiday in India.

Her mother, Amrit, and father, Santokh, said they agreed to allow the India hospital's doctors to perform a biopsy in order to establish a cause of death - as required by Indian law.

When the girl's body arrived back in the U.K., a British coroner called Gurkiren's parents to say it was missing the organs needed to investigate her cause of death, the parents said. It is common practice in Britain for an autopsy to be carried out in U.K. on citizens who die overseas.

Gurkiren's parents say the Indian clinic's doctor refused to tell them what had been in the injection.

Her mother Amrit, who is a postal worker, told ITV News: "I said, ‘What is the injection for? She doesn't need an injection she just needs a saline drip for half an hour or 45 minutes.’ He didn't answer me at all he just gave me a blank look and totally ignored me and just inserted the needle into a syringe and as soon as he pushed it in her neck flipped backwards.

"Her eyes rolled over and she turned a grayish-whitish color. She just blinked twice and her mouth was left open."

The parents insist they have been unable to get information about that happened to their daughter or the whereabouts of her organs.

Speaking earlier, Kooner said the case raised many questions.

"Did the clinic doctor have her organs in mind when he gave her this injection?" she asked. "Or was she the victim of medical incompetence who then had the organs removed by somebody at the hospital? What has happened to these organs? We just don’t know."

Kooner conceded that it was possible the girl had been the victim of a series of individual acts of incompetence, but added: "Gurkiren was a happy, healthy girl who was laughing and joking until this injection. We will never be able to investigate the cause of her death until these organs are found."

Art Caplan, co-chairman of a 2009 United Nations task force on organ trafficking, said that the evidence in Gurkiren’s case doesn’t point to organ theft.

“I’m skeptical,” said Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. “Whenever I see somebody say that somebody killed somebody for parts, I’m skeptical.”

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 106,000 organs were transplanted globally in 2010. That included about 10,000 kidneys that were illegally obtained, the agency said.

Organ transplant is actually a complex effort that involves precise coordination to be successful. Blood and tissue types of both donor and recipient must match, the size of the organs must be compatible and the organs must be preserved after death, Caplan notes. In this child’s case, the timeline doesn’t suggest that any of that would have happened.

“Was she on life support?” he said. “Do you have container to put the organs in? This girl is missing internal organs, but it doesn’t add up to that.”

In a statement, Britain’s Foreign Office said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in Punjab, India, on April 2. We are providing consular assistance in the case and cannot comment further."

A member of the Punjab Congress demanded an investigation into the case, according to the Hindustan Times.

"The death of Gurkiren Kaur… brings to the fore the crumbled and medieval-type healthcare system in Punjab," state Congress spokesman Sukhpal Singh Khaira told the newspaper, adding that the girl has been “subjected to inhuman autopsy at a government hospital."

In addition to the black market for organs, there is a legitimate global trade in human tissue taken from bodies - supposedly with the prior consent of the deceased.

A recent investigation found that, in the United States, an estimated two million products derived from human tissue are sold each year, a figure that has doubled over the past decade.

Mark Gough, reporter with NBC News' partner ITV News, contributed to this report.

Related: Body wranglers at work: Inside the global trade in human corpses

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 11:05 AM EDT

Interpol

Sean Lopes, 47, was arrested in Chatham, England, on Monday.

A fugitive wanted in New York after vanishing in the wake of a 2004 hostage taking has been arrested in England, where he had been working in a supermarket.

Sean Lopes, 47, had been living in Chatham, about 30 miles southeast of London, when he was arrested Monday, Kent Police said in a statement.

He was "wanted on charges of attempted murder and kidnapping in the United States" involving a 22-year-old woman dating June 2004, according to Kent Police.

Kent Police said Lopes was charged in the U.S. with the offense but went missing after being released on bail. He was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison in May 2005.

A 2012 news release from U.S. authorities said Lopes entered the home of an ex-girlfriend -- both were employed by New York City public schools -- and waited for her to come home. When she did, he confronted her with a gun and a knife and held her hostage until police were able to get into the apartment and free her, according to a 2012 statement from the U.S. Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago, where Lopes was mistakenly thought to have been living.

Lopes was believed to have fled to the island nation using his brother's travel documents, the embassy said.

Lopes had been working at a Sainsbury's grocery store in Gravesend, Kent, the company said Thursday. 

“We can confirm that a member of staff from our Pepper Hill store was arrested on Monday," a Sainsbury's spokeswoman said. "We are helping the police with their investigations but are unable to comment further.”

He had been listed as one of the NYPD's 10 most-wanted suspects.

Kent Police said a resident of the area raised concerns about Lopes to police, who launched an investigation that included investigators from New York and London. He was then tracked down and arrested.

Lopes appeared in a London court on Tuesday and was ordered to be detained as extradition proceedings got under way, Kent Police said.

According to Interpol, Lopes is a native of Guyana. The U.S. Embassy said he also had ties to Canada, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

This story was originally published on Thu May 9, 2013 7:04 AM EDT

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

Donald Trump waves to a crowd following an address to the Scottish Parliament on April 25, 2012. He spoke of his concerns about a proposed wind farm set to be built near his new GBP 1 billion golf resort, saying it would destroy tourism.

Donald Trump has been given an embarrassing rebuke by U.K. officials who ruled that an advertisement linked to his new $1.1 billion golf resort in Scotland was "misleading."

The country’s Advertising Standards Agency said the newspaper advertisement, which attacked plans for a nearby offshore wind energy plant and mentioned the release of the Lockerbie bomber, could not be substantiated.

Trump has fought a long battle with authorities over the proposed wind farm, which he says will hurt Scottish tourism by spoiling the view from his Trump International Golf Club Scotland.

The 640-foot turbines will be in the sea an estimated mile-and-a-half from Trump's resort.

The first phase of the development, in Menie, Aberdeenshire, opened in 2012 and is marketed as one of the world’s leading links courses.

The club ran an ad in two Scottish daily newspapers featuring a picture of a wind farm in California, with the tag lines: "Is this the future for Scotland?" and "Tourism will suffer and the beauty of your country is in jeopardy!"

It also showed a picture of Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, with the caption: "This is the same mind that backed the release of terrorist al-Megrahi, 'for humane reasons' – after he ruthlessly killed 270 people on Pan-Am flight 103 over Lockerbie."

The move attracted 21 formal complaints, including one from a member of the Scottish Parliament.

The ASA said the reference to the 1988 terror attack was "distasteful" but did not breach U.K. advertising code of practice.

However, it ruled that the claim a wind farm would harm tourism was "misleading" because it had not been substantiated with sufficient evidence, and said the advertisement should never again appear in its current form.

New York-based Trump last month announced he was shelving the later phases of his development, including a prestige hotel, in protest at the decision to allow the wind farm to go ahead.

He told The Scotsman newspaper: "This was a purely political decision. As dictated by Alex Salmond, a man whose obsession with obsolete wind technology will destroy the magnificence and beauty of Scotland. Likewise, tourism, Scotland's biggest industry, will be ruined."

Related:

• Trump Twitter mystery! Who hacked The Donald?
• Donald Trump drops $5 million orangutan lawsuit against Bill Maher

LONDON -- British authorities ordered more police on the streets for Sunday's London Marathon in the wake of the Boston bombings, but experts warned it was "virtually impossible" to guarantee the safety of the hundreds of thousands who will attend the event. 

A police source said additional patrols by uniformed officers were planned to reassure the public in the wake of deadly attack.

While British security officials have been in contact with their counterparts in the U.S. following Monday's blasts, the U.K.'s threat level for international terrorism hasn't been changed from "substantial" -- the third of five categories on the scale.

At least 500,000 spectators are expected to watch Sunday’s race and Prince Harry is due to hand medals to the winners.

The course takes the 36,000 runners right past major sites - including Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace – as well as through Canary Wharf, the giant riverside financial district targeted twice by the Irish militants in the 1990s.

