Privatisation was the single most massive attack on democracy we have seen. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. Great speeches: 'Orwellian nightmare' if Tories fail, claims Margaret Thatcher. What is really left by Thatcher to history? Much of any leader's record is unremarkable dross, and Thatcher was no exception. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. She made one This is a political style, an aesthetic even, that has disappeared from view. which revealed a good deal as to her political When Margaret Hilda Thatcher took over as Prime Minister, in May, 1979, I was sixteen. Whether pushing each other off the road, barging past social rivals, beating up rival soccer fans, or idolising wealth as the only measure of virtue, Brits became more unpleasant to be with. In a twitter of panic, Labour shadow ministers sent out pleas yesterday: "Hoping all Labour supporters will respond with dignity and respect to news of Baroness Thatcher's death." Too timid, too in thrall, the 13-year Labour government rarely dared challenge the attitudes she planted in the national psyche. This was heightened by the suspicion that this power was not consciously deployed. Was it cruelty? 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. Margaret Thatcher's landmark Bruges speech about the future of Europe was never intended to push the UK towards the exit, the man who wrote it says. Thatcher's threat to butcher the mining industry, destroy the fabric of mining communities and in particular the trade union to which miners had a bond of loyalty, was met with the fiercest resistance any government has met in peacetime. 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. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot, she At an international conference in Lisbon in the late 80s, the British faction, among whom were Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Malcolm Bradbury and myself, referred back to Thatcher constantly in our presentations. Thatcher's reputation never recovered from the ruthless budgets of 1980 and 1981, or her insensitivity to colleagues. The Bruges speech was given by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the College of Europe at the Belfry of Bruges, Belgium, on 20 September 1988.Thatcher was opposed to any moves to transition the European Economic Community (EEC) into a federal Europe that would take powers away from its members. Quotation being the warmest form of praise, Larkin was naturally touched. The London mayor regretted that usage, but he surely understood its origins. She and her successors John Major and Tony Blair presided over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity. Just look around. On one visit, our campaign chairman, William J Casey, later director of the CIA, came along, and we had a fruitful meeting at 10 Downing Street. Thatcher understood the connection between the social wage and workers' wages better than most unions. MT won election as Conservative leader on 11 February 1975 and gave a euphoric studying Thatcher's speeches . Margaret Thatcher. For Thatcher it all ended months later in November 1990 when she was forced to resign. was an Oxford student home for the university holidays. MT prayed on the successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to Get over her! Its strategies included the shallow and ineffectual 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement which was about creating a political alliance involving the Dublin establishment, the SDLP and the British to defeat Irish republicanism. From then on she disregarded her critics and became intolerant of any who were "not one of us". A great windfall in the short-term for asset-owners one form of inflation she encouraged but disastrous for future generations. As a physician, she has been a vocal advocate for a single-payer healthcare system that would . I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. The papers date from Margaret Thatcher's childhood to the end of her life, and include tens of thousands of photographs, as well as a vast collection of press cuttings, and many audio and video tapes of public and private events. 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 US academic Cass Sunstein was in Britain at the end of last month. . In her diminished presence I stared like an amateur astronomer unable to describe my awe at this distant phenomenon. The Crown Season 4 brings with it a whole lot of change for Queen Elizabeth II's family and, more importantly, the United Kingdom. Many hated her. I think on balance Thatcher did for Britain what was needed at the time. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. On her return to London, she sent me a warm and complimentary letter, a prize in my personal archives. 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. The first three speeches were by Winston Churchill. November 15, 2020 9:00 AM EST. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. She led Britain further into Europe, while talking us further out. 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. Certainly, in 1983, it did not occur to me to criticise Harold Macmillan or Alec Douglas-Home on the doorstep as a sure-fire vote turner. The 1978 meeting was their last in person until Mrs Thatcher became Reagan's first state visitor, 26-28 February 1981. What you see is a nation ruled for 11 turbulent years by a remarkable woman and which still lives in her image. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. At times the Conservative party is so anarchic as to appear almost ungovernable, like a plethora of pressure groups pushing pet causes rather than a united group ruthlessly focusing on political success. Collins (Oxford University Press, 1998-2000). For some, the only consequence of that shift, still visible today, will be a changed brand name or higher bills. Keith Joseph was her guru. This is an especially pertinent problem given its heartfelt desire for redistribution of wealth. . No one noticed, but she was Blair's first guest at Downing Street in 1997. The real comic nemeses of Thatcher were the puppets of Spitting Image. 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. 