When Margaret Thatcher won the general election in 1979, she became Prime Minister of a land in chaos. Talk to a Labour MP and you end up discussing politics and positioning; talk to a Tory, and it tends to be about policy. History, Sample Essay. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. It isn't sad for anyone else. . To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. was an Oxford student home for the university holidays. To enrich the global 1% she so brilliantly represented, our "entitlement" had to go and she was just the one to do it. She all but erased his political legacy to stamp her own image on the nation, so Britain before and after Thatcher were two different countries. This was my mother speaking at some point in the middle 1980s. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, at The Hague in May 1992. While "one nation" Conservatives condone some forms of redistribution, their libertarian . But, as the prince in Lampedusa's The Leopard says: "For things to remain the same, everything must change.". We had an all-out blistering row that delighted the organisers. Few would argue that they have not endured. Privatisation did not feature in the Conservative election campaign, while the tougher approach to trade union reform had only really become evident since the winter of discontent, and even then was a gradual process. What will not be forgotten? speech in July 1945, delivered in a town close to Grantham while she But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. In the 2004 eulogy in honor of the late president, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher uses a series of rhetorical devices such as parallelism, repetition, and ethos to convey the message in which Reagan was much more than an excellent president. The relative wealth of the UK 1% had been falling steadily for 50 years when Thatcher took power in 1979; since then it has climbed steeply and is almost back to 1918 levels. Each was characterised by her attention to detail. The word "free" is used to help the audience Miners were a hardy race of people who faced constant danger in the cause of mining coal but underneath that they were caring, sensitive individuals with a commitment to the communities in which they lived. Moreover, it's hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier. She refused to reform social security, or even curb its abuse. When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. No homeless or disabled people need beg on the streets. The news last week that they are instead considering cutting or freezing the minimum wage surely undermines any pretence that the government is acting either coherently or in the public interest. The authors show just how much . She famously changed the law after Bobby Sands was elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. This was heightened by the suspicion that this power was not consciously deployed. Published: Sunday 21st February 2021. In a eulogy by the former prime minister of Great Britain, Margret Thatcher honors the legacy of Ronald Reagan, the late president. But the sense of community evaporated. It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. The eulogy is a good illustration of Thatcher's feelings for . 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." History will judge her, but not a country in Europe was untouched by Thatcher's example. The tragic upshot has been the steep erosion of wages for the powerless bottom half, as income, wealth and property is sucked up to the top. 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". wrong with politics? performance at a Press Conference afterwards. Thatcher did not believe in "picking winners"; instead she preferred to rely on market forces to ensure the survival of the fittest. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. It was thoroughly "wet". It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. The virtual state funeral will rehearse again our extravagant fixations. talked of "Victorian Values". 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. For years, in fact, she despised writers, except those who did her speeches. To the victors we saycongratulations. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.". The poll tax showed the opposite, the weakness of Thatcher's strength. Where she privatised state-owned industries, they go much further, seeking to dismantle the state itself. Her Irish policy failed miserably. This was her last important public statement. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher 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. Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Heath: they seem, by comparison, evanescent figures. Charles Powell was a senior foreign policy . In January 1983 she It never was. None present eyed her meanly or spoke with vitriol and it wasn't until an hour later that I dreamt up an Ealing comedy-style caper in which two inept crooks kidnap Thatcher from the garden but are unable to cope with the demands of dealing with her, and finally give her back. Ultimately, despite the despondent times of the Cold War and the waning confidence of the citizens, Margaret Thatcher delivered her eulogy speech in belief of President Ronald Reagan and used the rhetorical appeals of pathos, imagery, metaphor, and ethos to accomplish his presidency as successful. Look at the trains on the track, the phone in your house, the trio of 1980s teenagers who lead the three main parties. Their reckless private finance of public investment and services went beyond anything she dared dream of. Thatcher will be especially remembered for her shameful role during the epic hunger strikes of 1980 and 81. Meeting Gorbachev for the first time in December 1984 she declared: "We But keeping the show on the road is what all of them must first attend to, because there's nobody else to do it. Yet, as the heated benefits debate showed last week, Labour is trapped by history bereft of fresh ideas and, when tentatively offering proposals, strangled by the most stifling conservatism. The set text is still Thatcher's declaration quoted in The Audience that "There is no such thing as society". And the single mums. Adam Smith's invisible hand ended up raising two fingers to her moral project. April 8, 2013. She gave Nigel Lawson at the Treasury his head and was genuinely alarmed when he cut income tax to 40%. "They did their thing with no chance of making any money, so they stood up in crappy pubs and said, 'I hate Maggie'. Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? Reagan would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president, the next year. Reagan, for one, recognized the importance of Margaret Thatcher's presence as British prime minister, but would caution any discussionpartnerthat Pope John Paul played an equally important role. The first time I met Margaret Thatcher, I swear she was wearing gloves. The widening of income differences between rich and poor that took place during the 80s (particularly from 1985) is the most rapid ever recorded. declared that she wanted our money back, invited the I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. Handbag. Another head of government died recently who, like Thatcher, was called divisive. three press interviews (15-17 November) when Howe's resignation speech In his usual slightly dishevelled style, he went to Downing Street to discuss his pioneering concepts of behavioural economics and attempts to implement them under Barack Obama. All Rights Reserved. The machinery of modern political management polls, consulting, focus groups is deployed mainly to discover what will make aparty and politician better liked, or worse, disliked. A big decline in traditional industries took place across Europe and the US in the 80s and 90s. Its impact on the streets of the north is evident in the statistics of death. While some remember her as a national saviour, others only see her ruthless demolition of flailing state-owned industries. For Thatcher it all ended months later in November 1990 when she was forced to resign. 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. Margaret Thatcher's 1980 speech was written by playwright Ronnie Miller, and Julia recalls that the night before delivering the speech she had a huge row with him about the content. 'It's a wonder nobody has taken a gun to that woman.' 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. So the woman I met in Curzon Street, dimpling elegantly, can now be seen in history with an unexpected achievement to her credit. The truth lies somewhere between these extremes. Would we like her back? She was propped up by police who were encouraged to brutality against not only strikers but communities of colour, already hardest hit by unemployment: police powers were enhanced and their racism given free rein, especially with stop and search; CS gas was used on the mainland for the first time. The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. Chvez is gone, but the voters are likely to re-elect Chavismo on 14 April. as far as can be known. Firstly, control of inflation rather than the pursuit of full employment was the centrepiece of macro economic strategy. A growing body of research now shows that the quality of social relations is among the most powerful influences on the happiness, health and wellbeing of populations in the rich countries. Thatcher is remembered for her achievements, but more for a presence, which was wrapped up with being a woman. At every level of his killing, British agents and agencies had a hand: the leader of the UDA group that carried out the killing was a Special Branch agent, as was the man who confessed to being the gunman, and the man who supplied the gun. After the 1987 election, Thatcher cut an increasingly isolated figure. That did the trick.). to his resignation letter on 1 November, stated Author: Margaret Thatcher Year: 1979 Location: London, the UK Occasion: Address to the Parliament. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. Thatcher was a divisive woman who created discord, not harmony. Perhaps Labour would benefit from another defeat, given the danger of taking power unprepared and turning into a zombie government, like the tragedy unfurling in France. On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. She was lucky, in her enemies and friends notably Reagan in the Falklands conflict. making her big speech the following day as scheduled. Any attempts at revisionism do no favours to her, women or feminism. Having no social or political connection with the class most affected, she gave a very good impression of not caring. Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. Throw the Lib Dems into the mix and it becomes highly combustible. This is a style whose absence is much missed. John O'Sullivan, CBE (born 25 April 1942) is a British conservative political commentator and journalist. In November 1978, Hannaford and I organized a European fact-finding tour for Reagan, and the first stop was London. 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. I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. The endemic worklessness of her era was never repaired now her successors blame the victims. Demonising unions and stripping the great mass of private-sector workers of a voice and power in the workplace is still the root of the great living standards crisis that saw the share of wealth going to wages slide long before Lehman Brothers failed. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979. Nor, contrary to myth, did Thatcherism emerge fully formed in May 1979. Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. In the Meryl Streep film, The Iron Lady, it's the scenes of domesticity that appear most absurd. On 30 October 1990 she made the first of the It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. When Heath fell, her promoters ran her as a stalking horse because, as a woman, they thought she could not win. It became obvious that, while granting that I had "convictions", she never read a word of my stuff. But really, such statements were anything but, first because sweeping statements about genders are the opposite of gender equality and second because they revealed her real attitude towards women, which lay behind her notable lack of female-friendly policies, her utter lack of interest in childcare provision or positive action. She was able to reach What's more, it was moulded to the wall as one commentator recalled and you had no right to change it, not without becoming entangled in a state-managed bureaucracy. Yet the Daily Mail has morefemale bylines than any other UK paper and is not exactly a totem of gender equality andfemale-friendliness. But this didn't come without a price. There are more than 8,000. She wasn't a feminist icon and she wasn't an icon for women. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), who in 1979 would become Great Britain's first female Prime Minister, traveled to the United States and Canada in September 1975, seven months after becoming the leader of Britain's Conservative Party, then out of power. Many hated her. her maiden Far from "smashing the glass ceiling", she was the aberration, the one who got through and then pulled the ladder up right after her. Instead state assets and a huge income stream from North sea oil were used to fund a populist programme of tax cuts, privatisation and council housesales. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. The Lady forced the opposition party to accommodate itself to the new, Thatcherite settlement in which the market would rule unless stated otherwise. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." Yet for all these fissures, even Maoist modernisers and the most reactionary social conservatives share a similar stance over the role of the state. 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. Not the loss of imperial markets, not lazy management, not the education system, not the decline of the industrial ethic: bitter men standing on platforms and asking for a show of hands to down tools were solely to blame. When she took over in 1979, the bottom of that device would have carried the legend, "Property of the GPO." Its strategies included the shallow and ineffectual 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement which was about creating a political alliance involving the Dublin establishment, the SDLP and the British to defeat Irish republicanism. . Modern comedians complain that they don't have personalities, they don't really stand for anything. That bonuses and top incomes continue to rise while the incomes of the rest of the population struggle to keep up with inflation tells us that what we needed was legislation to ensure employee representation on company boards and remuneration committees as many of our European partners have. Thatcher is often credited with showing that you could get to the top whatever your background. Only today are we facing the cost. Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games . That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. Her political antennae refused to allow her to privatise the coal industry, British Rail or the post office. But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. Margaret expresses that Reagan's leadership was the key to ending The Cold War and unifying a formerly divided nation. But Labour is no less in thrall. She would appear in public to drape a hankie over a model BA plane tailfin because she disliked the unpatriotic logo with which they'd replaced the union flag (maybe don't privatise BA then), or to shuffle about some country pile arm in arm with a doddery Pinochet and tell us all what a fine fellow he was. Had Jim Callaghan won the 1979 election, he too would have faced the challenge of how to modernise an economy beset by high inflation, weak management and poor industrial relations. M argaret Thatcher does an awful lot of crying in The Crown. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not 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. Scotland was her mission impossible. Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. She is an anomaly; a product of the freak-onomy of her time. Was it cruelty? 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. I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher. one Margaret Thatcher's most important long-term legacy is likely to be the huge rise in inequality that she caused. which revealed a good deal as to her political These developments set a benchmark. 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. a That was the daunting task Margaret Thatcher set herself when she arrived in Downing Street in May 1979 at the end of a traumatic decade that had seen a three-day week, inflation topping 25%, a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the winter of discontent. Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! This is the area where we need to make progress not just in restoring strong local government, but in understanding that democracy means more than a Westminster vote. It was illegal to put an extension lead on your phone. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. And for the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher years were among some of the worst of the conflict. Contrary to an increasingly common belief, "a woman who is successful" is not synonymous with "a feminist". Three separate pieces of legislation between 1980 and 1984 attacked the closed shop, toughened up the laws on picketing and imposed secret strike ballots.
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