There was only one state-approved answering machine available. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . 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. The most important thing Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did for British politics was to understand the significance of Thatcherism and to decide not to reverse it, indeed to carry it forward. 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. So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? She was lucky in surviving the IRA's bomb. 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. While "one nation" Conservatives condone some forms of redistribution, their libertarian . No elderly person would be deprived of the dignity of spectacles, dentures or a hearing aid because they couldn't afford them. of times. 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. The evidence shows that greater equality provides the foundation on which higher standards of social wellbeing can be built. 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". The proportion of children living in relative poverty more than doubled during the 80s, and the damage has never been undone. 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. There were rumours of a different philosophy, at least in personal relationships. "Maggie Thatcher" two fierce trochees set against the gentler iambic pulse of Britain's postwar welfare state. Opponents and supporters of Margaret Thatcher will never agree about the value of her legacy, but as for her importance, her hypnotic hold on us, they are bound to find common ground. CD icon next to them in the second column of the results list. At her first conference speech, she chastised the Labour Party on economic . 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. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. The 1978 meeting was their last in person until Mrs Thatcher became Reagan's first state visitor, 26-28 February 1981. Steely, certainly. Hire writer now Order. But there were also cuts for basic-rate taxpayers: the 1988 budget, for example, cut the top rate of tax from 60% to 40% and the standard rate from 27% to 25%. 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. Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture . 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. But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. The seismic shift from industry to financial-based capitalism that Thatcherism ushered in rattled the establishment. 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 think on balance Thatcher did for Britain what was needed at the time. bowling at the Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November) and gave When President Reagan died in June 2004, she delivered a At its heart must be an active programme to create good jobs and raise living standards. Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" of British politics who died Monday at the age of 87, is being lionized as the woman who tilted British domestic and economic policy to the right. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. Reagan and Thatcher first met in 1975, as my friend and colleague Peter Hannaford reminded me just today. She all but erased his political legacy to stamp her own image on the nation, so Britain before and after Thatcher were two different countries. We have his example. Weakening the power of trade unions was not only essential to her project, but several studies suggest that their continued weakness may be an important part of the reason why inequality has not declined in the intervening decades. Viewed from today, that past Britain is indeed a foreign country. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won't repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here. She, and Blair after her, brought an unprecedented dirigisme to the NHS, education, police and local government. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is The credit boom both here and in the USA may have gone against her Grantham roots but was an equally inevitable result of deregulation and the temptation of easy loans for people hungry to improve living standards. What you see is a nation ruled for 11 turbulent years by a remarkable woman and which still lives in her image. Yet a leader that a wide cross-section of Scots had come to despise. An Inconvenient Truth About Margaret Thatcher: She Was a Climate Hawk. Watch a million words pour out today placing her anywhere from Boudicca to the wicked witch of the west. Perhaps this is unsurprising: four years ago Ed Miliband sneered at "nudge" economics as something "very fashionable in the Guardian for a few months before the financial crisis". she Thatcher refused to recognise the right of citizens to vote for representatives of their choice. Margaret Thatcher's most important long-term legacy is likely to be the huge rise in inequality that she caused. I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . 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 . I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. As far as her supporters are concerned, this radical transformation worked. We were not unique in such a response but she failed to appreciate that Scots are balanced, canny folk insofar as we have a well-developed chip on each shoulder. A big decline in traditional industries took place across Europe and the US in the 80s and 90s. Ingham's rough redraft of my speech with very little success. We have paid for that transformation with a world that is harder-edged, more competitive, and certainly more intently aware of the lure of cash. Many of the effects of inequality have long lag periods. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation. John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. In her thoughtful and prescient remarks, the Prime Minister reached back into history to recall how far the English-Speaking Peoples had come since victory in . She attacked the Treaty of Maastricht in a She was a prime minister who happened to be a woman. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship it's just not British. He'd been a bully, she said, whereas Mrs T was warm and understanding. But on the subject of Europe, Thatcher became a contradictory figure. But the choice captures her perfectly. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. Accounts vary. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. MT gave her first Not even the Falklands war would push it off the tracks or damage it in any way. She forced us to decide what was truly important. 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. Then they discovered that they could make money, so they dropped all that. Ed Miliband, a policy wonk himself, claims to be a conviction politician like Thatcher. Reagan was especially interested in Mrs Thatcher's domestic policy initiatives, and it was quickly established that the foreign policy views ran along parallel lines. The authors show just how much . Everything has its season. This does lead to divisions. To the extent that there was an industrial strategy, it was to sell Britain as a destination for Japanese car companies and to shift the focus of the economy away from manufacturing towards financial services. 