She made her maiden 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 . Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? Are there, even, things we look back on with regret for their passing? Reagan and Thatcher first met in 1975, as my friend and colleague Peter Hannaford reminded me just today. She was an ardent pro-European, and her 1979 manifesto made no mention of radical union reform or privatisation. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning? Fourthly, policy was aimed at those who, according to the prime minister, wanted to get on in life. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to she Under Heath and Jim Callaghan the question was widely asked: had democracies become "ungovernable"? and 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. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya, spoke 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. "She had been offered the chance to get on and effectively she then refused to offer it to otherpeople. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.". Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. "Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts. (They also reveal how she loved to surround herself with yes men who were always men.) She was unashamed about this, loathing localism and rejecting calls to diminish the "strong state". Accounts vary. Across Yorkshire or south Wales, Kent or Nottinghamshire, there are villages that have never recovered from the closure of coal mines, ordered by a Thatcher who ruled there was no place for pits that were not "economically viable", regardless of the social consequences. In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. The "crime" he was accused of was to reclaim the oil revenue from local and foreign thieves, and use it to tackle poverty. To enrich the global 1% she so brilliantly represented, our "entitlement" had to go and she was just the one to do it. Maggie! Privatisation was the single most massive attack on democracy we have seen. What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. 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. In the north of Ireland she had the army and the Diplock courts which reached their peak in the mid 1980s. 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. The welfare state set out to ensure that no one, in the UK at least, would starve or freeze to death, or suffer or die for lack of medical or other care. 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. As I spread my wings in politics, I discovered many Thatcher voters down south who were the same kind of people who loathed her in Scotland. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. Conscious of being awoman, and incapable of pretending otherwise. Then they discovered that they could make money, so they dropped all that. She went to a fee-paying school and to Oxford at her father's expense, gliding easily into the upper echelons of student politics. The 70s was Britain's most equal decade. The organised working class, almost alone, had put Britain on the skids. She pointed out that she was only 10 years old when she ceased to be prime minister. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not I don't know if they ever voted for her, I don't know if they liked her. A Soviet . a new dominance from Brussels", the Another head of government died recently who, like Thatcher, was called divisive. Out!" 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. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she Margaret Thatcher Curriculum Vitae. Scottish and by extension UK politics has been skewed ever since. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". departing Downing Street on 28 November. No gloves, or hats, except for royalty or at funerals, but feet on the table, whisky glass at hand, into the small hours of solitude, for want of male cronies in the masculine world she dominated for all her 11yearsin power. Leaving aside the detail that the word "feminist" came into existence in 1895, comfortably in Chanel's lifetime, the woman who valued femininity above all other qualities in a woman and was heavily involved with the Nazis, including a wartime relationship with German officer Hans Gunther von Dincklage, could not, in any circumstances, be described as a feminist. But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. The late Benazir Bhutto later gave me much the same account. This was hardly the first or even the worst example of a dig at Thatcher tinged so needlessly with sexism. 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. 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. 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. Out! Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . . More subtly, Thatcher bequeathed a kind of instinctive rejection of once-valued forms of collective activity. Her effect was to force a deeper consideration of priorities, sometimes expressed in a variety of dystopias. This legacy remains intact with a party that places a premium on radical thinking and, for all its flaws, sets the political agenda. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. These developments set a benchmark. It was illegal to put an extension lead on your phone. Having no social or political connection with the class most affected, she gave a very good impression of not caring. Large parts of society never recovered, while Germany and other countries managed the transition without such brutality. This report of the Conservative party conference ran in the Guardian on Saturday October 11 1980, Edited and full versions of Margaret Thatcher's 'The lady's not for turning' speech, delivered at the Conservative party conference in Brighton on 10 October 1980, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every 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. Bob Slayer, one of the genuine alternative comedians on the scene, likes to note the irony of what's become of comedy. This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. "Fatcha" was an instant punchline back then: simply saying it was enough to get a laugh. 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. series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, replied 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. Thatcher's use of rhetorical devices supports her eulogy because the concept of Reagan being more. 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.". She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. We were wary of this. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. Hats. 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. to his resignation letter on 1 November, stated 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". Margaret Thatcher is being remembered as the prime minister who remade Britain's economy, the "Iron Lady" who stood up to communism and who fought and won a war in the distant South Atlantic . But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. Dignity and decorum ruled the day - except in the poisoned anonymity of the internet. MT gave her first 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. 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. She defended Ronald 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. The great contradiction in her politics was that someone who yearned for the certainties of small-town shopkeeper economics helped create the amoral yuppiedom of 80s excess and an explosion of cultural resistance that is still an ironic positive legacy of her time in power. Those abandoned places are also landmarks in Thatcher's Britain. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is It fell to Blair to do something about the latter, while giving free rein to the former. 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. Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! Real Analysis Solved Problems, Synthesis Essay Freedom Of Speech, Photography Dissertation Titles, Reflective Essay Writers Service Usa, Sample Of The Resume 4423 . What saved Thatcher's bacon, and revolutionised her leadership, was Labour's unelectable Michael Foot and the Falklands war. Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. Maggie was a fully formed comedy character before comedians had even gotten to her. (MT gave up public speaking in March 2002.) Adam Smith's invisible hand ended up raising two fingers to her moral project. British Labour MP Tom Watson decreed: "I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today." Thatcher was suspicious of democracy. Either way, I'm an adult now and none of those things are on telly any more so there's no excuse for apathy. "Being powerful is like being a lady. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. 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. I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. Throw the Lib Dems into the mix and it becomes highly combustible. Oxford CD-ROM explains how the statements were assembled and edited Talk to a Labour MP and you end up discussing politics and positioning; talk to a Tory, and it tends to be about policy. Typically, this distinction is mapped onto the ideas that Conservatives hold about equality. But she personified the change from meaning to meaninglessness in so many settlements and lives, and for this reason she is hard to forgive. We can't blame (or credit) her for all of this, of course. That, plus (inevitable) de-industrialisation, coupled to her perceived overbearing and patronising manner. Research papers can be complex, so best to give our essay writing service a bit more time on this one. They married the personality and belief to action. Public Statements of Margaret Thatcher on CD-ROM, 1945-90, edited Christopher I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. But keeping the show on the road is what all of them must first attend to, because there's nobody else to do it. The three of us watched as the gentle horticultural ritual was feebly enacted, then regarded the Iron Lady being helped into the back of a car and trundling off. These include, "We have to show them that we're better than they are", and "Women can get into corners that men can't reach!" Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . Everyone knows that. 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. Instead, her Big Bang blew the roof off City profits and property booms filled the gap where productive industry should have sprouted. On the other hand, growth has been depressed because weak trade unions can no longer ensure wage increases keep pace with inflation. At her first conference speech, she chastised the Labour Party on economic . Her centralism, unequalled in Europe, descended under Blair into a morass of targetry, inefficiency and endless reorganisation. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." In the 2011 biographical drama film "The Iron Lady," Meryl Streep plays the role of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. At Bruges in September 1988 she outraged European orthodoxy by declaring: Or maybe audiences just really, really hated her and wanted to blow off some steam. That did the trick.). She gave Nigel Lawson at the Treasury his head and was genuinely alarmed when he cut income tax to 40%. Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising After leaving office, MT widened and deepened her criticism of the European Her gender led her into government and the shadow cabinet, despite Edward Heath's aversion to her. If you have a . Thatcher never kept a diary, but the archive includes rich details of her role in important domestic and world events. There's something distinctively creepy - in a Roman sort of way - about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. Gillian Anderson's portrayal of the Iron Lady in "The Crown" is pretty spot-on. After all, the right began to refocus only after Tony Blair's second landslide, when people began to recognise they would not drift back into power. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. In January 1983 she can do business together". Original, independent voices such as BBC director general Alasdair Milne were brutally silenced. 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. These values were the exact opposite of those Margaret Thatcher espoused. Britain ceased to be the sick man of Europe and entered the 1990s with its reputation enhanced. It became obvious that, while granting that I had "convictions", she never read a word of my stuff. The Cameron and Osborne circle are crude copies carried away with the dangerous idea that conviction is all it takes to run a country. When all the public amenities were flogged, the adverts made it seem to my childish eyes fun and positive, jaunty slogans and affable British stereotypes jostling about in villages, selling people companies that they'd already paid for through tax. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. This is accomplished by this baseless moral precept that it is gauche or worse to balance the gushing praise for them upon death with valid criticisms. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually. 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. 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". And, of course, Nelson provided the intelligence. But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. "Margaret Thatcher was not a natural communicator. 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. 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 . Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. It was not interested in a resolution. talked of "Victorian Values". 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. as far as can be known. But Margaret Thatcher did not hesitate, and the long, substantive lunch seemed to energize both future world leaders. They looked after their old and young as well as those who were ill or infirm. or copyright prevents reproduction on the site. All of the Tory edicts that bludgeoned our nation, as my generation squirmed through ghoulish puberty, were confusing. There were big tax cuts for those on the highest incomes, driven by the belief that this would encourage entrepreneurship. All rights reserved. The jobs that went during the 80s tended to be good, skilled jobs, delivering decent incomes and some security. Thatcher has said that negotiation, and not strong economic sanctions, is the way to persuade South Africa's white-minority government to dismantle apartheid. Perhaps she had just come inside. By delivering a crisp, emphatic victory Thatcher showed the world, and more important herself, what a talent for solitary command could achieve. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. It is my view that Thatcher authorised the killings at Gibraltar. Just look around. speech in the House of Commons, her She made her remarks ", 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. The items stored in this section of the site are texts, but many of the most important statements are also available in audio or video form in the separate Multimedia section. Critical Commentary: Margaret Thatcher outlined the British policy in relation to various world issues. 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. She was evicted from Downing Street with all the ruthlessness, treachery and warped humanity of what passes for high politics. Still plumbing for the essence, we have to examine other bits of residue. But she became a very effective one. The resignation was announced She became deaf to all warning. Margaret Thatcher Essay: Health Category. Thatcher swept away those state monopolies in the new coinage of "privatisation" and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted. But it did, and the consequences seem impossible to reverse. 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. I think on balance Thatcher did for Britain what was needed at the time. For a start, she had a superb memory for a brief, and she would have had no problem memorising quickly any number of lines. Yes, QI can report that a newspaper called the Evening News on . While some remember her as a national saviour, others only see her ruthless demolition of flailing state-owned industries. And the single mums. There turned out to be no such thing as society, at least in the sense we used to understand it. ", This was the great leader in her favourite pose as Samuel Smiles: human beings didn't need to be helped they needed to help themselves. 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. Nobody, at least that I know of, objected to that observation on the ground that it was disrespectful to the ability of the Chavez family to mourn in peace. outlook at the time. 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. The Winter of Discontent in 1978-79 brought rhetorical as well as political The set text is still Thatcher's declaration quoted in The Audience that "There is no such thing as society". But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. Thatcher's title is Baroness. It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world.