Even in a city that has spent recent decades under the threat of bombs – first from Irish Republicans, more recently jihadists – such a public event poses a security headache.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, said that the force was "taking more more precautions than we might have done otherwise."

"We will make sure we've got more officers on the street looking after people, making sure they're kept safe, but we've no reason to think they'd be any less safe than before the terrible events in Boston,." he said. "We'd be professionally irresponsible if we didn't take some reasonable steps."

Sang Tan / AP

Backdropped by Buckingham Palace, a jogger crosses the Mall in London on Tuesday. It will be transformed into the finishing area for Sunday's London Marathon.

Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones declined to give details of what changes might be made, if any, to the event's security plan. She said officers would “continue to review all the intelligence” available.

London Marathon chief executive Nick Bitel insisted the event would go ahead. “We will be reviewing our security in the coming days, in the light of what has happened in Boston," Bitel told ITV News.

"I don't want to talk about specifics of what security we have had in the past, or will have on Sunday. All I can say is that it will be of an appropriate level to meet whatever threat assessment is made, in conjunction with the police," he added.

Hugh Robertson, a British government minister, called for crowds and runners to attend in London as normal.

“The very best way to show solidarity with Boston is to get out there on the streets of London to cheer the runners on and to show that we won’t be defeated by this sort of activity,” he told the London Evening Standard newspaper.

Runners will be encouraged to wear a black ribbon at the start of the race to honor victims of the Boston bombing, and a 30-second silence will be observed, organizers said Wednesday. 

NBC News national security analyst Michael Leiter said it was “virtually impossible” to make a marathon completely secure because of its 26.2-mile long route.

“You just have to do the best you can to keep people safe and maintain resilience," he said. “It’s important we don’t alter our lives because that provides the terrorist – domestic, international, whoever it may be – with a huge victory.”

Helmut Spahn, executive director of the International Centre for Sport Security, told Reuters: "There has to be a clear analysis of the situation and certainly no over-reaction. More police, more military is not always the best solution. To have a 100 percent security is very, very difficult if not near impossible.”

Sang Tan / AP

A sign warns of road closures linked to the forthcoming London Marathon.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:29 AM EDT

Slideshow: The life and times of Margaret Thatcher

John Minihan / Getty Images

A pioneer for her sex, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom for almost 12 years. Take a look back at her life and career.

Launch slideshow

LONDON - Police were on standby for street violence after protesters pledged to "celebrate" the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a party at the scene of a 1990 riot against one of her most unpopular policies.

Senior police officers have already launched an operation to prevent disorder surrounding her televised funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, which is due to be attended by Britain’s queen and world leaders. Every living former U.S. president is invited.

With tight security around the official event, protest groups have threatened to gather on Saturday in London’s Trafalgar Square, where thousands rioted in March 1990 in protest against the introduction of the Poll Tax – a despised local government tax system that proved to be one of the main triggers of Thatcher’s political downfall in November that year.

Class War, which posted details of the event on Twitter, told the London Evening Standard that protesters planned to install an effigy of Thatcher on a vacant plinth in the square, which will then be toppled in a moment that a spokesman said would be a moment of “liberation and cathartic retribution.”

On Facebook, a group called “Maggie's good riddance party” called on demonstrators to gather at the funeral, with some attendees planning to turn their backs on Thatcher’s casket as it was taken through the streets. 

Thatcher, the country’s longest serving prime minister in a century and the first woman to hold the job, died on Monday after suffering a stroke at the age of 87.

She is both revered and reviled in Britain, where her free market reforms led a national economic resurgence but also created pockets of deep social deprivation in areas where former state-run industries such as coal mines and steel works were shut down or sold off with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Steve Eason / Hulton Archive via Getty Images, file

Police and demonstrators clash in London's Trafalgar Square during rioting, which arose from a demonstration against the Poll Tax March 31, 1990.

Within hours of her death, there were violent scenes at celebratory parties, prompting much introspection in Britain about how to mark with the passing of an important but controversial national figure.