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. And by my own firsthand experience, it was genuine to the core. declared that she wanted our money back, invited the Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, Published: Sunday 21st February 2021. That was the daunting task Margaret Thatcher set herself when she arrived in Downing Street in May 1979 at the end of a traumatic decade that had seen a three-day week, inflation topping 25%, a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the winter of discontent. 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.". Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. On taking office she showered money on public sector unions, and her "cuts" were only to planned increases, mild compared with today's. She abolished city-wide local government, capped spending and expected the poll tax to further undermine alternative voices. Thatcher swept away those state monopolies in the new coinage of "privatisation" and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted. Eventually, the Italian contingent, largely existential or postmodern, rose up against us. 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". They married the personality and belief to action. Scotland was her mission impossible. It still does. Curiously, the phrase does not sound as dated as it should. In 1990 Thatcher authorised the then British secretary of state Peter Brooke to reopen back-channel negotiations with republicans. Their target was "the enemy within" working-class power and the so-called culture of entitlement. Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games . When she returned from Paris many cabinet colleagues showed that I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud. 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. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. That's history, but what matters to us is her legacy now that her heirs and imitators rule in her wake. She may have got it slightly wrong. Indeed a person with achemistry that repelled almost all thesignificant males in Edward Heath's cabinet who could never become theparty leader. 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. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. Sunstein worked for a Democratic president, but did not meet the Labour leader or key advisers. Until then Thatcher had shown the strength of her weakness: a dislike of consensus and aversion to debate, leading to decisive action. March 7, 1991 - Receives the US Medal of Freedom from President George Bush. Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. But if today's Guardian readers time-travelled to the late 70s they might be irritated to discover that tomorrow's TV listings were a state secret not shared with daily newspapers. 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. Miners were a hardy race of people who faced constant danger in the cause of mining coal but underneath that they were caring, sensitive individuals with a commitment to the communities in which they lived. From a peak of 13 million in 1979, trade union membership had declined by 30% by 1990, and is now not much more than half what it was. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya in April 1986 and spoke 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. 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. She said "there is no such thing as society", and set out to prove it by promoting individual greed and competition for everything. Edited text: This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980. "Maggie Thatcher" two fierce trochees set against the gentler iambic pulse of Britain's postwar welfare state. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not performance at a Press Conference afterwards, the Buy the CD-ROM from this link or find one That said, by the mid-1980s it was clear that the Conservative government's economic policy was based on a handful of core principles. We might speculate that an adviser had offered Thatcher a selection of good lines, or that she had asked to see some. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. North sea oil was squandered when it should have seeded new industries. The fact is that if both sides removed their ideological blinkers, as Thatcher, remarkably perhaps, managed to do, then her trilogy of speeches in the late 1980s still offer some of the best and . International studies of OECD countries suggest a close relationship between the decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality. Public Statements of Margaret Thatcher on CD-ROM, 1945-90, edited Christopher Sharp definition, hard edges, no effort at fuzzy contours (David Cameron, take note). It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. It knew what Thatcher wanted. The Iron Lady had a green thumband a surprisingly green philosophy. But on the subject of Europe, Thatcher became a contradictory figure. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. Reagan, who had recently left office as governor of California, was in London to deliver a speech to the Pilgrim Society. Symbolically, the key moment was the defeat of the miners after the year-long pit strike in March 1985. Following several small strokes she announced, in March 2002, that her career as a speechmaker had ended. 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. in his defence during the IranContra affair later that year.. Elected for a third term in June 1987, she told In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. In a way, they are all Thatcher's children.". What was it about Thatcher that inspired a generation of comics to rage at her? 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. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for . deeply felt eulogy, filmed in advance and relayed by video link to screens in the National Cathedral in Washington. Instead, her Big Bang blew the roof off City profits and property booms filled the gap where productive industry should have sprouted. 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! she The Thatcher government was across all the details of this shipment. So look around this kingdom of ours, at a devolved Scotland contemplating independence a state of affairs that owes much to Thatcher's antagonistic relationship with that country. Moreover, it's hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier. 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. John Major, the "detoxification" successor, was fated to implement many of her unattempted reforms. There were big tax cuts for those on the highest incomes, driven by the belief that this would encourage entrepreneurship.