It may be wrong to imagine that she intended to de-industrialise Britain, but the policies followed by her government had that effect. which revealed a good deal as to her political She had just finished the first volume of her memoirs, which she insisted was all her own work. This is a political style, an aesthetic even, that has disappeared from view. The great contradiction in her politics was that someone who yearned for the certainties of small-town shopkeeper economics helped create the amoral yuppiedom of 80s excess and an explosion of cultural resistance that is still an ironic positive legacy of her time in power. By 1990 it was transformed. 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. "Fatcha" was an instant punchline back then: simply saying it was enough to get a laugh. How could anyone who was so resolutely Margaret Thatcher be anything else? In January 1976, Thatcher delivered a speech at Kensington Town Hall in London, and spoke about the Iron Curtain the political boundary that separated Europe during World War II. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. April 8, 2013. 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". So instead: "I put it to her that we would be saving money." It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. If it ended in disaster, the seeds were only partly hers. It is odd to reflect that in Thatcher's time, the British novel enjoyed a comparatively lively resurgence. of times. She hated what she called "that French phrase laissez faire". But now the history was what mattered. Thatcher was born as Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, England. Nations need to know the big picture of where they belong and, coinciding with the Thatcher appearance at the top, clarity had apparently broken through the clouds of historic ambivalence. Britain's relative decline came to an end, although that was more due to slowdowns in countries such as France and Germany than an acceleration in UK productivity growth. Take the larger view. deeply felt eulogy, filmed in advance and relayed by video link to screens in the National Cathedral in Washington. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". As the authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher, I was given special permission by the Cabinet Secretary to see government papers not yet released to the public.For . Thatcher's unwavering belief in the invisible hand of the market meant that she did not believe it was part of her job description to put anything in its place. We still live in the land Margaret built. A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. If the Falklands war was the making of Thatcher, then the poll tax was her achilles heel not least in Scotland. So we agreed to reactivate the back channel. Perhaps she had just come inside. Sharp definition, hard edges, no effort at fuzzy contours (David Cameron, take note). A Tory party desperate for women helped Thatcher through the political foothills to early success as an MP. 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. Such items have an as far as can be known. It made minor savings at best and was, as the . . 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. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. 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. Margaret Thatcher's most important long-term legacy is likely to be the huge rise in inequality that she caused. Gaze at the telephone. She was always the Spitting Image bully. She continued for some reason to consider me worth talking to. In a break with tradition and protocol, Reagan decided he'd also attend the "return dinner" at the British Embassy the next evening. It'd be disingenuous to omit that there were a fair number of ding-dong-style celebratory messages amidst the pensive reflections on the end of an era. But it was the killing of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane in February 1989 that reveals the depth of the Thatcher government's state collusion policy. Ed Miliband, a policy wonk himself, claims to be a conviction politician like Thatcher. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. 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." The result . There is a paradox. 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. press to rejoice at the capture of South Georgia on 25 April 1982, announced that White She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Congress. Reagan would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president, the next year. The events of that awful summer of '81 polarised Irish society, north and south. Rhetorical Analysis Of Margaret Thatcher's Speech 722 Words | 3 Pages . Neither shift of ownership and power would have happened without a leader prepared to take risks with her life. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. In 1990, Margaret Thatcher emerged as one of the first world leaders to champion climate science, issuing a call to action to fight manmade global warming at the Second World Climate Conference hosted at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. 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. Dignity and decorum ruled the day - except in the poisoned anonymity of the internet. Yet her long-term effect seems to have been to destroy it. I think on balance Thatcher did for Britain what was needed at the time. As she said in her memoirs: "There was no one else." Former Tory MP Louise Mensch, with no apparent sense of irony, invoked precepts of propriety to announce: "Pygmies of the left so predictably embarrassing yourselves, know this: not a one of your leaders will ever be globally mourned like her.". As far as her supporters are concerned, this radical transformation worked. 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. 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. 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. Gillian Anderson's portrayal of the Iron Lady in "The Crown" is pretty spot-on. The drastic results of these policies were intentional. If a leader's record is to be measured by the willingness of the other side to decide itcannot turn back the clock, then Thatcher bulks big in history. All of the Tory edicts that bludgeoned our nation, as my generation squirmed through ghoulish puberty, were confusing. Your local electricity "board" could be a very unfriendly place. The late Benazir Bhutto later gave me much the same account. In rich societies such as the UK, what makes most difference to the real quality of our lives is the quality of community life and social interaction. She was able to reach Thatcher and Reagan went on to facilitate a colossal transfer of wealth from poor to rich, leading to the world economic crash we now witness. