Visit a station and notice the plethora of competing train companies, replacing the single British Rail that operated in the pre-Thatcher days the fruit of a rail privatisation that was not hers, but was made possible only by the serial privatisations she had pioneered and made normal. The economic crisis that Britain faced had been created not by the working class itself, these wholesome people that Sir Keith remembered from his vac weeks in Barnsley, but by a working-class leadership that was determined to bring the whole system crashing down. The dockers. No children excluded from school activities because mothers couldn't pay. MT gave her first John asked a nearby chippy loading his white van. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is Then they discovered that they could make money, so they dropped all that. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady". Copyright Margaret Thatcher Foundation 2023. The Thatcher Papers - Churchill Archives Centre Both were successful women who could play the flirt card when it suited them, but ultimately had little interest in being kind to their own sex; Thatcher especially resented being defined by her gender. be a nation in retreat". Superlatives can be agreed: a remarkable first woman PM; the first winner of three elections in a row; brave; tough; relentless; clever; sleeplessly driven by a self-confident conviction that overawed her enemies. "They did their thing with no chance of making any money, so they stood up in crappy pubs and said, 'I hate Maggie'. She was right, he was wrong. Any such objections would have been invalid. Perhaps we suspected that reality had created a character beyond our creative reach. Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . 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. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. She continued for some reason to consider me worth talking to. Still plumbing for the essence, we have to examine other bits of residue. The problem for Labour is that this issue so fundamental, since it underscores so much policy is unresolved in their ranks. This was the feminine creature who, two years later, was leader of the Conservative party. 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 Flowers is a leading activist, doctor, teacher, and co-founder of PopularResistance.org, a website that aims to inform and inspire grassroots movements around the world. Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off. She may have got it slightly wrong. Governments can rarely claim to have stimulated the arts but Thatcher, always rather impatient with the examined life, drew writers on to new ground. She was 87. The Thatcher government believed that the criminalisation of the republican prisoners would break the republican struggle. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. 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. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. Many of the effects of inequality have long lag periods. As she cut local housing budgets, she sent housing benefit soaring in compensation. Back when we called her Maggie, when it seemed she would have her wish and "go on and on" in ruling the country, her opponents would lament some new step towards social ruin with the withering, two-word verdict: "Thatcher's Britain.". Firstly, control of inflation rather than the pursuit of full employment was the centrepiece of macro economic strategy. We were wary of this. 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". But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. Which raises the question: why isn't this happening now? 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 . The economy had become more productive, more competitive and more profitable. This is a style whose absence is much missed. "You see," she announced in her self-satisfied way, "it just goes to show what people can do when they have to. She made one Margaret Thatcher's Eulogy for Ronald Reagan: Essay But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. Almost everything said of Thatcher's early years was untrue, partly through her own invention. She would, say some who knew her, have a found a way to finesse a change of direction by now. 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. 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. Unquestionably, a major component of what Reagan achieved was mirrored in what Baroness Thatcher herself achieved. It was all very well for me to write books. That gives them the nerve to set about cutting benefits and the public realm with a glee they don't bother to hide. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to Author: Margaret Thatcher Year: 1979 Location: London, the UK Occasion: Address to the Parliament. After the Dublin European Council in November 1979 she began a long battle There was only one state-approved answering machine available. It may be wrong to imagine that she intended to de-industrialise Britain, but the policies followed by her government had that effect. Simon Heffer, journalist, historian and friend of Margaret Thatcher, recommends the best books to read to gain an understanding of the United Kingdom's first female prime ministerand explains why she was the most influential British leader of the modern era. She defended Ronald Margaret Thatcher (October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013) was the first woman prime minister of the United Kingdom and the first European woman to serve as a prime minister. Throw the Lib Dems into the mix and it becomes highly combustible. Union in a speech 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. The poll-tax rioters. He was listened to with rapt attention, unsurprisingly, since in both Washington and Westminster his "nudge" theories are saving significant sums of taxpayers' money. Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. It is odd to reflect that in Thatcher's time, the British novel enjoyed a comparatively lively resurgence. announced that White A great windfall in the short-term for asset-owners one form of inflation she encouraged but disastrous for future generations. series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, replied So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? Reversing Britain's long-term economic decline. They rallied around each other when times were hard. At Bruges in September 1988 she outraged European orthodoxy by declaring: Typically, this distinction is mapped onto the ideas that Conservatives hold about equality. The authors show just how much . I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . Margaret Thatcher climbs over a house : r/funny speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. June 30, 1992 - Swearing . Whatever Tory historians like to claim, this was the critical turning point. speaking in March 2002.). 