At her own request, she will not have an official state funeral - a decision that appeared to acknowledge that a government-funded event would be controversial and unpopular – and insisted there should be no military fly-past.

However, Wednesday’s ceremony is shaping up to the grandest of its kind since the funeral of wartime leader Winston Churchill in 1964.

Although groups cheering Thatcher’s death are in a minority, police are monitoring social media to gather intelligence on the scale and nature of any protests.

"Some say Margaret Thatcher is a divisive figure, but that's part of the tapestry of policing these events,” Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones told the Daily Telegraph. “If people come to London to cause trouble and commit crime we will deal with you.”

In a statement, she added: “The right to protest is one that must be upheld, however, we will work to do that whilst balancing the rights of those who wish to pay their respects and those who wish to travel about London as usual.”

The force is using its experience from handling the London Olympics in July to deal with the event. Blanket stop-and-search powers are expected to be introduced in the run up to the funeral.

The force also has a Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, which monitors disturbed individuals are obsessed with public figures.

Saturday’s protest is being supported by other groups such as the All London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob, the London Evening Standard reported.

“Miners will be coming down from the north, Wapping printers, steel workers - it will be a big crowd. We are talking thousands,” Class War founder Ian Bone told the newspaper.

 “It has been planned for years, always for the first Saturday after her death, and it is in the right place, where the Poll Tax riots were taking place.”

Jones added that dealing with threats of disorder was “part of the normal daily business of London.”

“We deal with more than 3,500 protests or facilitated events a year so this is nothing new,” she added.

Police are also liaising with Britain’s intelligence agencies amid speculation the funeral could be targeted by Irish Republican terrorists – although the overall terror threat level remained unchanged.

Thatcher was targeted by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1984 in retaliation for her tough stance on the organization, and saw two close political friends killed in terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, opponents are doing their best to get the "Wizard of Oz" song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to the top of Britain’s version of the Billboard Hot 100. Midweek sales already have it in the Top 5 in the wake of a Facebook campaign.

That means the BBC will have to play the song during its chart show on Sunday. Conservative politicians have called on the broadcaster to not give it airtime. 

The BBC says its chart show is a factual account of what the British public has been buying and they will make a decision about whether to play the song when the final chart positions are clear on Sunday.

NBC News' Duncan Golestani contributed to this report.

Related:

'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher, who led conservative resurgence in Britain, dies at 87

Debate over funeral for 'loved, hated' former PM Thatcher divides Britain

'Wizard of Oz' song hits UK charts after Margaret Thatcher's death

Two people were arrested in Britain Thursday over an assault on an "emo" teenager -- the first such move after police began recording attacks on subculture members as “hate crimes.”

The term, short for “emotive” or “emotional,” usually refers to an introspective style of music -- somewhere between punk and grunge -- and its associated fashion styles.

Earlier this month, Greater Manchester Police became the first force in the U.K. to treat attacks on groups such as goths, emos and punks in the same way as crimes based on race, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

The 16-year-old victim was “distinctively dressed as an emo” in an eastern suburb of the northern England city when he was punched in the face Monday evening, the Manchester Evening News newspaper said.

The victim “describes himself as an emo,” police said in a statement, adding that officers had arrested a 14-year-old boy and a 44-year-old man over the attack.

“The assault has been reported as an alternative subculture hate crime and will be investigated as such,” the statement added.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said the injured teen was hit "several times."

Garry Shewan, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said:  "It is unfortunate that this incident happened, but the fact we were able to identify this as a hate crime is very positive. Just last Thursday we announced that we will now record alternative subculture as a hate motivation."

Lancashire Police / PA via AP

Sophie Lancaster was fatally attacked in a park in Lancashire, northern England, because of her goth appearance in 2007.

"We hope this encourages victims to continue to come forward so we can take positive action against offenders," he added.

In England, a hate crime is defined by prosecutors as “a criminal offense motivated by prejudice based on a person's disability, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.”

The decision by police to include subcultures was partly a result of the 2007 killing of Sophie Lancaster, a 20-year-old in the northern England county of Lancashire, who was kicked and stamped to death for being a goth.