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). Too timid, too in thrall, the 13-year Labour government rarely dared challenge the attitudes she planted in the national psyche. I don't see that. Across Yorkshire or south Wales, Kent or Nottinghamshire, there are villages that have never recovered from the closure of coal mines, ordered by a Thatcher who ruled there was no place for pits that were not "economically viable", regardless of the social consequences. When all the public amenities were flogged, the adverts made it seem to my childish eyes fun and positive, jaunty slogans and affable British stereotypes jostling about in villages, selling people companies that they'd already paid for through tax. Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. No one noticed, but she was Blair's first guest at Downing Street in 1997. And when I and several other Sinn Fin leaders were elected to the Assembly in 1982 we were barred from entry to Britain. But growth rates in the decades since her period in office have been lower than during those that preceded her; nor does the balance of research evidence suggest that greater inequality acts as a spur to growth. Elton has previously said that he did two minutes about Thatcher and two hours about his knob, and all anyone ever remembered was the Thatcher material. Thatcherism failed to destroy the welfare state. One turns with gratitude to Alan Clark's diaries for a fine description of being summoned to No 10 and being subjected to just such an examination. But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. An Inconvenient Truth About Margaret Thatcher: She Was a Climate Hawk. On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. Yet for all these fissures, even Maoist modernisers and the most reactionary social conservatives share a similar stance over the role of the state. 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. Meeting Gorbachev for the first time in December 1984 she declared: "We Cabinet rank in 1970 without appearing on television more than a handful Over the years, and through much re-telling, the story had it that Thatcher told Hitchens to bend over, and that she spanked him with her order papers. 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. Debate continues on whether Margaret Thatcher saved or destroyed British industry, but there is one industry that she practically created. 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). For a start, she had a superb memory for a brief, and she would have had no problem memorising quickly any number of lines. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to Buy the CD-ROM from this link or find one In November 1978, Hannaford and I organized a European fact-finding tour for Reagan, and the first stop was London. MT prayed on the It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. The items stored in this section of the site are texts, but many of the most important statements are also available in audio or video form in the separate Multimedia section. We might speculate that an adviser had offered Thatcher a selection of good lines, or that she had asked to see some. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. a new dominance from Brussels", the The authors show just how much . Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, gave a eulogy to the grieving American people in honor of the late Ronald Reagan on June 11th, 2004. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. It got over a deep, instinctive hostility to women at the top of anything, and put her there. What will not be forgotten? The word "free" is used to help the audience When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. A longer version of this article appears on Gerry Adams' blog, Margaret Thatcher was good at destruction. She would, say some who knew her, have a found a way to finesse a change of direction by now. 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. Thatcher's reign helped to inspire alternative comedy by creating a generation so bereft of hope that they started putting on gigs just for the sake of something to do. 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." And we won back three we lost at by-elections. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? Modern comedians complain that they don't have personalities, they don't really stand for anything. 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. Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per 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 . It chose her ina fit of desperation, hats and all though it quite liked the hats. She defended Ronald But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. That gives them the nerve to set about cutting benefits and the public realm with a glee they don't bother to hide. morning, Available for everyone, funded by readers. There is now, however, an opportunity to commit to a new politics that learns lessons from her ambition yet undoes the damage and focuses on reconstruction. I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. She became harder than hard. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. . It was only in the mid-80s that she became truly radical and remotely comparable to David Cameron in 2010. By raising the pay of their own staff to a minimum of the living wage, they have set an example which a growing number of large private-sector employers have followed. 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 speech was a rare instance of a politician saying something tangible. Reagan had sought to meet with then Prime Minister James Callaghan, but the request was rejected, and bucked to then Foreign Minister David Owen. John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. But Labour is no less in thrall. The British inflation was in 1975 up at 24, 11% [] and with the union's constant claim for higher salaries, nobody expected it to drop to a normal level. recommended by Simon Heffer. At its best, that has meant a mood of freedom and choice that has made these islands a brighter, less drab place than they once were. It was illegal to put an extension lead on your phone. 