She gave it her best shot. Therein, 30 years ago, lay the great Thatcher asset and the electorally lethal Thatcher impact in Scotland. All rights reserved. This does lead to divisions. The state retained control of some nationalised industries the railways, for example but BT, British Airways, British Steel, British Gas and the British Airports Authority were among the big companies sold off. At a banquet in Belgrade the press sat next to the so-called "Garden Girls", who were the secretaries at No 10. Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. Rishi Sunak: 'Our country needs the . True, Labour, James Callaghan and the unions played their part by blocking Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife attempt to create German or Nordic co-operation between unions and industry that might have rescued unions from Thatcher's crushing. She said "there is no such thing as society", and set out to prove it by promoting individual greed and competition for everything. 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.". She added layers of her own to this intimacy, directing the creation of a single European market that surrendered important national powers to the collective. This was hardly the first or even the worst example of a dig at Thatcher tinged so needlessly with sexism. This site follow the same rules (and shares an editor). (They also reveal how she loved to surround herself with yes men who were always men.) speaking in March 2002.). You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. which revealed a good deal as to her political In 1968 she gave a lecture asking What's But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . It still does. making her big speech the following day as scheduled. defended Ronald It was a visit warmly welcomed by President Reagan, with a resplendent state nner on the first evening. 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. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others. Reagan would often hasten to remind those paying tribute to his cold war strategy that it was, in the strictest sense of the term, a team effort. November 15, 2020 9:00 AM EST. Eventually, the Italian contingent, largely existential or postmodern, rose up against us. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. Ithink on balance, it was for the better, and so, plainly did Thatcher's chief successor, Tony Blair. As Danny Dorling says in his 2004 study of the rise in violence: "Those who perpetrated the social violence that was done to the lives of young men starting some 20 years ago [the mid-80s] are the prime suspects for most of the murders in Britain." But she exploited her luck. they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the bowling at the Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November) and gave Meryl Streep's depiction of a shuffling figure, stricken and isolated by the death of her husband, Denis, may have softened memories, or formed them in the minds of a younger generation. MT won election as Conservative leader on 11 February 1975 and gave a euphoric Thatcher is often credited with showing that you could get to the top whatever your background. Edited text: This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980. Modern comedians complain that they don't have personalities, they don't really stand for anything. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to Until then Thatcher had shown the strength of her weakness: a dislike of consensus and aversion to debate, leading to decisive action. Ingham's rough redraft of my speech with very little success. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. They're happy to share big windfall bonuses with their cronies, they'll stick up for deposed dictator chums when they're down on their luck, they'll find opportunities in business for people they care about. Thatcher's reputation never recovered from the ruthless budgets of 1980 and 1981, or her insensitivity to colleagues. Many whom Reagan encountered in public life thought of him in this way, but most politicians would love to reach even "Grade B" status. On the same edition of Channel 4 News, Louise Mensch named only three successful female politicians as part of her defence ofThatcher and only one of those was a Conservative. Nicknamed the "Iron Lady," Thatcher served as the prime minister of England from 1979 to 1990. For Thatcher it all ended months later in November 1990 when she was forced to resign. Thatcher refused to recognise the right of citizens to vote for representatives of their choice. Where copyright is the problem, the full text can be found on the Complete Police charges against picketing union printers in Wapping enabled the Murdoch empire to flourish, ensuring their power and hers. camps were revealed in August 1992. Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. ", 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. He'd been a bully, she said, whereas Mrs T was warm and understanding. It was not interested in a resolution. She was the first prime minister to be more accountable to the international market than to the British economy. This is a style whose absence is much missed. The last time the UK ran a trade surplus was the year of the Falklands war. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. They married the personality and belief to action. Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. The Cameron generation wrongly see in the 1980s a revolution to emulate, starting with an economic crisis just like hers, as a chance to reshape everything. In 2009, Boris Johnson lamented that Thatcher had become "a boo-word in British politics, a shorthand for selfishness and me-first-ism, and devil-take-the-hindmost and grinding the faces of the poor.". For the most part, it has not been undone. This report of the Conservative party conference ran in the Guardian on Saturday October 11 1980, Edited and full versions of Margaret Thatcher's 'The lady's not for turning' speech, delivered at the Conservative party conference in Brighton on 10 October 1980, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every 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. Margaret Thatcher is being remembered as the prime minister who remade Britain's economy, the "Iron Lady" who stood up to communism and who fought and won a war in the distant South Atlantic . The eulogy is a good illustration of Thatcher's feelings for . 