A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. History will judge her, but not a country in Europe was untouched by Thatcher's example. Yet a leader that a wide cross-section of Scots had come to despise. History, Sample Essay. For those miners and their families to be referred to as the "enemy within" by Thatcher was something they would never forgive and, if there is rejoicing at her death in those communities she set out to destroy, it can only be understood against this background. She said "there is no such thing as society", and set out to prove it by promoting individual greed and competition for everything. Arguably, it was not the sale of council houses that was the problem, but the failure to replace the stock and maintain a sufficient supply of affordable homes. Her Irish policy failed miserably. The fact is that if both sides removed their ideological blinkers, as Thatcher, remarkably perhaps, managed to do, then her trilogy of speeches in the late 1980s still offer some of the best and . But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. at The Hague in May 1992. The three of us watched as the gentle horticultural ritual was feebly enacted, then regarded the Iron Lady being helped into the back of a car and trundling off. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to And then, perversely, would come the throwaway, sign-off remark to the effect of: "At least you know where you stand with Maggie she hates us and we hate her.". Perhaps she had just come inside. "Being powerful is like being a lady. They built and provided their own welfare facilities and, well before today's welfare state was built, miners created their own welfare systems to alleviate hardship. It was perfectly justified to note that, particularly as the Guardian also explained that "to the millions who revered him a third of the country, according to some polls a messiah has fallen, and their grief will be visceral." When Margaret Hilda Thatcher took over as Prime Minister, in May, 1979, I was sixteen. Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society", that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness. Yet despite the attempts of some columnists to claim otherwise, Thatcher can't really be seen as "a warrior in the sex war", let alone as "the ultimate women's libber". When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. By 1990 it was transformed. Scotland was her mission impossible. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told Few would argue that they have not endured. Though the Thatcher years could also be called the Saatchi years, reaching a new level of presentational sophistication in the annals of British politics, they weren't about getting the leader liked. What was it about Thatcher that inspired a generation of comics to rage at her? There are more than 8,000. Privatisation was the single most massive attack on democracy we have seen. She usually knew the limits to public tolerance, gauging how much of the spirit of '45 abided, so even if it was between gritted teeth, she forced herself to say, "The NHS is safe in our hands": she reorganised but did not privatise it. It's interesting, though, that even when comedians try to be political, they can never really land a punch on David Cameron, Nick Clegg or George Osborne. Everyone knows where they were when they heard. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is Like John Major in her wake, Thatcher was convinced that she understood the Scots yet couldn't understand why we remained so stubbornly resistant towards the notion of understanding her. the British Embassy in Paris and stated or copyright prevents reproduction on the site. This was hardly the first or even the worst example of a dig at Thatcher tinged so needlessly with sexism. But every prime minister since has bowed to her legacy, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown eager to be snapped with her on their doorstep. talked of "Victorian Values". Reagan and Thatcher first met in 1975, as my friend and colleague Peter Hannaford reminded me just today. Then they discovered that they could make money, so they dropped all that. The current crop of leaders are so dull, so ill-defined, so lacking in personality that it's almost impossible for comedians to rage against them. The poll-tax rioters. From her start in politics, Thatcher often attracted sexist critiques for the way she spoke, with many it dubbing her voice "shrill" and "patronizing." Television critic Clive James even compared . Maybe it was the sound of the estuary pronunciation robbing her of her aspirational airs, a prototype of the Bouquet/Bucket joke. The woman dubbed as the Iron Lady during her premiership made her last tearful speech as the leader of the country from the doorstep of . The first time I met Margaret Thatcher, I swear she was wearing gloves. Opponents and supporters of Margaret Thatcher will never agree about the value of her legacy, but as for her importance, her hypnotic hold on us, they are bound to find common ground. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979. The passing of Chvez is mourned by the many millions who loved him in Latin America and everywhere. "Labour is stuck because they do not want to carry on the slimming down of the state and devolution of power but nor do they really want to reverse it," said one central Tory figure. Still plumbing for the essence, we have to examine other bits of residue. International studies of OECD countries suggest a close relationship between the decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality. By 1987, anti-Tory tactical voting had taken hold. While "one nation" Conservatives condone some forms of redistribution, their libertarian . But within a few years, a third of children were poor, a sign of the yawning inequality from which the country never recovered. A meeting in Downing Street had left the Pakistan leader besotted with the older woman's wisdom and generosity: '"I tell you, she's such a kind person.". Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. This was most evident in the shooting dead of three unarmed IRA activists in Gibraltar in March 1988. In 1968 she gave a lecture asking What's Understandably, less cohesive societies with more drugs, more crime and lower mobility waste talent, and are not good places to do business. From a peak of 13 million in 1979, trade union membership had declined by 30% by 1990, and is now not much more than half what it was. A distinction is often made between two traditions of British Conservative thought: the paternalist "one nation/middle way" tradition, and the more libertarian one that is associated with Margaret Thatcher. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady", one Not all writers were against her. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. As leader she was initially hyper-cautious. Howe's "broken cricket bats" speech in the Commons was the killer blow. As a child she unnerved me but we are not children now and we are free to choose our own ethical codes and leaders that reflect them. Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . The poll tax showed the opposite, the weakness of Thatcher's strength. While Labour was now "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich", ambitious feminism wanted to be let in to the boardroom and every corridor of power that and little else is what they mean by changing the world. Sue Gray used to be my boss. Debate continues on whether Margaret Thatcher saved or destroyed British industry, but there is one industry that she practically created. She gave it her best shot. It was all very well for me to write books. Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in the 1984 Birthday honours for "services to the study of Economics". As far as her supporters are concerned, this radical transformation worked. As the coalition sets about shrinking the welfare state, it's still embarked on Thatcher's project of rolling back the frontiers of the state, dismantling the settlement that held from 1945 until it unravelled in the 1970s. Even the nasty politics of "welfare reform" is driven by the high cost of subsidising low pay through in-work benefits, and indifference to the plight of jobless communities who have never recovered from de-industrialisation. She was always the Spitting Image bully. It was under her leadership that in 1982 that the Force Research Unit (FRU) was established within the British Army Intelligence Corps. The financial crash of 2008 was a direct result of the policies Thatcher championed. She was able to reach Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." Thatcher's infamous failure to recognise the existence of society was a double failure. Reagan was especially interested in Mrs Thatcher's domestic policy initiatives, and it was quickly established that the foreign policy views ran along parallel lines. She mesmerised us. No such alarms ring in Cameron's ears. ROBIN HARRIS worked for the Conservative Party from 1978, and increasingly closely with Margaret Thatcher herself from 1985, writing her speeches and advising on policy. Almost everything said of Thatcher's early years was untrue, partly through her own invention. of her best Parliamentary speeches in a debate on the strikes. One of the few direct hits scored in the modern era was when Alex Ross and James Herring remixed Nick Clegg's bizarre "I'm sorry" speech and turned it into a hilarious R&B tune. And the single mums. The 70s was Britain's most equal decade. (They also reveal how she loved to surround herself with yes men who were always men.) Thatcher's Spitting Image puppet was different from the others; while other characters, such as Ronald Reagan and the pope, were exaggerated into fantasy versions of themselves, the rubber Maggie was just like the one who appeared on the news a stern, cold, matronly figure who had a slightly oedipal relationship with her cabinet. No homeless or disabled people need beg on the streets. Ed Miliband, a policy wonk himself, claims to be a conviction politician like Thatcher. The Independent has the story. By delivering a crisp, emphatic victory Thatcher showed the world, and more important herself, what a talent for solitary command could achieve. decision to resign. But if today's Guardian readers time-travelled to the late 70s they might be irritated to discover that tomorrow's TV listings were a state secret not shared with daily newspapers. On November 8th 1989, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave an inspiring speech to the UN General Assembly about the environment and climate change. She was a radical conservative, known for dismantling nationalized industries and social services, weakening union power.She was also the first incumbent prime minister in the UK removed on a vote of their own party. In her 1982 party conference speech, Margaret Thatcher offered a prediction for the future: "How absurd it will seem in a few years' time that the state ran Pickfords removals and Gleneagles Hotel . If you want anything done, ask a woman.". This is not the Highland way. During the speech, . When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. To the extent that there was an industrial strategy, it was to sell Britain as a destination for Japanese car companies and to shift the focus of the economy away from manufacturing towards financial services. By John Cassidy. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. still being scolded for the remark.You can read here exactly what she said, The prime minister was intensely interested in the campaign, and asked many penetrating questions. The last remnants of the postwar consensus were swept away in the ensuing decade a period that saw the crushing of the trade unions, the Big Bang in the City, council house sales, the privatisation of large chunks of industry, the encouragement of inward investment, tax cuts, attempts to roll back the state, a deep manufacturing recession, a boom in North Sea oil production, and support for the creation of a single market in Europe. But the left also needs to look beyond the turbulent events in Europe to appreciate the speed of global change and the complications this creates for welfare-laden economies: the dynamos and innovators are increasingly found in Africa, Asia and Latin America rather than France, Germany and Spain. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. Words. Miners had always known that eventually any of the colleries would close and were always prepared to accept that as a fact of life and find employment somewhere else within the industry, but Thatcher's attack was wholesale. Following in the footsteps of Santa Claus, Steve Hynd quickly compiled a list of all the naughty boys and girls "on the left" who dared to express criticisms of the dearly departed Prime Minister, warning that he "will continue to add to this list throughout the day". What is really left by Thatcher to history? Behind "omnishambles" headlines, her revolution is being pushed forward on new fronts in schools, health, planning, policing, probation and welfare. It is no coincidence the three most influential centre-right thinktanks were all conceived over the following months. "You see," she announced in her self-satisfied way, "it just goes to show what people can do when they have to. It led to riots that nobody needed. Margaret Thatcher Curriculum Vitae. This does lead to divisions. Margaret Thatcher's landmark Bruges speech about the future of Europe was never intended to push the UK towards the exit, the man who wrote it says. There are still some great comics doing political material, with Mark Steel and Mark Thomas flying the flag of alternative comedy, while people such as Josie Long and Chris Coltrane find the funny in activism. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was known for her lack of a sense of humour. "Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts. Flags were flying over Port Stanley on 14 June. "The News" was the pompous conduit through which we suckled at the barren baroness through newscaster wet-nurses, naturally; not direct from the steel teat. she The result . Creative destruction was capitalism's necessary agent, so equilibrium was bound to be restored. In the pantheon of this comedian's attacks on Thatcher, it was a retort that probably won't be treasured longer than the best lines from The Young Ones. defended Ronald The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. The welfare state, with its unemployment and housing benefits and free healthcare, actually protected wages: employers could not force workers to accept low pay or unpaid overtime because of the job's healthcare provision, as they do in the US. But awoman who, at the time, thought that chancellor was the top mark at which she might aim. She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. Maggie! 1971 was the year of Ted Heath's Conservative government, which was trying to make huge savings to the budget. An author and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan staked her claim to speechwriting fame as a primary writer for former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.Her notable speeches include Reagan's "Boys of Pointe du Hoc" address, given on the 40 th anniversary of D-Daythe day Allied troops invaded Normandy in World War IIas well as the former president's . Here is a selection of the best writing from commentators, politicians and journalists on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher's 11 years in power - and on her continuing impact in the time following her downfall, as figures from across the political spectrum examine the legacy of one of the most important political figures from the last half-century, this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama, key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War, publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq, the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez, the Daily Mail has morefemale bylines than any other UK paper, Alan Krueger, chair of Obama's council of economic advisers, nor does the balance of research evidence suggest that greater inequality acts as a spur to growth, decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality, intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, the primary force behind what was known then as alternative comedy, Rik Mayall's student rants in The Young Ones, wicked, incompetent mindset that was the spirit of the 80s, "very fashionable in the Guardian for a few months before the financial crisis". As I see it, and as one who had the pleasure of knowing both, they would recognize the huge opportunity created by the presence of each in the respective national and international policy-making role. 4.44 avg rating 39 ratings 2 editions. It never was. At its heart must be an active programme to create good jobs and raise living standards. Having no social or political connection with the class most affected, she gave a very good impression of not caring. But she exploited her luck. Britain's record on innovation and investment have been extremely poor, while the hollowing out of manufacturing left the economy over-dependent on the de-regulated City. Talk to a Labour MP and you end up discussing politics and positioning; talk to a Tory, and it tends to be about policy. Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. There is a paradox. Oil helped Thatcher paper over the cracks, but Britain's age-old problem finding a way to pay its way in the world remains. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. To enrich the global 1% she so brilliantly represented, our "entitlement" had to go and she was just the one to do it. To her detractors, Thatcher is the prime minister who wiped out more than 15% of Britain's industrial base with her dogmatic monetarism, squandered the once-in-a-lifetime windfall of North Sea oil on unemployment pay and tax cuts, and made the UK the unbalanced, unequal country it is today. A senior civil servant said, "It worked because we all knew exactly what she wanted.". The 1978 meeting was their last in person until Mrs Thatcher became Reagan's first state visitor, 26-28 February 1981. She became harder than hard. a new dominance from Brussels", the "No, no, no". . Although the "right to buy" and the privatisation of utilities by selling shares to new small investors was often justified as giving rights to "the little people", the reality is that the less well-off fell ever further behind the rich. Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. There's something distinctively creepy - in a Roman sort of way - about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud. She made her remarks However, for almost a decade Sinn Fin had been patently trying to build a peace process and unfolding events on the world stage including the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, and the release of Mandela were evidence that governments, and apparently intractable situations, could change. In this eulogy, Thatcher uses rhetorical strategies to convince her readers into believing what she states. When she walked into Downing Street promising harmony instead of discord, only one in seven children was poor and Britain was more equal than at any time in modern history. I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. But the choice captures her perfectly. In 11 years, Thatcher promoted only one woman to her cabinet, preferring instead to elevate men whom Spitting Image memorably and, in certain instances, accurately, described as "vegetables". After being asked to deliver a eulogy for the late Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech about her dear friend, and highlighted his best qualities through her writing. We might speculate that an adviser had offered Thatcher a selection of good lines, or that she had asked to see some. On Saturday, 27 February, he wrote in his diary: "PM getting great press went up to the [Capitol] Hill some of the senators tried to give her a bad time, she put them down firmly and with typical British courtesy.". Three separate pieces of legislation between 1980 and 1984 attacked the closed shop, toughened up the laws on picketing and imposed secret strike ballots. It is full of insights into a neglected aspect of how Thatcher came to dominate British politics." (Andrew Gamble, University of Sheffield, UK) "A fascinating insight into the world of speech writing. Feminists disowned her by insisting that though she was a woman, she was not a sister. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. Firstly, control of inflation rather than the pursuit of full employment was the centrepiece of macro economic strategy. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. Was it cruelty? ", This was the great leader in her favourite pose as Samuel Smiles: human beings didn't need to be helped they needed to help themselves. The core ideas that underpinned her government endured through 13 years of Labour and are being extended by the coalition. Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Thatcher never kept a diary, but the archive includes rich details of her role in important domestic and world events. be a nation in retreat". I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. It was a Charles I moment in British history. She forced us to decide what was truly important. To Britons of my generation, she . The remainder are listed without a text because sometimes no record survives Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. Selling public housing to the tenants who occupied it was another, on top of the denationalisation of industries and utilities once thought to be ineluctably and for ever in the hands of the state. It came to a head over her most egregious policy failure, Europe. That's because, 23 years after she was ejected from Downing Street by her own party in a move whose psychic wounds linger on, the country we live in remains Thatcher's Britain. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. No gloves, or hats, except for royalty or at funerals, but feet on the table, whisky glass at hand, into the small hours of solitude, for want of male cronies in the masculine world she dominated for all her 11yearsin power. Look inside your own house, at the water coming out of the tap: once a public utility but, after Thatcher, the property of private companies, many foreign-owned. It was part of her conspicuous virtue, her indifference to familiar political conventions. Collins (Oxford University Press, 1998-2000). For she changed the ethos of Britain as well as its landscape. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. The author uses this idea of freedom in her writing to allow the audience to feel and understand the mission of Reagan--"to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism" (6-7). By the close of her premiership, he was probably the most trusted member of her political team at Downing Street, and he left Number Ten with her. And we won back three we lost at by-elections. At countless demonstrations throughout the 80s, it expressed a curious ambivalence a first name intimacy as well as a furious rejection of all she stood for. Thanks to the comparison with Cameron, we are reminded that the Thatcher reign was more circumspect and well-managed than it seemed at the time. Though she recognised the dangers of global warming, Thatcher's industrial and economic policies prioritised economic growth. Hats. The credit boom both here and in the USA may have gone against her Grantham roots but was an equally inevitable result of deregulation and the temptation of easy loans for people hungry to improve living standards. Margaret Thatcher was a hugely divisive figure in British politics. Nissan's arrival in the north-east showed that Britain was no longer the west's industrial pariah. The remainder are listed without a text because . When John Lennon was told of Elvis Presley's death, he famously responded: "Elvis died when he joined the army," meaning of course, that his combat clothing and clipped hair signalled the demise of the thrusting, Dionysian revolution of which he was the immaculate emblem.
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