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. To Britons of my generation, she . If I become PM, I will deliver the radical set of reforms need to unleash growth. 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. In the 80s, she was the primary force behind what was known then as alternative comedy and is now simply called "comedy". Bob Slayer, one of the genuine alternative comedians on the scene, likes to note the irony of what's become of comedy. There are pangs of nostalgia, yes, because for me she's all tied up with Hi-De-Hi and Speak and Spell and Blockbusters and "follow the bear". When Margaret Thatcher won the general election in 1979, she became Prime Minister of a land in chaos. She preferred markets, and a strong but minimal central state that backed their rule. Above all has been the hollowing out of the labour market. Without the Falklands/Malvinas war, which exploited nationalism (as Argentinian dictator Galtieri did) and which Labour would not oppose, she would never have been re-elected in 1983. 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. The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by. Behind "omnishambles" headlines, her revolution is being pushed forward on new fronts in schools, health, planning, policing, probation and welfare. This unit recruited agents who were then used to kill citizens. On June 11th, 2004 Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the American people at Ronald Reagan's funeral. I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. three press interviews (15-17 November) when Howe's resignation speech But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. In a world where most media talking heads come from the top few percent of income earners, unions are not only important in wage bargaining, they also provide some of the few well-informed voices whose job it is to speak on behalf of the less well-paid. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. She was unashamed about this, loathing localism and rejecting calls to diminish the "strong state". The romantic image of the lady in the tank spurs them on. 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 had been offered the chance to get on and effectively she then refused to offer it to otherpeople. . She famously changed the law after Bobby Sands was elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. the British Embassy in Paris and stated Having no social or political connection with the class most affected, she gave a very good impression of not caring. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. She needed followers, as long as they went in her frequently unpopular directions. Materialistic individualism was blessed as a virtue, the driver of national success. Where once we stood within a recognisable postwar social democratic European tradition, after Thatcher the country had rowed halfway across the Atlantic, psychologically imbued with US neoliberal individualism. for turning. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. To enrich the global 1% she so brilliantly represented, our "entitlement" had to go and she was just the one to do it. The Yale Book of Quotations also states, "Thatcher is said to have used this in a 1965 speech.". When the late Christopher Hitchens was a political reporter for the New Statesman, he corrected the prime minister on a point of fact, and she was quick to correct Hitchens in turn. 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. 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. 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. Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in the 1984 Birthday honours for "services to the study of Economics". November 15, 2020 9:00 AM EST. ", This attitude that men are fun but dumb, women are smart but strident, a view of the sexes that seems to come straight out of a Judd Apatow film led to various quotes of hers that some like to twist into proof that Thatcher was an unwitting feminist. In the north of Ireland she had the army and the Diplock courts which reached their peak in the mid 1980s. This was most evident in the shooting dead of three unarmed IRA activists in Gibraltar in March 1988. April 25, 2020. At times the Conservative party is so anarchic as to appear almost ungovernable, like a plethora of pressure groups pushing pet causes rather than a united group ruthlessly focusing on political success. Certainly, in 1983, it did not occur to me to criticise Harold Macmillan or Alec Douglas-Home on the doorstep as a sure-fire vote turner. Trying to trim back spending in her department, she ended the milk subsidies for all children over the age of seven. A couple of days later on the 11th, Margaret Thatcher the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote an eulogy for Ronald Reagan. Thatcher's most baleful influence on government was not on industries and services she privatised but those she did not. As I spread my wings in politics, I discovered many Thatcher voters down south who were the same kind of people who loathed her in Scotland. But within a few years, a third of children were poor, a sign of the yawning inequality from which the country never recovered. No single mother raising children was to be called "workless", skipping meals to feed them and forced to ditch them to submit to "workfare" or a starvation wage. What was it about Thatcher that inspired a generation of comics to rage at her? Out!" What is really left by Thatcher to history? I will know that we have finally broken from the kind of capitalism that she championed and which died in 2008 when we see workers elected on to company boards. The remainder are listed without a text because sometimes no record survives How dare her apologists and beneficiaries of her legacy refer to trade unions like the NUM as "corrupt" in the face of their bonuses and tax cuts! Their reckless private finance of public investment and services went beyond anything she dared dream of. The Lady forced the opposition party to accommodate itself to the new, Thatcherite settlement in which the market would rule unless stated otherwise.

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