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. in a statement the following morning (22 November), hours before she Take the larger view. Margaret Thatcher had planned to attack Labour's unwillingness to condemn picket-line violence in her 1984 conference speech but changed her mind when an IRA bomb hit The Grand Hotel in Brighton. They're not Thatcher. He was a political and historical figure and the need to accurately portray his legacy and prevent misleading hagiography easily outweighed precepts of death etiquette that prevail when a private person dies. camps were revealed in August 1992. On Sunday, looking down at the waterfront, I could see how these had been replaced by a housing estate, a supermarket, and sometimes by nothing at all. Thatcher was born as Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, England. Thatcher was a divisive woman who created discord, not harmony. This speech was delivered soon after her taking office in 1979. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, So we agreed to reactivate the back channel. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. Debate continues on whether Margaret Thatcher saved or destroyed British industry, but there is one industry that she practically created. 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. To have achieved all this alone would have made Margaret Thatcher a towering, transformational figure, one who altered the physical fabric of the nation. "You would see MPs who came into any politics after Ihad and who were no better than me being promoted over my head," said Currie this week. Rhetorical Analysis Of Margaret Thatcher's Speech 722 Words | 3 Pages . 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. 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. When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied For miners, greed was a destructive force, not a force for good. I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher - The Telegraph What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. I don't see that. June 5, 1992 - Is named a life peer on the Queen's honor list. Following several small strokes she announced, in March 2002, that her career as a speechmaker had ended. Margaret Thatcher's government defended structured political and religious discrimination and political vetting in the north, legislated for political censorship and institutionalised, to a greater extent than ever before, collusion between British state forces and unionist death squads. Statistics now confirm what many people have always recognised: that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. She was able to reach Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! This was her last important public statement. Maybe my memory is fanciful. Mobilising society, by rule of law, against the trade union bosses was undoubtedly an achievement. 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. On the contrary, consumerism and materialism have been the norm ever since, rising inequality the consistent trend as the rich soar ever further away from the rest. Moreover, it's hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier. But these concrete achievements do not wholly explain why she still looms so large, large enough that not one but two current West End plays The Audience and Billy Elliot grant Thatcher a pivotal, if largely unsympathetic, role, whether seen or unseen. cent of cases. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was known for her lack of a sense of humour. declared that she wanted our money back, invited the I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. Climate, freedom and denial: What "Green Thatcherism" teaches us today The result . The Cameron and Osborne circle are crude copies carried away with the dangerous idea that conviction is all it takes to run a country. Out! speech in the House of Commons, her Under this heading, Thatcher left a dark legacy that, like her successes, has still not disappeared behind the historical horizon. There was, for example, the time in the late 1970s when, as Opposition Leader, she almost succeeded in censoring the one half-decent joke in a key campaign speech. International studies of OECD countries suggest a close relationship between the decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality. In January 1976 she gave the I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. 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. We still live in the land Margaret built. If you want anything done, ask a woman.". But unlike Thatcher, president Hugo Chvez of Venezuela, the "president of the poor", fought for a caring economy and against the rule of the market. 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. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. Plus there's the fact that comedy is now a big business, and there's less money in sharp satire than gentle observation. It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. Scotsman Obituaries: Bernard Ingham, press secretary who ensured 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. The Yale Book of Quotations also states, "Thatcher is said to have used this in a 1965 speech.". Given the global economic crisis, rampant corporate greed and growing inequality, this should be a time of great ferment, with endless policy proposals bubbling up to challenge the post-Thatcher consensus at a time of immense and unsettling change. The dominance of finance in the economy and the failure of bank regulation flowed from her belief that markets should always be left to themselves. The Big Bang of City deregulation, the Tell Sid scramble for buying and selling shares, the sense that money is the highest value, wealth the greatest sign of worth all these were hallmarks of the Thatcher era in its mid-80s pomp. 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! 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. On June 11th, 2004 Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the American people at Ronald Reagan's funeral. No homeless or disabled people need beg on the streets. 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. She certainly was divisive, bisecting the country politically and geographically: hard-hit regions in the north of England, Wales and Scotland may be notably less civil in their farewells. Sharp definition, hard edges, no effort at fuzzy contours (David Cameron, take note). Margaret Thatcher - HISTORY On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. She lavished praise on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, then in its infancy, and laid out the . Curiously, the phrase does not sound as dated as it should. At its heart must be an active programme to create good jobs and raise living standards. 