Related:

Iraqi teens stoned to death for wearing 'emo' clothes

TODAY: What exactly is emo anyway?

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” who led a conservative resurgence in her home country and forged a legendary partnership with President Ronald Reagan, died Monday following a stroke. She was 87.

Thatcher led Britain from 1979 to 1990, the first and only woman to hold the job and longest-serving prime minister of the postwar era. 

“Margaret Thatcher didn’t just lead our country — she saved our country,” Prime Minister David Cameron said. “Margaret Thatcher took a country that was on its knees and made Britain stand tall again.”

Queen Elizabeth II planned to send a private message of sympathy to the family, said a statement from Buckingham Palace, where the Union Jack was lowered to half-staff. Cameron called Parliament back for a special session Wednesday to pay tribute.

Slideshow: The life and times of Margaret Thatcher

John Minihan / Getty Images

A pioneer for her sex, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom for almost 12 years. Take a look back at her life and career.

Launch slideshow

President Barack Obama hailed Thatcher as an exemplar of British strength and resolve and a role model for young women. Invoking Thatcher’s friendship with Reagan, Obama said that she reminded the world “that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history — we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will.”

‘True force of nature’: World reacts to Thatcher's death

A grocer’s daughter with a sharp tongue and a no-nonsense style, Thatcher was elected to Parliament at age 34 and climbed the Conservative Party ladder. She became its leader at age 50 and swept into 10 Downing St. four years later.

The year she took office as prime minister, Thatcher took note of her place in history: “Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”

Ten years earlier, she had predicted that no woman in her time would hold the job of prime minister. She held it for 11 years, longer than Winston Churchill or any other British leader of her century.

Thatcher transformed the British economy and took on its welfare state and powerful unions. Her government cut, closed or privatized state-owned industries, notably struggling steel plants and coal mines, and radically cut taxes and public spending — strong medicine, she conceded, but precisely what was needed to restart a stagnant nation.

“The problem with socialism,” she once said, “is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

In 1980, when fellow conservatives were fretting that her tough, anti-inflation economic policy was driving up unemployment, she addressed the prospect of whether she would make a political U-turn: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”

Under her leadership, Britain fought and won a war with Argentina for the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean — determined to preserve one of the last outposts of the British empire.

Thatcher’s military worries became focused on a speck of land halfway around the world in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falklands, a British archipelago. After American mediation attempts failed, Thatcher decided to retake the islands, a feat accomplished in a few weeks. The war was a huge boost to Thatcher’s popularity.

An estimated 650 Argentinians and 255 Britons were killed in the war. Argentina still asserts a claim to the islands, but the people there overwhelmingly voted last month to remain under British control. One islander told Reuters on Monday that Thatcher was “our Winston Churchill.”

Thatcher survived an assassination attempt when an Irish Republican Army bomb exploded at a Conservative Party conference in the British city of Brighton in 1984, killing five people and injuring a cabinet minister, among others. Thatcher gave the keynote speech hours later and said: “This attack has failed. All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.”

She took on the British coal industry, nationalized and seen as politically untouchable. The coal union had brought down the government of another conservative, Edward Heath, with a strike a decade earlier, and coal workers walked off the job again in 1984 after the Thatcher government announced job cuts.

During the strike, she told the House of Commons: “We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.”

Thatcher, anticipating the confrontation, had stockpiled coal to keep the country’s energy supply humming. The strike collapsed in March 1985.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, of the Labour Party, told Sky News on Monday that Thatcher’s economic regime was to blame for many of the problems that Britain still faces.

“She created today’s housing crisis. She created the banking crisis. And she created the benefits crisis,” he said. “In actual fact, every real problem we face today is the legacy of the fact that she was fundamentally wrong.”

Thatcher had a well-known friendship with Reagan during his two terms as president in the 1980s. They shared an allegiance to free-market principles and opposition to the Soviet Union.

Thatcher recalled in her memoir, “The Downing Street Years,” that she met Reagan in 1975, when she led the political opposition in Britain and Reagan was the ascendant governor of California. She said that she was won over by his “warmth, charm and complete lack of affectation — qualities which never altered in the years of leadership which lay ahead.”

When Reagan died, in 2004, Thatcher delivered a recorded eulogy and said: “We have lost a great president, a great American and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.”

Nancy Reagan on Monday said the world had lost “a true champion of freedom and democracy.” She said that Thatcher and her late husband had a strong personal friendship.

“From the very beginning, the first time they met,” Nancy Reagan said in a telephone interview on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” “She was at the first state dinner we had at the White House, and the last state dinner was for her.”

Thatcher was forced out of office by her own party in 1990, unhappy with some of her policies. Her reduction of British social spending also earned her the scorn of some pop culture figures and helped spawn the British punk movement. Billy Bragg and Sinead O’Connor lashed out in song, and Morrissey recorded a track called “Margaret on the Guillotine.”

Meryl Streep, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of the former prime minister in “The Iron Lady,” said that Thatcher had endured hatred and ridicule unprecedented for “a public figure who was not a mass murderer.” While praising her conviction, however, Streep suggested that Thatcher had contributed to a widening income gap.

“Her hard-nosed fiscal measures took a toll on the poor, and her hands-off approach to financial regulation led to great wealth for others,” Streep said in a statement. She said that she would leave history to settle the matter of Thatcher’s greatness.

Thatcher played polarizing role in pop culture

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said Monday that Thatcher’s views had been vindicated — on unions, on communism and on the movement toward European political integration, of which she was extremely skeptical and urged Britain to stay out.

“The country is deeply in her debt,” Johnson said. “Her memory will live long after the world has forgotten the grey suits of today’s politics.”

Her successor as prime minister, John Major, said that Thatcher’s economic reforms and the British victory in the Falklands War “elevated her above normal politics, and may not have been achieved under any other leader.”

Former President George W. Bush said that Thatcher guided Britain with confidence and clarity.

“Prime Minister Thatcher is a great example of strength and character, and a great ally who strengthened the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States,” he said in a statement.

Thatcher’s daughter said in 2008 that she had been suffering from dementia for eight years, and had to be reminded that her husband was dead.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born Oct. 13, 1925. At the hand of her grocer father, she later said, she learned both thrift and capitalist principles.

“Before I read a line from the great liberal economists,” she wrote, “I knew from my father’s accounts that the free market was like a vast sensitive nervous system, responding to events and signals all over the world to meet the ever-changing needs of peoples in different countries, from different classes, of different religions, with a kind of benign indifference to their status.”

Cameron’s office said that Thatcher would receive a ceremonial funeral with military honors at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 8, 2013 8:00 AM EDT

LONDON -- A father was sentenced to life in jail Thursday for starting a fire that killed six of his own children as part of a disastrous plot to frame his former mistress, in a horrific case that has prompted an emotional debate about Britain’s welfare system.

Rui Vieira / AP

Mick Philpott and wife Mairead.

Mick Philpott, his wife, Mairead, and his friend Paul Mosley, were convicted of manslaughter for starting a house blaze that took the lives of the couple’s children Jayden, 5, Jesse, 6, Jack, 8, John, 9, Jade, 10, and 13-year-old Duwayne.

Unemployed Philpott – a father of 17 children by five women – intended to “rescue” his family and blame the fire on his mistress, Lisa Willis, 28, who was seeking court custody of the five children they had together.

When his plan went tragically wrong, the 56-year-old lied to protect himself - even shedding crocodile tears at a police news conference. But detectives quickly uncovered the truth.

The shocking case, in the central England town of Derby, made for emotive headlines in Britain’s newspaper’s Wednesday. “Pure evil” said The Mirror, while The Sun on its front page called Philpott a “child-killing b*****d.”

Steve Cotterill, Assistant Chief Constable of Derbyshire police, said the fire plot was “the most evil act I have ever known” and had led to “a complete and utter waste of six young and innocent lives.”

Reviled figure
Remarkably, Philpott was already a hate figure in Britain, reveling in notoriety on television where he was portrayed as a real-life version of the social underclass featured in the drama series, "Shameless".

He was pilloried for demanding a larger government home for his rapidly-expanding family. He had appeared on the daytime TV tabloid talk show, “The Jeremy Kyle Show,” alongside both his wife and his mistress to face demands that he have a vasectomy.

Both women for many years lived with Philpott, sharing his affections. Willis slept in a camping trailer parked on the tiny front lawn, while wife Mairead stayed in the house. On more than one occasion they were simultaneously pregnant.   

His deceit over the subsequent tragedy was unmasked when detectives noted his behavior did not fit the pattern of a grieving parent – he was observed singing Elvis’ Suspicious Minds during a karaoke session in a local bar – and began monitoring phone calls with his co-accused.

Mark St George / Rex Features via AP

The parents who killed six children in a house fire were sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court, England, Thursday.

Philpott had a history of horrific domestic violence and bullying, but in this instance his crime was motivated by money: Already the recipient of welfare checks owing to his unemployment, Philpott was entitled to further state payments for each of the children under the roof of his rented public home.

In total, he was in legitimate receipt of more than $90,000 a year in government handouts.

“He just wanted a house full of kids and the benefit money that brings,” prosecution lawyer Richard Latham said during the seven-week trial.

Welfare debate
That aspect of the case has further inflamed public anger, coming at a time when austerity-crippled Britain is bitterly divided over welfare payments.

The U.K.’s Conservative-led coalition on Monday introduced sweeping new limits to welfare checks and other government assistance schemes in a bid to save billions of dollars from the national deficit.

The liberal Guardian newspaper gravely characterized Monday’s cuts as “the day Britain changed,” but the government believes the moves have the support of many British taxpayers who are dismayed at some of the welfare checks paid out to large families. The language of the debate has divided the sides into “strivers” versus “skivers,” and “benefit recipients” versus “hard-working families.”

On Wednesday, the Daily Mail described Philpott on its front page as “The vile product of welfare UK” – a headline that drew criticism.

“There are, and have always been, a small minority of individuals capable of breathtaking cruelty,” wrote liberal commentator Owen Jones in The Independent. “The Philpott case relates in no way to people on benefits in this country.”

Derby City Council launched a review of its child welfare service in the wake of Tuesday’s verdict, amid suggestions that it should have intervened to remove the children from Philpott’s care.

However, Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative minister who made a television documentary in which she tried to persuade Philpott to get a job and stop claiming welfare, said Wednesday: “This was very much a one-off. You cannot blame teachers or social services.

“When I visited, the children were clean, they were well-fed, they were not playing truant. There is no doubt he was using these children as a meal-ticket, but that doesn’t explain this act of wickedness."

“You cannot blame this tragedy on the benefits system," adding that Brits must "keep our heads.”

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'Nasty piece of work': Cloud over London's 'sunshine' mayor Boris Johnson

How do you solve a problem like North Korea? Three viewpoints

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 2:02 PM EDT

Matthew Lloyd / Getty Images, file

London mayor Boris Johnson (right) and Irvine Sellar, developer of the new skyscraper The Shard, cut a ribbon.

LONDON -- He is the goofy London mayor whose jovial self-deprecation and quick intellect have rescued him from a string of political missteps and personal indignities. But floppy-haired Boris Johnson’s happy-go-lucky reputation took a battering this week, just as he revealed his ambition to one day become Britain’s prime minister.

New York-born Johnson -- memorably caught on camera dangling from a broken zip-wire during the London Olympics -- was accused of being a “nasty piece of work” in a train-wreck television interview that surfaced a darker side to his persona.

The mayor was asked about a number of embarrassing episodes in his past including being fired from his former job as a reporter with The Times newspaper for making up a quote, losing his opposition cabinet role after lying to his Conservative party leader about an affair and the accusation that he agreed to provide a reporter’s address to his friend, a convicted fraudster, so the journalist could be beaten up.