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). No homeless or disabled people need beg on the streets. As far as her supporters are concerned, this radical transformation worked. Keith Joseph was her guru. Mikhail Gorbachev, for one, learned the hard way. Her defenders always insisted that sentence had been misunderstood, but it stuck because it seemed to capture something essential about the Thatcherite creed: its embrace of individualism and apparent disdain for the collective. Either way, I'm an adult now and none of those things are on telly any more so there's no excuse for apathy. The main names associated with Fatcha-bashing Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle deny that they relied so heavily on her for material. There turned out to be no such thing as society, at least in the sense we used to understand it. I think on balance Thatcher did for Britain what was needed at the time. This is one small sign of how the left seems paralysed by a lack of intellectual curiosity and confidence. No elderly person would be deprived of the dignity of spectacles, dentures or a hearing aid because they couldn't afford them. Until her final poll-tax hubris, she knew when swerving was the better part of valour and despite that famous one-liner, she was sometimes for turning. And on the 11th June, we even won some nine seats we failed to gain in 1983. for the disk. Margaret Thatcher Curriculum Vitae. For those of us who were dismayed by her brisk distaste for that cosy state-dominated world, it was never enough to dislike her. She undoubtedly rescued the prestige of the country from its postwar nadir, but at a high cost to the generosity of its political and social culture. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. 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. 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. When Heath fell, her promoters ran her as a stalking horse because, as a woman, they thought she could not win. Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. The south of England and the City of London were the future; the revenues from North Sea oil would pay for the unemployed in the old zones of manufacturing industry. Look at the cars on the road, none made by the old, nationally-owned British Leyland and only few by the British marques that once dominated but which went the way of much of British industry unable to survive the chill wind of "market forces", another phrase which filled the air back then. Here is an excerpt from People [PMT]: "In politics," Margaret Thatcher once acidly observed, "if you want anything said, ask a man. Nor, contrary to myth, did Thatcherism emerge fully formed in May 1979. The welfare state set out to ensure that no one, in the UK at least, would starve or freeze to death, or suffer or die for lack of medical or other care. It is no coincidence the three most influential centre-right thinktanks were all conceived over the following months. But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. She wanted to win, but did not put much faith in the quick smile. While "one nation" Conservatives condone some forms of redistribution, their libertarian . "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. But this didn't come without a price. From then on she disregarded her critics and became intolerant of any who were "not one of us". Perhaps this is unsurprising: four years ago Ed Miliband sneered at "nudge" economics as something "very fashionable in the Guardian for a few months before the financial crisis". Margaret Thatcher was not known for her sense of humour. Privatisation was the single most massive attack on democracy we have seen. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.". When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. But every prime minister since has bowed to her legacy, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown eager to be snapped with her on their doorstep. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. From the invention of the term "sado-monetarism" through to the way her powerful ministers seemed to swoon before her, and the constant negative reiteration by her critics of her femininity, or lack of it, she exerted a glacial hold over the (male) nation's masochistic imagination. The first three speeches were by Winston Churchill. Behind "omnishambles" headlines, her revolution is being pushed forward on new fronts in schools, health, planning, policing, probation and welfare. Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Heath: they seem, by comparison, evanescent figures. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. Unable to win the leadership ballot outright, she stood on the steps of There was only one state-approved answering machine available. She pointed out that she was only 10 years old when she ceased to be prime minister. A friend of South African apartheid and mass murderers from Kissinger and Pinochet to the Khmer Rouge after they had killed two million Cambodians she was a zealous saleswoman for the arms industry. Hats. in a statement the following morning (22 November), hours before she In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. But now the history was what mattered. Yet by the autumn of 1981 they had made her so unpopular that bets were being taken at the October party conference that she would be "gone by Christmas". But can he shake off the shackles of the past and prove there is an alternative? If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. History, Sample Essay. When Margaret Hilda Thatcher took over as Prime Minister, in May, 1979, I was sixteen. In the three years prior to receiving these weapons the loyalist death squads killed 34 people. Moreover, it's hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. Endeavouring to persuade the British into an attitude of hostility to the group with which she spent 11 years deepening their connection must take a high place in any catalogue of anti-statesmanship. "Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.". This regrettable transformation was blessed by a leader who probably did not know it was happening because she didn't care if it happened or not. Sayle recorded the song Get Me Mrs Thatcher, but says that in general he felt Thatcher jokes were a bit too easy, although he still shudders at the memory of a "wicked, incompetent mindset that was the spirit of the 80s". Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won't repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell."