Double Oscar winner-turned-politician Glenda Jackson stunned colleagues during a special session of parliament on Wednesday (10Apr13) by launching into a bizarre rant about former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

British Members of Parliament (Mps) were called back to the House of Commons in London for a debate in tribute to Baroness Thatcher, who passed away aged 87 on Monday (08Apr13).

Many politicians stayed away from the event, but former actress Jackson, who entered office in 1992 as a Labour candidate, remained in her seat in parliament so she could offer her own memories of the controversial Conservative leader.

Jackson shocked fellow Mps by angrily attacking Thatcher's divisive policies in a scathing outburst.

She ranted, "Margaret Thatcher (had left office when I entered politics) but Thatcherism was still wreaking... the most heinous, social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country... The basis to Thatcherism... was that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice - and I still regard them as vices - under Thatcherism was in fact a virtue: greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees. They were the way forward."

The speech prompted jeers and boos from members of the Conservative party, and Jackson concluded by questioning tributes paid to Thatcher for becoming the U.K.'s first and only female prime minister, adding, "To pay tribute to the first prime minister deputed by female gender, ok, but a woman? Not on my terms."