She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. 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. Her imitators swerve all over the place, with 37 U-turns at the Telegraph's latest count on matters from forests and pasties to buzzard nests and caravans. 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 wrong with politics? 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 . The cautious tactician was suppressed. of her best Parliamentary speeches in a debate on the strikes. Reagan, who had recently left office as governor of California, was in London to deliver a speech to the Pilgrim Society. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, By 1987, anti-Tory tactical voting had taken hold. It was thoroughly "wet". at Brighton, insisting that the Conference go on and Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. Here is an excerpt from People [PMT]: "In politics," Margaret Thatcher once acidly observed, "if you want anything said, ask a man. In 1968 she gave a lecture asking What's 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. 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. She failed to replace those jobs with well-paid equivalents. She went to a fee-paying school and to Oxford at her father's expense, gliding easily into the upper echelons of student politics. a was an Oxford student home for the university holidays. We must reduce the inequality that has seen a super-rich elite, openly contemptuous of the flag and family values Thatcher proclaimed, float free from the rest of us. So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? They are acolytes of a raw Thatcher cult they have rough-hewn and exaggerated in their own image. 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. This was her last important public statement. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told They rallied around each other when times were hard. The woman, however, changed. 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. I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . The word "free" is used to help the audience 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. How could anyone who was so resolutely Margaret Thatcher be anything else? The "crime" he was accused of was to reclaim the oil revenue from local and foreign thieves, and use it to tackle poverty. History, Sample Essay. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. 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. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady", one But can he shake off the shackles of the past and prove there is an alternative? At countless demonstrations throughout the 80s, it expressed a curious ambivalence a first name intimacy as well as a furious rejection of all she stood for. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. June 5, 1992 - Is named a life peer on the Queen's honor list. the British Embassy in Paris and stated 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. Debate continues on whether Margaret Thatcher saved or destroyed British industry, but there is one industry that she practically created. 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. They looked after their old and young as well as those who were ill or infirm. Gloves. 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. make the case for intervention to protect Bosnia when Serb concentration There are many reasons for this. Some places have become heritage parks, remembering an industry now vanished. We Americans will not see you again in our time, but we will never forget you. Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. Yet her long-term effect seems to have been to destroy it. And for the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher years were among some of the worst of the conflict. From her start in politics, Thatcher often attracted sexist critiques for the way she spoke, with many it dubbing her voice "shrill" and "patronizing." Television critic Clive James even compared . MT won election as Conservative leader on 11 February 1975 and gave a euphoric I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud. Unquestionably, a major component of what Reagan achieved was mirrored in what Baroness Thatcher herself achieved. They had a point, but they had no idea how fascinating she was so powerful, successful, popular, omniscient, irritating and, in our view, wrong. 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. You knew exactly what Maggie stood for. The stance was often in broadest terms, more moral than political. 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. But the sense of community evaporated. The day before she died I passed through Greenock on the train. In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. The woman dubbed as the Iron Lady during her premiership made her last tearful speech as the leader of the country from the doorstep of . The economic crisis that Britain faced had been created not by the working class itself, these wholesome people that Sir Keith remembered from his vac weeks in Barnsley, but by a working-class leadership that was determined to bring the whole system crashing down. But growth rates in the decades since her period in office have been lower than during those that preceded her; nor does the balance of research evidence suggest that greater inequality acts as a spur to growth. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? A couple of days later on the 11th, Margaret Thatcher the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote an eulogy for Ronald Reagan. There are still some great comics doing political material, with Mark Steel and Mark Thomas flying the flag of alternative comedy, while people such as Josie Long and Chris Coltrane find the funny in activism. 