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 failed to replace those jobs with well-paid equivalents. This site follow the same rules (and shares an editor). She made her remarks Mrs Thatcher was on the way up in British political life. declared that she wanted our money back. November). If you want anything done, ask a woman.". To have achieved all this alone would have made Margaret Thatcher a towering, transformational figure, one who altered the physical fabric of the nation. For some, the only consequence of that shift, still visible today, will be a changed brand name or higher bills. Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. 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. She was right, he was wrong. "No, no, no". Her vision for Britain made a lot of people feel like outsiders, which made them the ideal audience for comedy. For the most part, it has not been undone. It accounted for a large part of the mark Thatcher left on Britain. Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. If I become PM, I will deliver the radical set of reforms need to unleash growth. Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. Yet her long-term effect seems to have been to destroy it. Many whom Reagan encountered in public life thought of him in this way, but most politicians would love to reach even "Grade B" status. 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 core ideas that underpinned her government endured through 13 years of Labour and are being extended by the coalition. It was illegal to put an extension lead on your phone. It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. She defended Ronald We were wary of this. 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. She had just finished the first volume of her memoirs, which she insisted was all her own work. By the 1983 election she had sold off only Britoil and some council houses. She made one She was a gentle and peaceable woman my mother, that is and said few hard words about anyone, but in certain parts of the United Kingdom, and among certain social classes, Mrs T was detested, and not just for what people thought were her policies but for her persona for what she was. Two especially forceful and committed leaders on the world stage at the same time: this was critical and key to ending the cold war, permitting the reunification of Germany, the consolidation of the EU and drawing our two nations together in a historic cooperation. This is the area where we need to make progress not just in restoring strong local government, but in understanding that democracy means more than a Westminster vote. When she took over in 1979, the bottom of that device would have carried the legend, "Property of the GPO." can do business together". The last time I met her was after all this was over. However, for almost a decade Sinn Fin had been patently trying to build a peace process and unfolding events on the world stage including the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, and the release of Mandela were evidence that governments, and apparently intractable situations, could change. 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. A decade later they were wiped out in terms of Scotland-based Westminster constituency representation. 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. be a nation in retreat". In the early 1980s, the Republican party joined with other moderate and conservative parties in the world to form the International Democrat Union. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? "Fatcha" was an instant punchline back then: simply saying it was enough to get a laugh. a Capitalism flourishes on debt, but she insisted that economics were best understood as Mr Micawber's formula in which happiness and misery were separated by a shilling. Any attempts at revisionism do no favours to her, women or feminism. Yet by the autumn of 1981 they had made her so unpopular that bets were being taken at the October party conference that she would be "gone by Christmas". Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. for turning. But can he shake off the shackles of the past and prove there is an alternative? It was a visit warmly welcomed by President Reagan, with a resplendent state nner on the first evening. 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. The Thatcher government was across all the details of this shipment. No one noticed, but she was Blair's first guest at Downing Street in 1997. speech in the House of Commons on 5 February 1960 and gave her Thatcher has said that negotiation, and not strong economic sanctions, is the way to persuade South Africa's white-minority government to dismantle apartheid. But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. Seeing as women aren't a minor Brit-flick grateful for even a bad review, that truism doesn't quite hold true here. Out! Mobilising society, by rule of law, against the trade union bosses was undoubtedly an achievement. Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Heath: they seem, by comparison, evanescent figures. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot, she The events of that awful summer of '81 polarised Irish society, north and south. But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. They married the personality and belief to action. It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. When I started knocking on Highland doors in May 1983, two things struck me more than any other. 100% Success rate. 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. 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. Meeting Gorbachev for the first time in December 1984 she declared: "We Margaret expresses that Reagan's leadership was the key to ending The Cold War and unifying a formerly divided nation. There's still the rage, still the unfairness, so where is the comedy? Reagan was a highly influential president during his time in office, and had a lot of responsibility concerning the Cold War. Second, it's now easier to see the scale of the setback she inflicted on Britain's idea of its own future. 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. April 17, 2013, 6:40 PM. That did the trick.). a new dominance from Brussels". She was not a writer. After being asked to deliver a eulogy for the late Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech about her dear friend, and highlighted his best qualities through her writing. It is not true that Thatcher didn't care about the media. The Crown's Version of Margaret Thatcher's 1990 Downfall Takes a Lot of Liberties with . performance at a Press Conference afterwards. Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. 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. 