And by my own firsthand experience, it was genuine to the core. 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. She was propped up by police who were encouraged to brutality against not only strikers but communities of colour, already hardest hit by unemployment: police powers were enhanced and their racism given free rein, especially with stop and search; CS gas was used on the mainland for the first time. This zest for ideas was boosted by the 2010 intake, which comprises just under half the parliamentary party. Above all, they lack her competence at running the machinery of government. 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. speech in July 1945, delivered in a town close to Grantham while she 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. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was known for her lack of a sense of humour. An unclubbable outsider, she allied herself to another outsider, Keith Joseph, and his free-market set. Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per her maiden But it did, and the consequences seem impossible to reverse. We had had a strange relationship. Following in the footsteps of Santa Claus, Steve Hynd quickly compiled a list of all the naughty boys and girls "on the left" who dared to express criticisms of the dearly departed Prime Minister, warning that he "will continue to add to this list throughout the day". Which raises the question: why isn't this happening now? No elderly person would be deprived of the dignity of spectacles, dentures or a hearing aid because they couldn't afford them. Hire a Writer. She was able to reach But on the subject of Europe, Thatcher became a contradictory figure. Quotation being the warmest form of praise, Larkin was naturally touched. ", 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. As leader she was initially hyper-cautious. It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. She hurled herself into NHS reform, changes to schools and universities, utilities privatisation and, eventually, local government reform. Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. It's true that whenever there's a major news story, millions of people immediately begin strip-mining it for puns and bon mots, making it harder for professional comics to develop focused, funny material that nobody's heard before. The last time I met her was after all this was over. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. Sir Bernard died after a short illness, his family said. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. An Inconvenient Truth About Margaret Thatcher: She Was a Climate Hawk. Copyright Margaret Thatcher Foundation 2023. Thatcher jokes were big business, from Rik Mayall's student rants in The Young Ones, to Harry Enfield's satire of Thatcher's children with his Loadsamoney character. News of Margaret Thatcher's death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her. That speech was a rare instance of a politician saying something tangible. Indeed, many of the policy innovations associated with Thatcher had already been pioneered by her predecessor. Among them was loyalist Brian Nelson, a former British soldier and member of the Ulster Defence Association. They're happy to share big windfall bonuses with their cronies, they'll stick up for deposed dictator chums when they're down on their luck, they'll find opportunities in business for people they care about. of her best Parliamentary speeches in a debate on the strikes, prayed on the Mrs Thatcher was on the way up in British political life. for turning. The truth is less significant than the alteration to it. Few would argue that they have not endured. Her vision for Britain made a lot of people feel like outsiders, which made them the ideal audience for comedy. She said "there is no such thing as society", and set out to prove it by promoting individual greed and competition for everything. June 30, 1992 - Swearing . Her effect was to force a deeper consideration of priorities, sometimes expressed in a variety of dystopias. These talks, sometimes joined by the prime minister and run by his aide Rohan Silva, show the restless search for new ideas that still grips the right, one of the least recognised legacies of Margaret Thatcher. Cabinet rank in 1970 without appearing on television more than a handful Many of today's more controversial benefits, such as disability, date back to the 80s. But at its crudest, the Thatcher ethos translated into the get-rich-quick, greed-is-good spirit of the 1980s, satirised by Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney creation. That's because, 23 years after she was ejected from Downing Street by her own party in a move whose psychic wounds linger on, the country we live in remains Thatcher's Britain. Sunstein worked for a Democratic president, but did not meet the Labour leader or key advisers. Look at the trains on the track, the phone in your house, the trio of 1980s teenagers who lead the three main parties. It led to riots that nobody needed. "No, no, no". speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady". I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. press to rejoice at the capture of South Georgia on 25 April 1982, announced that White But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. 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 . For a start, she had a superb memory for a brief, and she would have had no problem memorising quickly any number of lines. But can he shake off the shackles of the past and prove there is an alternative? There is a paradox. 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. . Thatcher's infamous failure to recognise the existence of society was a double failure. To enrich the global 1% she so brilliantly represented, our "entitlement" had to go and she was just the one to do it. This was a historic step, and resulted in further reinforcing the US-UK alliance. 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. A decade later they were wiped out in terms of Scotland-based Westminster constituency representation. And the single mums. 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. at Brighton, insisting that the Conference go on and 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. 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. No sign they learned from her that markets don't move in to fill the gaps when the state is rolled back not then, not now. Getting the record straight. There are many reasons for this. Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. 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". She, for one, never underestimated her friend from California, then a state of some 24 million. Thatcher came to power when the economy was approaching a moment of truth after three decades of poor performance relative to other western countries. For the most part, it has not been undone. This has been a terrible labour, she said. March 7, 1991 - Receives the US Medal of Freedom from President George Bush. The pomp and circumstance that will crown her funeral was proffered by Brown, to some shudders from his own side. As a physician, she has been a vocal advocate for a single-payer healthcare system that would . Or maybe audiences just really, really hated her and wanted to blow off some steam. She gave Nigel Lawson at the Treasury his head and was genuinely alarmed when he cut income tax to 40%. Council house sales and advertising campaigns that encouraged the public to buy shares in privatised companies were meant to broaden the appeal of capitalism. In a world where most media talking heads come from the top few percent of income earners, unions are not only important in wage bargaining, they also provide some of the few well-informed voices whose job it is to speak on behalf of the less well-paid. Nelson travelled to South Africa where he helped negotiate a deal that saw the UDA, UVF and Ulster Resistance acquire AK-47 automatic rifles, pistols, grenades, and RPG rocket launchers in late 1987 or early 1988. In the 80s, she was the primary force behind what was known then as alternative comedy and is now simply called "comedy". A big decline in traditional industries took place across Europe and the US in the 80s and 90s. Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? Charles Powell was a senior foreign policy . A Tory party desperate for women helped Thatcher through the political foothills to early success as an MP. On the other hand, growth has been depressed because weak trade unions can no longer ensure wage increases keep pace with inflation. outlook at the time. It was under her leadership that in 1982 that the Force Research Unit (FRU) was established within the British Army Intelligence Corps. She was evicted from Downing Street with all the ruthlessness, treachery and warped humanity of what passes for high politics. "Maggie! 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. Having no social or political connection with the class most affected, she gave a very good impression of not caring. 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. Even some leading figures on the left have jealously praised the right's creativity and ideological crusaders. For those miners and their families to be referred to as the "enemy within" by Thatcher was something they would never forgive and, if there is rejoicing at her death in those communities she set out to destroy, it can only be understood against this background. I will know that we have finally broken from the kind of capitalism that she championed and which died in 2008 when we see workers elected on to company boards. Neither shift of ownership and power would have happened without a leader prepared to take risks with her life. It was a Charles I moment in British history. 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. What is really left by Thatcher to history? speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady", one So instead: "I put it to her that we would be saving money." But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. 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. On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. It was not yours, but belonged to the Post Office: in effect, the government. Those abandoned places are also landmarks in Thatcher's Britain. Margaret Thatcher was a hugely divisive figure in British politics. performance at a Press Conference afterwards. 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. 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. The party she led three times to electoral triumph became unelectable for a generation. Accounts vary. Contrary to an increasingly common belief, "a woman who is successful" is not synonymous with "a feminist". 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. Margaret Thatcher, Signed Speech on Hayek, 2003, Estimate 1,500-2,000 . From 1987 to 1988, he was a senior policy writer and speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister and remained close to her up to her death.. O'Sullivan served from 2008-2012 as vice-president and executive editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio . cent of cases. They married the personality and belief to action. But as weand others (including Alan Krueger, chair of Obama's council of economic advisers) have shown, wider income differences reduce social mobility and make it harder for people with poorer backgrounds to do so. It'd be disingenuous to omit that there were a fair number of ding-dong-style celebratory messages amidst the pensive reflections on the end of an era. As working families in poverty now account for more than half of those below the poverty line, a government committed to "making work pay" should surely encourage this trend and raise the minimum wage. Full employment had been ditched in 1976, while Labour had introduced monetary targets and cash limits for Whitehall departments while Denis Healey was at the Treasury. The leading feminist Natasha Walter called Thatcher "the great unsung heroine of British feminism". For a national matriarch she is oddly unmaternal. If they have no bread, let them eat from food banks that's Thatcherism, the legacy we are still to bury before it buries us. (MT gave up public speaking in March 2002.) And he would credit the contribution of Helmut Kohl, who rose to power in Germany in part because of the influence of Thatcher and Reagan. I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher. Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! When she took over in 1979, the bottom of that device would have carried the legend, "Property of the GPO." One might even credit Thatcher with a willingness to jettison the old rules and conventions that used to prevent individuals deciding their own destiny. decision to resign. In 1980, I made several fast round trips to London, Paris and Bonn, and, on each occasion, had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Thatcher. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." It chose her ina fit of desperation, hats and all though it quite liked the hats. A friend of South African apartheid and mass murderers from Kissinger and Pinochet to the Khmer Rouge after they had killed two million Cambodians she was a zealous saleswoman for the arms industry. Perhaps it is more simple for all the iniquities of capitalism, the tide of history favours the right. still being scolded for the remark.You can read here exactly what she said, Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, as far as can be known. I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. A Soviet . 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. declared that she wanted our money back. I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country as we continue to evolve. Public Statements of Margaret Thatcher on CD-ROM, 1945-90, edited Christopher Rishi Sunak: 'Our country needs the . This unit recruited agents who were then used to kill citizens. . Her unforgettable presence, but also her policy achievements. 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". Here is an excerpt from People [PMT]: "In politics," Margaret Thatcher once acidly observed, "if you want anything said, ask a man. 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 events of that awful summer of '81 polarised Irish society, north and south. By the 1983 election she had sold off only Britoil and some council houses. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. 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. The word "free" is used to help the audience 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. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. Though she recognised the dangers of global warming, Thatcher's industrial and economic policies prioritised economic growth. It is my view that Thatcher authorised the killings at Gibraltar. Get over her! History will judge her, but not a country in Europe was untouched by Thatcher's example. If you want anything done, ask a woman.". This was hardly the first or even the worst example of a dig at Thatcher tinged so needlessly with sexism. She would not have been half the . It is no coincidence the three most influential centre-right thinktanks were all conceived over the following months. Thatcher is gone, but Thatcherism has infected and discredited all mainstream parties, depriving us of a chance to turn it down. Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". The centralised statism that dominated politics for much of the 20th century, given its last pathetic gasp under the profligate government of Gordon Brown, ultimately failed the poor while proving financially unsustainable and unsuited to modern times. Alamat kami. Philip Larkin visited Downing Street where the prime minister quoted approvingly one of his lines to him "Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives." It became obvious that, while granting that I had "convictions", she never read a word of my stuff. She made her maiden The British inflation was in 1975 up at 24, 11% [] and with the union's constant claim for higher salaries, nobody expected it to drop to a normal level. This book shows how. 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. But what bound all opposition to Margaret Thatcher's programme was a suspicion that the grocer's daughter was intent on monetising human value, that she had no heart and, famously, cared little for the impulses that bind individuals into a society. Conscious of being awoman, and incapable of pretending otherwise. Larkin's evoked the treacherous mind (of an adversary, of a cabinet colleague) helplessly exposed to her steely regard.