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. A strong pound crippled exports and emptied factories. She abolished city-wide local government, capped spending and expected the poll tax to further undermine alternative voices. Peggy Noonan. As a result, Labour authorities in eight or so British cities have set up fairness commissions to reduce income differences locally. Second, it's now easier to see the scale of the setback she inflicted on Britain's idea of its own future. For the most part, it has not been undone. It fell to Blair to do something about the latter, while giving free rein to the former. But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. Her vision for Britain made a lot of people feel like outsiders, which made them the ideal audience for comedy. But she exploited her luck. Privatisation did not feature in the Conservative election campaign, while the tougher approach to trade union reform had only really become evident since the winter of discontent, and even then was a gradual process. If the Falklands war was the making of Thatcher, then the poll tax was her achilles heel not least in Scotland. Rishi Sunak 20 July 2022 9:30pm. A Labour veteran blamed another legacy of Thatcher: the need for iron discipline after the media onslaught that engulfed her opponents. It led to riots that nobody needed. she It was part of her conspicuous virtue, her indifference to familiar political conventions. Hewrote this piece in 2003, two weeks before he died. What is really left by Thatcher to history? Many of the effects of inequality have long lag periods. One leading Tory thinker said current academic concepts such as evolutionary psychology and behavioural economics were fundamentally rightwing; another said disruptive digital technology liberated individuals against powerful behemoths which may be true, but some of the most striking online advances harness the collective spirit. Sir Bernard died after a short illness, his family said. Britain was battered out of the somnolent conservatism, across awide front of economic policies and priorities, that had held back progress and, arguably, prosperity. It may be wrong to imagine that she intended to de-industrialise Britain, but the policies followed by her government had that effect. Action. Before the real Thatcher's election in 1979 she took lessons with a speech coach at the Royal National Theatre, hoping to make her voice more commanding and less "shrill" in broadcasts. 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. Here is a selection of the best writing from commentators, politicians and journalists on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher's 11 years in power - and on her continuing impact in the time following her downfall, as figures from across the political spectrum examine the legacy of one of the most important political figures from the last half-century, this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama, key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War, publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq, the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez, the Daily Mail has morefemale bylines than any other UK paper, Alan Krueger, chair of Obama's council of economic advisers, nor does the balance of research evidence suggest that greater inequality acts as a spur to growth, decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality, intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, the primary force behind what was known then as alternative comedy, Rik Mayall's student rants in The Young Ones, wicked, incompetent mindset that was the spirit of the 80s, "very fashionable in the Guardian for a few months before the financial crisis". But she became a very effective one. Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Congress. 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. Statistics now confirm what many people have always recognised: that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. with concern about global warming, having done more than any other politician People would denounce them unequivocally, often in graphic terms. November). Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. Modern comedians complain that they don't have personalities, they don't really stand for anything. That 1983 general election contained the telltale seeds of eventual Scottish Tory self-destruction. One Sunday recently while staying in London, I took a stroll in the gardens of Temple, the insular clod of quads and offices between the Strand and the Embankment. Until then Thatcher had shown the strength of her weakness: a dislike of consensus and aversion to debate, leading to decisive action. Sharp definition, hard edges, no effort at fuzzy contours (David Cameron, take note). Well, everything really, even her name. She made her maiden It became obvious that, while granting that I had "convictions", she never read a word of my stuff. She also put forward the idea of "a vast . The resignation was announced Later, when the BBC and ITV scheduled two programmes about Gibraltar, Thatcher tried to stop them. in his defence during the IranContra affair later that year.. Elected for a third term in June 1987, she told The poll-tax rioters. If it ended in disaster, the seeds were only partly hers. Fourthly, policy was aimed at those who, according to the prime minister, wanted to get on in life. In a break with tradition and protocol, Reagan decided he'd also attend the "return dinner" at the British Embassy the next evening. The jobs that went during the 80s tended to be good, skilled jobs, delivering decent incomes and some security. In short, miners believed in society. Yet the Daily Mail has morefemale bylines than any other UK paper and is not exactly a totem of gender equality andfemale-friendliness. British Labour MP Tom Watson decreed: "I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today." 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 first time I met Margaret Thatcher, I swear she was wearing gloves. Thatcher is often credited with showing that you could get to the top whatever your background. 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. Sue Gray used to be my boss. She became deaf to all warning. It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. 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. But within a few years, a third of children were poor, a sign of the yawning inequality from which the country never recovered. Thatcher swept away those state monopolies in the new coinage of "privatisation" and transformed daily life in a way we now take for granted. 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". She was lucky, in her enemies and friends notably Reagan in the Falklands conflict. The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision.