Maybe my memory is fanciful. 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. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". She was not a writer. Thatcher became prime minister because she was a woman, not despite it. To use a less bizarre analogy: if Thatcher was the headmistress, they were junior teachers, authoritative but warm enough that you could call them "mum" by accident. But Margaret Thatcher did not hesitate, and the long, substantive lunch seemed to energize both future world leaders. The pomp and circumstance that will crown her funeral was proffered by Brown, to some shudders from his own side. She defended Ronald This was my mother speaking at some point in the middle 1980s. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning? The widening of income differences between rich and poor that took place during the 80s (particularly from 1985) is the most rapid ever recorded. 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 . Nor, contrary to myth, did Thatcherism emerge fully formed in May 1979. 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. Hewrote this piece in 2003, two weeks before he died. Britain was battered out of the somnolent conservatism, across awide front of economic policies and priorities, that had held back progress and, arguably, prosperity. Here, for instance, was what the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez: "To the millions who detested him as a thug and charlatan, it will be occasion to bid, vocally or discreetly, good riddance.". Today we have four coalmines and around 2,000 miners. In November 1978, Hannaford and I organized a European fact-finding tour for Reagan, and the first stop was London. To enrich the global 1% she so brilliantly represented, our "entitlement" had to go and she was just the one to do it. The most widely used measure of income differences shows inequality increasing by more than a third during her period in office. When Heath fell, her promoters ran her as a stalking horse because, as a woman, they thought she could not win. The lady was too shrewd to try that, and barely succeeded in reducing the share of the national income taken by the public sector. (Interestingly, Currie also recalled that when she approached Thatcher in 1988 to get approval for the world's first national breast-screening programme, she tried to appeal to the PM initially "as a woman" but that swiftly proved unsuccessful. But Thatcher was still cautious. 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 . 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.". He'd been a bully, she said, whereas Mrs T was warm and understanding. The economy had become more productive, more competitive and more profitable. 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. John Major, the "detoxification" successor, was fated to implement many of her unattempted reforms. 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. Fourthly, policy was aimed at those who, according to the prime minister, wanted to get on in life. Later, when the BBC and ITV scheduled two programmes about Gibraltar, Thatcher tried to stop them. She was catapulted into the Conservative leadership by a small group of ideologues centred around a thinktank, determined to roll back the statist ideas that dominated Britain after the postwar Attlee government. The author Nassim Taleb traded equations on a whiteboard with Gus O'Donnell, then head of the civil service, as they debated econometrics; at another, I watched entranced as Lord Heseltine argued urban policies with Harvard's Ed Glaeser. 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. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. This is a style whose absence is much missed. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. The party she led three times to electoral triumph became unelectable for a generation. We had had a strange relationship. 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". Thatcher's passing is marked by street parties in Brixton, Belfast, Bristol, Derry, Glasgow and Liverpool, and seething bitterness among the mining families and communities she was allowed (including by scab union and Labour leaders) to destroy. Margaret Thatcher's most important long-term legacy is likely to be the huge rise in inequality that she caused. Privatisation was the single most massive attack on democracy we have seen. They rallied around each other when times were hard. 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". But she also provided great material. It was part of her conspicuous virtue, her indifference to familiar political conventions. At its heart must be an active programme to create good jobs and raise living standards. As leader she was initially hyper-cautious. 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. For a start, she had a superb memory for a brief, and she would have had no problem memorising quickly any number of lines. The cautious tactician was suppressed. In 1979 she inherited a nation that was the "sick man of Europe", an object of constant transatlantic ridicule. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. These talks, sometimes joined by the prime minister and run by his aide Rohan Silva, show the restless search for new ideas that still grips the right, one of the least recognised legacies of Margaret Thatcher. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. 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. On November 8th 1989, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave an inspiring speech to the UN General Assembly about the environment and climate change. Whathappened at the hands of this woman's indifference to sentiment andgood sense in the early 1980s brought unnecessary calamity to the lives of several million people who losttheir jobs. I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . The organised working class, almost alone, had put Britain on the skids. It still does. Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. to secure international action to repair the damaged ozone layer. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot, she The novel may thrive in adversity and it was a general sense of dismay at the new world she was showing us that lured many writers into opposition. In the north of Ireland she had the army and the Diplock courts which reached their peak in the mid 1980s. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she My dad, I suspect, did. Margaret Thatcher's speech writer will miss funeral but 'shed a tear' When the mourners gather for Baroness Thatcher's funeral tomorrow, one important figure from her political past will be . It knew what Thatcher wanted. And in 1983, for the first time, children born in Britain to non-British parents were denied automatic citizenship, fostering further racism and discrimination in immigration policy. She pointed out that she was only 10 years old when she ceased to be prime minister. During Margaret Thatcher's rise to the top, he was one of the backroom figures whose words helped create her reputation as the Iron Lady. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya, spoke Charles Powell was a senior foreign policy . Thatcher is often credited with showing that you could get to the top whatever your background. Original, independent voices such as BBC director general Alasdair Milne were brutally silenced. We were wary of this. It destroyed the public's power to determine via parliament the services and prices of gas, electricity, telephone. Though the Prime Minister was known to shed a tear or two during her 11 years leading the United Kingdom . Nelson travelled to South Africa where he helped negotiate a deal that saw the UDA, UVF and Ulster Resistance acquire AK-47 automatic rifles, pistols, grenades, and RPG rocket launchers in late 1987 or early 1988. 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. "Maggie! 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. Beleagured Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher makes pun during the 1981 Conservative Party conference speech: "the lady's not for turning" she says to her crit. Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. This unit recruited agents who were then used to kill citizens. April 8, 2013. Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? But the choice captures her perfectly. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. Tasteless." A Soviet . She wanted to win, but did not put much faith in the quick smile. of times. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for . This legacy remains intact with a party that places a premium on radical thinking and, for all its flaws, sets the political agenda. When I think of this memorial, I think of the words of Rupert Brooke, "that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.". Above all, they lack her competence at running the machinery of government. Underestimating Ronald Reagan was an error committed by many of his critics and opponents; Reagan never minded a bit, thinking that being underestimated yielded him a significant advantage. Being a woman is undoubtedly one of the features, possibly the most potent, that makes her ascent to power memorable, 25 years on, in a way that applied to no man. The place was her office at the Department of Education, then in Curzon Street. Margaret expresses that Reagan's leadership was the key to ending The Cold War and unifying a formerly divided nation. That did the trick.). In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. In short, miners believed in society. which revealed a good deal as to her political Yet the Daily Mail has morefemale bylines than any other UK paper and is not exactly a totem of gender equality andfemale-friendliness. Margaret Thatcher was Britain's most significant leader since Churchill. Margaret Thatcher Curriculum Vitae. There were big tax cuts for those on the highest incomes, driven by the belief that this would encourage entrepreneurship. 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." In the 2011 biographical drama film "The Iron Lady," Meryl Streep plays the role of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Many of today's more controversial benefits, such as disability, date back to the 80s. So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? Ingham's rough redraft of my speech with very little success. 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. Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". If it ended in disaster, the seeds were only partly hers. On taking office she showered money on public sector unions, and her "cuts" were only to planned increases, mild compared with today's. The passing of Chvez is mourned by the many millions who loved him in Latin America and everywhere. She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation. Whatever Tory historians like to claim, this was the critical turning point. Accounts vary. History, Sample Essay. they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the 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 . That chanted demand of the left has been fully and finally met. Margaret Thatcher formally tendered her resignation to the Queen early this morning after leaving Downing Street for the last time. The real comic nemeses of Thatcher were the puppets of Spitting Image. Several strong women on the continent have risen to the top, but thisBritish woman, in Britain of all places, became a phenomenon, first, throughher gender. She, for one, never underestimated her friend from California, then a state of some 24 million. A Labour veteran blamed another legacy of Thatcher: the need for iron discipline after the media onslaught that engulfed her opponents. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . It was seen for what it was, nothing to do with economics, but purely an attempt to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers by wiping out the entire industry. Published: Sunday 21st February 2021. 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. Making sure the verdict wasn't purloined by others. 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. The 70s was Britain's most equal decade. In the prime Thatcher years they required a severity of will to carry through that would now, if called on, bewrapped in so many cycles of deluding spin as to persuade us it hadn't really happened. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. 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.". Selling off the family silver Harold Macmillan and later Labour called it, as Margaret Thatcher set about reversing the 1945 nationalisations that had put oil, gas, coal, electricity and an airline as well as a house removal company in public hands. That was before Thatcher modishly renamed the service British Telecom and sold it off. A week later she spoke Sir Bernard died after a short illness, his family said. Everyone knows where they were when they heard. Witness the steady downgrading of local government or the persistent assumption that the private sector will always be better than the public. Thatcher's infamous failure to recognise the existence of society was a double failure. The jobs that went during the 80s tended to be good, skilled jobs, delivering decent incomes and some security. three press interviews (15-17 November) when Howe's resignation speech Thatcher is remembered for her achievements, but more for a presence, which was wrapped up with being a woman. in his defence during the IranContra affair later that year.. Elected for a third term in June 1987, she told Before the real Thatcher's election in 1979 she took lessons with a speech coach at the Royal National Theatre, hoping to make her voice more commanding and less "shrill" in broadcasts. She was lucky in surviving the IRA's bomb. "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.". steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), the United Kingdom's first female prime minister, served from 1979 until 1990. . What was it about Thatcher that inspired a generation of comics to rage at her? I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. One also can't forget what happened to the agency that made Thatcher worldfamous: the Conservative party, of which she seemed such an improbable leader. The core of this site is a massive database of MT's public statements of all kinds across the years (speeches, interviews, press conferences, etc), searchable by date, subject, importance, and keyword. In truth, Thatcher is one of the clearest examples of the fact that a successful woman doesn't always mean a step forward for women. The "crime" he was accused of was to reclaim the oil revenue from local and foreign thieves, and use it to tackle poverty. This, too, we still live with. 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. 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. Margaret Thatcher Essay: Health Category. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. The truth lies somewhere between these extremes. 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. When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! History will judge her, but not a country in Europe was untouched by Thatcher's example. There turned out to be no such thing as society, at least in the sense we used to understand it. I don't see that. I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country as we continue to evolve. As coal, steel and shipbuilding fell under her wrecking ball, whole communities were destroyed. morning, Available for everyone, funded by readers. She would, say some who knew her, have a found a way to finesse a change of direction by now. Mikhail Gorbachev, for one, learned the hard way. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to Her centralism, unequalled in Europe, descended under Blair into a morass of targetry, inefficiency and endless reorganisation. I was on my own. MT gave her first verbatim and in context. 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.". Now it was the turn of the words, and no one, of course, would, against all the odds, do them better than the lady who, 25 years before, once thought the sky was beyond her limit. The Crown Season 4 brings with it a whole lot of change for Queen Elizabeth II's family and, more importantly, the United Kingdom. She was able to reach Margaret Thatcher, Signed Speech on Hayek, 2003, Estimate 1,500-2,000 . Her onslaught on the trade unions left those movements pale imitations of their former selves, too weak to resist the drive to the "flexible labour market" which has seen Britain become the home of what one senior Labour figure calls "crappy jobs", with low pay and no protection. Scotland was her mission impossible. Flags were flying over Port Stanley on 14 June. This is not the Highland way. or copyright prevents reproduction on the site. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. She refused to reform social security, or even curb its abuse. Less noted . So the woman I met in Curzon Street, dimpling elegantly, can now be seen in history with an unexpected achievement to her credit. Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008. It is my view that Thatcher authorised the killings at Gibraltar. It got over a deep, instinctive hostility to women at the top of anything, and put her there. This was the feminine creature who, two years later, was leader of the Conservative party. Her vision for Britain made a lot of people feel like outsiders, which made them the ideal audience for comedy. Maggie! By John Cassidy. We watched as her high heels went click-click-click across the stones of the Acropolis and the cement floors of Tito's steel mills. MT won election as Conservative leader on 11 February 1975 and gave a euphoric If you want anything done, ask a woman.". Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per cent of cases. But keeping the show on the road is what all of them must first attend to, because there's nobody else to do it. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. Maggie was a fully formed comedy character before comedians had even gotten to her. Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power.
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