What, in retrospect, seems creative and what destructive? Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. still being scolded for the remark.You can read here exactly what she said, Strident, divisive, and in her own view infallible, and for these reasons hard to mourn. The spell of community. She preferred markets, and a strong but minimal central state that backed their rule. 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. Talk to a Labour MP and you end up discussing politics and positioning; talk to a Tory, and it tends to be about policy. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . On the other hand, growth has been depressed because weak trade unions can no longer ensure wage increases keep pace with inflation. No children excluded from school activities because mothers couldn't pay. But awoman who, at the time, thought that chancellor was the top mark at which she might aim. 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. 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. No such alarms ring in Cameron's ears. So instead: "I put it to her that we would be saving money." of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. The Crown's Version of Margaret Thatcher's 1990 Downfall Takes a Lot of Liberties with . Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. In October 1984 she survived an IRA bomb during the Conservative Conference It was a Charles I moment in British history. In 1979 it had a mile or so of shipyards, a sugar works and factories that still made rope and ship's fittings. 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. It's kind of a luxury rent-controlled ghetto for lawyers and barristers, and there is a beautiful tailors, a fine chapel, established by the Knights Templar (from which the compound takes its name), a twee cottage designed by Sir Christopher Wren and a rose garden; which I never promised you. bowling at the Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November) and gave By delivering a crisp, emphatic victory Thatcher showed the world, and more important herself, what a talent for solitary command could achieve. Born: 21 June 1932 in Halifax. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? Well, everything really, even her name. The state retained control of some nationalised industries the railways, for example but BT, British Airways, British Steel, British Gas and the British Airports Authority were among the big companies sold off. Margaret Thatcher might seem to some like an unlikely pioneer of the need for climate action but, in the late 1980s, she made a series of remarkable speeches and interventions on the subject and . "Labour is stuck because they do not want to carry on the slimming down of the state and devolution of power but nor do they really want to reverse it," said one central Tory figure. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. Materialistic individualism was blessed as a virtue, the driver of national success. Far from "smashing the glass ceiling", she was the aberration, the one who got through and then pulled the ladder up right after her. In the three years prior to receiving these weapons the loyalist death squads killed 34 people. 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. 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. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. 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. Gillian Anderson's portrayal of the Iron Lady in "The Crown" is pretty spot-on. 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. in his defence during the IranContra affair later that year.. Elected for a third term in June 1987, she told One thinks now of the closing words of her splendid 2004 eulogy of Ronald Reagan, and how those words so perfectly speak a tribute to her life and works: "We here still move in twilight. 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. More subtly, Thatcher bequeathed a kind of instinctive rejection of once-valued forms of collective activity. Many whom Reagan encountered in public life thought of him in this way, but most politicians would love to reach even "Grade B" status. Absurd or not, it does indeed seem alien not least to those born in the 1980s, the generation we shall always call Thatcher's children. The late Benazir Bhutto later gave me much the same account. Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". She was an ardent pro-European, and her 1979 manifesto made no mention of radical union reform or privatisation. Asked to report on the "state of things" in our country, we could barely see past her. In 2009, Boris Johnson lamented that Thatcher had become "a boo-word in British politics, a shorthand for selfishness and me-first-ism, and devil-take-the-hindmost and grinding the faces of the poor.". Governments can rarely claim to have stimulated the arts but Thatcher, always rather impatient with the examined life, drew writers on to new ground. This is what we mean by the Thatcher revolution, imposing on Britain, for better or for worse, some of the liberalisation that the major continental economies know,20 years later, they still need. In my view, nothing said prior to her passing or since has been inaccurate in the description of this very special, warm relationship, the likes of which we may never see again. The organised working class, almost alone, had put Britain on the skids. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. Endeavouring to persuade the British into an attitude of hostility to the group with which she spent 11 years deepening their connection must take a high place in any catalogue of anti-statesmanship. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, In her speech, Thatcher used rhetorical techniques to show the strength and principles of Reagan and project those values onto the American people. In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism. 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. for the disk. 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. A splendid synergy was created, deliberately and with just that in mind on both sides of the Atlantic. When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied Later, when the BBC and ITV scheduled two programmes about Gibraltar, Thatcher tried to stop them. Sunstein worked for a Democratic president, but did not meet the Labour leader or key advisers. In her eulogy for the former president, Thatcher uses specific structure, tone and diction, and word choices throughout her writing to . 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. In January 1983 she Her gender led her into government and the shadow cabinet, despite Edward Heath's aversion to her. 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. It made minor savings at best and was, as the . This book shows how. TRIBUTES were paid last night to Sir Bernard Ingham, the longstanding press secretary to Margaret Thatcher and a columnist in The Yorkshire Post until just a few weeks ago. 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. Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. Thank you, too, Margaret. At a banquet in Belgrade the press sat next to the so-called "Garden Girls", who were the secretaries at No 10. The set text is still Thatcher's declaration quoted in The Audience that "There is no such thing as society". She continued for some reason to consider me worth talking to. Hugo Young was a political columnist forthe Guardian from 1984 until 2003 and biographer of Margaret Thatcher. A senior civil servant said, "It worked because we all knew exactly what she wanted.". It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. First was the sheer depth of hostility towards the Tories in general. As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. Interview by Benedict King. Published: Sunday 21st February 2021. "You see," she announced in her self-satisfied way, "it just goes to show what people can do when they have to. And then, perversely, would come the throwaway, sign-off remark to the effect of: "At least you know where you stand with Maggie she hates us and we hate her.". can do business together". The 70s was Britain's most equal decade. I think on balance Thatcher did for Britain what was needed at the time. In a way, they are all Thatcher's children.". The Thatcher government believed that the criminalisation of the republican prisoners would break the republican struggle. studying Thatcher's speeches . defended Ronald Reagan and Thatcher first met in 1975, as my friend and colleague Peter Hannaford reminded me just today. She adopts an endearing and sentimental tone using ethos, repetition, and . It's telling that Tony Blair's domestic legacy amounts to two responses to Thatcherism: forcing Labour to accept it and then compensating for the damage the Tories had wreaked through sustained underinvestment in the public realm. For some, the only consequence of that shift, still visible today, will be a changed brand name or higher bills. "She's jolly nice," one of them said, "much better to work for than [James] Callaghan." Viewed from today, that past Britain is indeed a foreign country. If you have a . 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. It fell to Blair to do something about the latter, while giving free rein to the former. 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. Which raises the question: why isn't this happening now? they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per cent of cases. These developments set a benchmark. Action. By the 1983 election she had sold off only Britoil and some council houses. For miners, greed was a destructive force, not a force for good. He had enough Del Boy about him to admire her coiffured virility but in a way Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant. She added layers of her own to this intimacy, directing the creation of a single European market that surrendered important national powers to the collective. In the Meryl Streep film, The Iron Lady, it's the scenes of domesticity that appear most absurd. Prime Minister Thatcher delivered the fourth speech to Congress by a British prime minister. They married the personality and belief to action. She wasn't a feminist icon and she wasn't an icon for women. Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. I don't see that. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told Yet her long-term effect seems to have been to destroy it. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. press to rejoice at the capture of South Georgia on 25 April 1982, announced that White steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Congress. The Thatcher government was across all the details of this shipment. For the most part, it has not been undone. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. In January 1976 she gave the That said, by the mid-1980s it was clear that the Conservative government's economic policy was based on a handful of core principles. 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! The time was 1973. 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. Rather, she was a classic example of a certain kind of conservative woman who believed that all women should pull themselves up just as she had done, conveniently overlooking that not all women are blessed with the privileges that had been available to her, such as a wealthy and supportive husband and domestic help. or copyright prevents reproduction on the site. 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.". 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.". In short, miners believed in society. For a national matriarch she is oddly unmaternal. Every quality had its obverse, but she had a myth-making charisma to capture the world's imagination. Yet her understanding of Britain was alarmingly crude. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. 'It's a wonder nobody has taken a gun to that woman.' The drastic results of these policies were intentional. She made her maiden Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. The leading feminist Natasha Walter called Thatcher "the great unsung heroine of British feminism". 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. June 30, 1992 - Swearing . Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. Watch a million words pour out today placing her anywhere from Boudicca to the wicked witch of the west. Much of any leader's record is unremarkable dross, and Thatcher was no exception. Today's Tories walk in Thatcher's footsteps, battling with their estranged cousins in Ukip over who is the rightful heir to her Eurosceptic legacy. Maggie! one Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. A Tory party desperate for women helped Thatcher through the political foothills to early success as an MP. She refused to reform social security, or even curb its abuse. On 30 October 1990 she made the first of the It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. It isn't sad for anyone else. "They did their thing with no chance of making any money, so they stood up in crappy pubs and said, 'I hate Maggie'. But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. As far as her supporters are concerned, this radical transformation worked. Sue Gray used to be my boss. Mrs Thatcher was on the way up in British political life. I can't articulate with the skill of either of "the Marks" Steel or Thomas why Thatcher and Thatcherism were so bad for Britain but I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity. Speaking personally, it was a personal privilege beyond measure to have witnessed and participate in the blossoming of the special ties that continued throughout her entire time in office. I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. When Heath fell, her promoters ran her as a stalking horse because, as a woman, they thought she could not win. Critical Commentary: Margaret Thatcher outlined the British policy in relation to various world issues. We can't blame (or credit) her for all of this, of course. He was listened to with rapt attention, unsurprisingly, since in both Washington and Westminster his "nudge" theories are saving significant sums of taxpayers' money. Promises. She would not have been half the . 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." 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. Everything was justified as long as it made money andthis, too, isstill with us. see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. It got over a deep, instinctive hostility to women at the top of anything, and put her there. 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. Curiously, the phrase does not sound as dated as it should. departing Downing Street on 28 November. "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. The last time the UK ran a trade surplus was the year of the Falklands war. In this moment she inspired only curiosity, a pale phantom, dumbly filling her day. to his resignation letter on 1 November, stated Margaret Thatcher was a hugely divisive figure in British politics. Yet I wrote columns of pretty unremitting hostility to most of what she did. She lavished praise on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, then in its infancy, and laid out the . This was a historic step, and resulted in further reinforcing the US-UK alliance.
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