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. Meanwhile, you struggle to identify deep thinkers in party ranks beyond a couple of veteran stalwarts; even the left's thinktanks appear moribund or merely harking back to an idealised past. The latest pit to close, Maltby in Yorkshire, still has a death and general purpose fund to help fellow miners and their families in times of hardship. In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. Great speeches: 'Orwellian nightmare' if Tories fail, claims Margaret Thatcher. The leading feminist Natasha Walter called Thatcher "the great unsung heroine of British feminism". steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she led Michael Heseltine to run against her for the party leadership. 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. 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. She gave Nigel Lawson at the Treasury his head and was genuinely alarmed when he cut income tax to 40%. 1971 was the year of Ted Heath's Conservative government, which was trying to make huge savings to the budget. The eulogy is a good illustration of Thatcher's feelings for . You knew exactly what Maggie stood for. It never was. Action. By the 1983 election she had sold off only Britoil and some council houses. 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. Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. Born: 21 June 1932 in Halifax. 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. Yet for all these fissures, even Maoist modernisers and the most reactionary social conservatives share a similar stance over the role of the state. Interviewing him, I was struck by a Victorian sort of kindness; as an Oxford student in the 1930s he'd worked in his vacation helping families of the unemployed in the Yorkshire coalfield one of them had even named their baby Keith in his honour. 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. they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the Chavez was indeed a divisive and controversial figure, and it would have been reckless to conceal that fact out of some misplaced deference to the grief of his family and supporters. recommended by Simon Heffer. 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. Not until well out of office, angry and lacking her old judgment, did she lead the rabidly Eurosceptic renegades. Thatcher's social instincts were always nostalgic conservative. By delivering a crisp, emphatic victory Thatcher showed the world, and more important herself, what a talent for solitary command could achieve. CD icon next to them in the second column of the results list. 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 . 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. she So it suggests the anachronistic and unaffordable return to a contributory welfare system, while opposing the further opening up of education and health provision; some even float the renationalisation of railways. Faced down trade union leaders after her early years apprentice years, when Jim Callaghan's Britain was falling apart in which the commonest fear was that the little lady would not be able to deal with them across the table. Each now seems banal. 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. She mesmerised us. This was heightened by the suspicion that this power was not consciously deployed. 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. The woman, however, changed. But she also provided great material. Maggie! ", 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. Thatcher is often credited with showing that you could get to the top whatever your background. But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. 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 among the first Western leaders to This is an especially pertinent problem given its heartfelt desire for redistribution of wealth. "Fatcha" was an instant punchline back then: simply saying it was enough to get a laugh. Sue Gray has shown the dangers of thinking officials are more ethical Margaret Thatcher: Foreign Policy of Great Britain | Speech-Guru She also put forward the idea of "a vast . In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. Look at the trains on the track, the phone in your house, the trio of 1980s teenagers who lead the three main parties. Her unforgettable presence, but also her policy achievements. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. She, and Blair after her, brought an unprecedented dirigisme to the NHS, education, police and local government. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought toannihilate. Yet a leader that a wide cross-section of Scots had come to despise. 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. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. Margaret Thatcher - UN General Assembly Climate Change Speech (1989) Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. Police charges against picketing union printers in Wapping enabled the Murdoch empire to flourish, ensuring their power and hers. This book shows how. 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. To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. The government's welfare bill has been swollen by tax credits and housing benefit caused by the labour market reforms and council house sales of the 1980s. "Thatcher as mother" seemed, to my tiddly mind, anathema. The resignation was announced She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. They were puzzled by the Scots' antipathy, given the Falklands war and the strong militaristic history of the Highlands and elsewhere. Literature had nothing to do with politics, the Italian writers said. A longer version of this article appears on Gerry Adams' blog, Margaret Thatcher was good at destruction. The Margaret Thatcher speech that was buried by the Brighton bomb 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. Chvez is gone, but the voters are likely to re-elect Chavismo on 14 April. 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. Margaret Thatcher, 'Iron Lady' of British politics, is dead - USA TODAY John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. Gaze at the telephone. press to rejoice at the capture of South Georgia on 25 April 1982, announced that White Its impact on the streets of the north is evident in the statistics of death. The left misleads us and maybe itself when it says that Thatcher's policies, extended by New Labour and then by the coalition, have failed. After leaving office, MT widened and deepened her criticism of the European Adam Smith's invisible hand ended up raising two fingers to her moral project. History, Sample Essay. 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. She remained in power till I was 15. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. She went to a fee-paying school and to Oxford at her father's expense, gliding easily into the upper echelons of student politics.
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