The World - News from Oct. 10, 1989

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party begins its annual conference today with its popularity at an eight-year low, the economy in trouble and public rumblings that her free-market revolution has gone too far. For the 63-year-old British leader, the four-day meeting in the north England resort of Blackpool is shaping up as one of the most difficult since she won power a decade ago. New opinion polls show the Conservatives 7 to 11 percentage points behind the socialist Labor Party, with many voters apparently opposed to several of Thatcher’s key programs, including a new property tax.