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. 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 . The last time I met her was after all this was over. Yet I wrote columns of pretty unremitting hostility to most of what she did. From then on she disregarded her critics and became intolerant of any who were "not one of us". When she took over in 1979, the bottom of that device would have carried the legend, "Property of the GPO." Thatcher has said that negotiation, and not strong economic sanctions, is the way to persuade South Africa's white-minority government to dismantle apartheid. As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims. Her heirs have not learned that lesson, with no sign of their promised "rebalancing". 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. The spell of community. Demonising unions and stripping the great mass of private-sector workers of a voice and power in the workplace is still the root of the great living standards crisis that saw the share of wealth going to wages slide long before Lehman Brothers failed. These values were the exact opposite of those Margaret Thatcher espoused. 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. Flags were flying over Port Stanley on 14 June. She would appear in public to drape a hankie over a model BA plane tailfin because she disliked the unpatriotic logo with which they'd replaced the union flag (maybe don't privatise BA then), or to shuffle about some country pile arm in arm with a doddery Pinochet and tell us all what a fine fellow he was. You would need to wait six weeks for an engineer. Much of any leader's record is unremarkable dross, and Thatcher was no exception. June 5, 1992 - Is named a life peer on the Queen's honor list. All rights reserved. When the late Christopher Hitchens was a political reporter for the New Statesman, he corrected the prime minister on a point of fact, and she was quick to correct Hitchens in turn. She had just finished the first volume of her memoirs, which she insisted was all her own work. History, Sample Essay. She wrecked her own party, while promoting, via many a tortuous turn, Labour's resurrection. Maggie! "I thought I'd be overjoyed, but really it's just another one bites the dust " This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by. 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. Everyone knows where they were when they heard. 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. Given the nature of her legacy "survival of the fittest" a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn't surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness? Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . Miners had always known that eventually any of the colleries would close and were always prepared to accept that as a fact of life and find employment somewhere else within the industry, but Thatcher's attack was wholesale. 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. 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. What will not be forgotten? Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". For some, the only consequence of that shift, still visible today, will be a changed brand name or higher bills. Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. She refused to reform social security, or even curb its abuse. That gives them the nerve to set about cutting benefits and the public realm with a glee they don't bother to hide. At the time, Thatcher was the education secretary her first major political role. A Soviet . They rallied around each other when times were hard. successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? Research papers can be complex, so best to give our essay writing service a bit more time on this one. The south of England and the City of London were the future; the revenues from North Sea oil would pay for the unemployed in the old zones of manufacturing industry. MT prayed on the Thatcher will be especially remembered for her shameful role during the epic hunger strikes of 1980 and 81. That was before Thatcher modishly renamed the service British Telecom and sold it off. Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. She wanted to win, but did not put much faith in the quick smile. Indeed a person with achemistry that repelled almost all thesignificant males in Edward Heath's cabinet who could never become theparty leader. But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. We were wary of this. A great windfall in the short-term for asset-owners one form of inflation she encouraged but disastrous for future generations. Which raises the question: why isn't this happening now? Or maybe audiences just really, really hated her and wanted to blow off some steam. Elton has previously said that he did two minutes about Thatcher and two hours about his knob, and all anyone ever remembered was the Thatcher material. It came to a head over her most egregious policy failure, Europe. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." Cameron's crew crudely imagine she intended it. But it was the killing of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane in February 1989 that reveals the depth of the Thatcher government's state collusion policy. The leading feminist Natasha Walter called Thatcher "the great unsung heroine of British feminism". There are more than 8,000. She continued for some reason to consider me worth talking to. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. 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. 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. It knew what Thatcher wanted. for turning. She would, say some who knew her, have a found a way to finesse a change of direction by now. The financial crash of 2008 was a direct result of the policies Thatcher championed. Margaret Thatcher Essay: Health Category. The proportion of children living in relative poverty more than doubled during the 80s, and the damage has never been undone. 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. By raising the pay of their own staff to a minimum of the living wage, they have set an example which a growing number of large private-sector employers have followed. Farewelling Baroness Margaret Thatcher in a proper fashion is a difficult task: she left such a deep imprint upon the world that assessing its importance demands volumes analyzing her beliefs and paying proper tribute. She famously changed the law after Bobby Sands was elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Selling off the family silver Harold Macmillan and later Labour called it, as Margaret Thatcher set about reversing the 1945 nationalisations that had put oil, gas, coal, electricity and an airline as well as a house removal company in public hands. 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. During the speech, . Perhaps Labour would benefit from another defeat, given the danger of taking power unprepared and turning into a zombie government, like the tragedy unfurling in France. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, 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. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. That speech was a rare instance of a politician saying something tangible. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya, spoke She failed to replace those jobs with well-paid equivalents. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . Without it, she would have been nothing. So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? I don't see that. That chanted demand of the left has been fully and finally met. We had had a strange relationship. So the woman I met in Curzon Street, dimpling elegantly, can now be seen in history with an unexpected achievement to her credit. making her big speech the following day as scheduled. Thatcher came to personify those ready to push anyone aside to gain power in a man's world and strengthen that world with their ambition. She was able to reach Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. Plus there's the fact that comedy is now a big business, and there's less money in sharp satire than gentle observation. All rights reserved. Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. The truth is less significant than the alteration to it. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. A splendid synergy was created, deliberately and with just that in mind on both sides of the Atlantic. She, and Blair after her, brought an unprecedented dirigisme to the NHS, education, police and local government. In the three years after the shipment they killed 224 and wounded scores more. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. Margaret Thatcher formally tendered her resignation to the Queen early this morning after leaving Downing Street for the last time. Only today are we facing the cost. Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. But within a few years, a third of children were poor, a sign of the yawning inequality from which the country never recovered. Perhaps she had just come inside. Hire a Writer. 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. In the current wall-to-wall media welter, I caught the current leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davison MSP, being asked if Thatcher was an electoral asset for her. Arthur Scargill and the miners represented the only opposition to the prime minister and her destructive and divisive values and, after the strike, the way was open for the most aggressive neoliberal policies. in a statement the following morning (22 November), hours before she Collins (Oxford University Press, 1998-2000). But awoman who, at the time, thought that chancellor was the top mark at which she might aim. 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. That said, by the mid-1980s it was clear that the Conservative government's economic policy was based on a handful of core principles. her maiden It never was. 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. She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation. The Thatcher government believed that the criminalisation of the republican prisoners would break the republican struggle. On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. "Margaret Thatcher was not a natural communicator. 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. What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. 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. 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. November). Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . 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. 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.". Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), who in 1979 would become Great Britain's first female Prime Minister, traveled to the United States and Canada in September 1975, seven months after becoming the leader of Britain's Conservative Party, then out of power. Prime Minister Thatcher inherited a settled state of British Europeanness, in which Brussels and the [European] Community began to influence, and often determine, the British way of doing things. He'd been a bully, she said, whereas Mrs T was warm and understanding. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for . This legacy remains intact with a party that places a premium on radical thinking and, for all its flaws, sets the political agenda. 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. 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. Perhaps we suspected that reality had created a character beyond our creative reach. first television interview the following day, euphoric My mate John and I were wandering there together, he expertly proselytising on the architecture and the history of the place, me pretending to be Rumpole of the Bailey (quietly in my mind), when we spied in the distant garden a hunched and frail figure, in a raincoat, scarf about her head, watering the roses under the breezy supervision of a masticating copper. The current crop of leaders are so dull, so ill-defined, so lacking in personality that it's almost impossible for comedians to rage against them. 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. Any attempts at revisionism do no favours to her, women or feminism. 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. of times. 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. 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. Thatcher did not believe in "picking winners"; instead she preferred to rely on market forces to ensure the survival of the fittest. The result . As leader she was initially hyper-cautious. Union in a speech The core of this site is a massive database of MT's public statements of all kinds across the years (speeches, interviews, press conferences, etc), searchable by date, subject, importance, and keyword. 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. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. Oil helped Thatcher paper over the cracks, but Britain's age-old problem finding a way to pay its way in the world remains. While she spoke of his example as a beacon, she knew very well that she was an important component of what is often attributed solely to him, and in the first instance "winning" the cold war. That did the trick.). Critical Commentary: Margaret Thatcher outlined the British policy in relation to various world issues. 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". Thatcher swept away those state monopolies in the new coinage of "privatisation" and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted. Her Irish policy failed miserably. 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. Though she recognised the dangers of global warming, Thatcher's industrial and economic policies prioritised economic growth. Conscious of being awoman, and incapable of pretending otherwise. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher. She was unashamed about this, loathing localism and rejecting calls to diminish the "strong state". She may have got it slightly wrong. Even the nasty politics of "welfare reform" is driven by the high cost of subsidising low pay through in-work benefits, and indifference to the plight of jobless communities who have never recovered from de-industrialisation. Gloves. Later, when the BBC and ITV scheduled two programmes about Gibraltar, Thatcher tried to stop them. It is odd to reflect that in Thatcher's time, the British novel enjoyed a comparatively lively resurgence. This was her last important public statement. Sir Bernard died after a short illness, his family said. This is an especially pertinent problem given its heartfelt desire for redistribution of wealth. 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. No one noticed, but she was Blair's first guest at Downing Street in 1997. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. The economy had become more productive, more competitive and more profitable. Much has been written about the special significance and warmth of the British-American alliance during the two terms of Ronald Reagan. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. But can he shake off the shackles of the past and prove there is an alternative? Secondly, the balance of power in industrial relations was shifted decisively in favour of employers. 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. On taking office she showered money on public sector unions, and her "cuts" were only to planned increases, mild compared with today's. Everything was justified as long as it made money andthis, too, isstill with us. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008. . Thatcher exposed the sharp edges of class division in Britain and the strike of 1984/5 was as much a clash of values as it was about pit closures. 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. When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied International studies of OECD countries suggest a close relationship between the decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality. She was the daughter of a prosperous civic leader who merely began life as a "grocer".
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