There were no new revelations in Sunday’s interview, which was hardly in the mold of Frost vs Nixon. But the feline approach of BBC presenter Eddie Mair exposed a testy, evasive side to Johnson that observers say has undermined his affable public image.

“What’s remarkable is not that the interview happened but the fact that it hasn’t happened before,” said Johnson’s biographer, Sonia Purnell.

“He has always used his jovial fellow act and has never really been challenged like that in an interview until now.

“It is true that he is very charismatic, very clever and engaging. But there is a dark side to his character. He has a ferocious temper and he bears grudges.”

The clash was in stark contrast to Johnson’s winning encounter on “Late Show with David Letterman” last year, when he entertained the studio audience and shrugged the gibe that he cut his own hair.

It has sparked a debate in Britain about whether the mayor, a keen cyclist and classical scholar whose full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson -- can still be taken seriously as a contender to replace David Cameron as prime minister and leader of his Conservative party.

Mair teased Johnson about his repeated refusal to admit that he harbors ambitions to replace Cameron, with whom he has a mild personal rivalry that dates back to their shared time at Eton, Britain’s most elite private school.

Jan Kruger / Getty Images, file

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson warm up for a tennis match during the London Olympics.

“What should viewers make of your inability to give a straight answer to a straight question?" asked Mair, adding: “You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?”

An online Guardian newspaper poll found 62 percent of its readers thought Johnson could no longer be considered a candidate for Britain’s top job. The interview “was inevitably described as a car crash, but in the case of Johnson, it was more of a bicycle crash: spokes all over the road, wheels mangled and a reputation badly dented,” wrote the newspaper’s veteran political editor, Patrick Wintour.

Purnell added: “I think it left a tidemark in people’s minds about Boris’s character.”

However, conservative commentator Toby Young said Johnson’s leadership prospects remain unchanged. “It's an elementary rule of politics that if you have any skeletons lurking in your closet that are likely to make an appearance during an election campaign, better to get them out in the open now,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. “Not only will it rob them of their bad juju, it will enable his supporters to claim -- yet again -- that he's popular in spite of his character flaws, not because the public isn't aware of them.”

Matthew Norman, in The Independent, asked: “Boris would be a disastrous PM. So why do I quite like the idea?” He wrote: “Life for diarists and political pundits would improve immeasurably, which strikes me as a very reasonable price to pay for the national shame of having Boris Johnson as prime minister.”

Johnson, 48, has long been a grassroots favorite to lead the Conservatives if Cameron stood down or lost office. However, to be prime minister he would first need to stand again for election to the House of Commons, which he quit in 2008 to run to be mayor of London. He is currently serving his second four-year term and has remained coy about whether he will quit early and return to parliament.

His mix of conservative economics and liberal social values -- he supports gay marriage and an amnesty for immigrants -- helped secure his election in a city long dominated by left-of-center politics, but it may not sit well with the U.K.-wide Conservative party.

His personal morality may also hinder his progress: He has acknowledged a number of affairs and has been likened to Italy’s serial philanderer and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi by satirical magazine editor Ian Hislop.

Then there is Johnson’s apparent lack of attention to detail. Purnell, who worked alongside him in the Brussels bureau of the Daily Telegraph, said: “Some of the things he wrote were on the limits of the truth. He was, at best, creative.”

Max Hastings, a former editor of Johnson's during his time as a journalist, described Johnson as "utterly chaotic," adding: "Supposing he became prime minister, the idea of Boris Johnson's finger on the nuclear button ... one day he would get it mixed up with the one to call the maid."

However, there remains a lot of affection for a man whose unvarnished approach is a breath of political fresh air.

“He is a sunshine politician and people like that,” said Ross Lydall, chief news correspondent of London’s Evening Standard newspaper, which supports Johnson.

“The way he has improved life for cyclists in London is remarkable -- as a cyclist myself, it certainly puts a smile on my face. He represents a sense of optimism compared to the old, miserable municipal politics of London.”