MUMBAI: Rupert Murdoch has praised the ?brave leadership? of the late former British PM Margaret Thatcher. In an opinion column in the ?Times? newspaper, Murdoch praised Baroness Thatcher?s role in facing down the trade unions in the 1980s.

"I found her attitude an inspiration to my business life - and never more so than when faced with the recalcitrance of the print unions in the 1980s. She ended a culture of crippling strikes, she encouraged entrepreneurs to come here and set up their businesses. Thanks to her I have experienced in Britain many of my defining moments as a businessman."

"Mrs Thatcher understood that risk was a vital ingredient in a free enterprise society. She understood that such a society had to be led by a government with backbone. After the Second World War, in which the country lost a second generation of its finest men, Britain had created a dependency state. It killed off aspiration.

"In 1979 Margaret Thatcher set about its rehabilitation. She put the economy on a sound footing, she ended a culture of crippling strikes, she encouraged entrepreneurs to come here and set up their businesses. Thanks to her I have experienced in Britain many of my defining moments as a businessman, a Britain that is far more successful as a result of her brave leadership."