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 widening of income differences between rich and poor that took place during the 80s (particularly from 1985) is the most rapid ever recorded. Hire a Writer. You would need to wait six weeks for an engineer. Feminists disowned her by insisting that though she was a woman, she was not a sister. Margaret Thatcher was Britain's most significant leader since Churchill. Though she recognised the dangers of global warming, Thatcher's industrial and economic policies prioritised economic growth. She hurled herself into NHS reform, changes to schools and universities, utilities privatisation and, eventually, local government reform. 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. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), the United Kingdom's first female prime minister, served from 1979 until 1990. . Or maybe audiences just really, really hated her and wanted to blow off some steam. performance at a Press Conference afterwards, the 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. The spell of community. She showed that modern prime ministers can still mark out room for individual manoeuvre. But she became a very effective one. Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? After being carried through the streets of London in a flag-draped coffin aboard a gun carriage, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was laid to rest this . On the same edition of Channel 4 News, Louise Mensch named only three successful female politicians as part of her defence ofThatcher and only one of those was a Conservative. An author and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan staked her claim to speechwriting fame as a primary writer for former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.Her notable speeches include Reagan's "Boys of Pointe du Hoc" address, given on the 40 th anniversary of D-Daythe day Allied troops invaded Normandy in World War IIas well as the former president's . On November 8th 1989, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave an inspiring speech to the UN General Assembly about the environment and climate change. But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. Charles Powell was a senior foreign policy . But awoman who, at the time, thought that chancellor was the top mark at which she might aim. It is odd to reflect that in Thatcher's time, the British novel enjoyed a comparatively lively resurgence. In this eulogy, Thatcher uses rhetorical strategies to convince her readers into believing what she states. "They did their thing with no chance of making any money, so they stood up in crappy pubs and said, 'I hate Maggie'. departing Downing Street on 28 November. led Michael Heseltine to run against her for the party leadership. 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. During the speech, . Her centralism, unequalled in Europe, descended under Blair into a morass of targetry, inefficiency and endless reorganisation. Her bouffant and handbag and nasal voice were comedy gold, but she was also earnest, principled and said exactly what she meant. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children.". The machinery of modern political management polls, consulting, focus groups is deployed mainly to discover what will make aparty and politician better liked, or worse, disliked. Prime Minister Thatcher delivered the fourth speech to Congress by a British prime minister. If you have a . In a break with tradition and protocol, Reagan decided he'd also attend the "return dinner" at the British Embassy the next evening. The Yale Book of Quotations also states, "Thatcher is said to have used this in a 1965 speech.". To Britons of my generation, she . Only today are we facing the cost. Of course, it's in politics that the shadow looms most clearly. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. Not until well out of office, angry and lacking her old judgment, did she lead the rabidly Eurosceptic renegades. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. Keith Joseph was her guru. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history. camps were revealed in August 1992. 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. But perhaps her greatest legacy was New Labour. Original, independent voices such as BBC director general Alasdair Milne were brutally silenced. 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. Had Jim Callaghan won the 1979 election, he too would have faced the challenge of how to modernise an economy beset by high inflation, weak management and poor industrial relations. Thatcher's most baleful influence on government was not on industries and services she privatised but those she did not. morning, Available for everyone, funded by readers. Reagan, who had recently left office as governor of California, was in London to deliver a speech to the Pilgrim Society. Thatcher's opposition to a positive role for the state in industrial policy caused her grief even during her time in office, but a cross-party consensus newly shaped by Michael Heseltine's report has given him the last word. We might speculate that an adviser had offered Thatcher a selection of good lines, or that she had asked to see some. Among them was loyalist Brian Nelson, a former British soldier and member of the Ulster Defence Association. She was, of course, the first and so far only female British prime minister, Jon Snow reiterated on Monday night, insinuating that this achievement should in general be celebrated, never mind the specifics of her leadership. Reagan would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president, the next year. None present eyed her meanly or spoke with vitriol and it wasn't until an hour later that I dreamt up an Ealing comedy-style caper in which two inept crooks kidnap Thatcher from the garden but are unable to cope with the demands of dealing with her, and finally give her back. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, 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 never was. The poll-tax rioters. All Rights Reserved. As a child she unnerved me but we are not children now and we are free to choose our own ethical codes and leaders that reflect them. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." They lived in close-knit communities built around and based on employment at the local colliery. recommended by Simon Heffer. 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. wrong with politics? Thatcher is gone, but Thatcherism has infected and discredited all mainstream parties, depriving us of a chance to turn it down. Sue Gray used to be my boss. 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). But Thatcher was still cautious. Edited text: This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980. Her effect was to force a deeper consideration of priorities, sometimes expressed in a variety of dystopias. A massive programme of social housing would be a good place to start, stimulating the economy. Less noted . 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 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 .