Less noted . November). Scotland was her mission impossible. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. LONDON Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister and uncompromisingly conservative "Iron Lady" of the 1980s, has died. On the same edition of Channel 4 News, Louise Mensch named only three successful female politicians as part of her defence ofThatcher and only one of those was a Conservative. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. Thanks to the comparison with Cameron, we are reminded that the Thatcher reign was more circumspect and well-managed than it seemed at the time. An unclubbable outsider, she allied herself to another outsider, Keith Joseph, and his free-market set. This zest for ideas was boosted by the 2010 intake, which comprises just under half the parliamentary party. A Tory party desperate for women helped Thatcher through the political foothills to early success as an MP. But look at this typical difference between her and her imitators: where Cameron has charged into Europe, taking his party out of the influential European People's party of natural allies, making enemies and building no useful coalitions, it was she who signed the Single European Act, understanding its importance for British trade, careful to make allies as well as swinging her handbag. Britain was battered out of the somnolent conservatism, across awide front of economic policies and priorities, that had held back progress and, arguably, prosperity. What will not be forgotten? Margaret Thatcher - HISTORY Books by Margaret Thatcher (Author of The Downing Street Years) - Goodreads The price we all continue to pay for Thatcherite policies is to live in a less cohesive and more antisocial society, in which community life is weaker, people feel less able to trust each other and fewer of those in government have the experience and compassion to represent or understand the vast majority. June 5, 1992 - Is named a life peer on the Queen's honor list. What is really left by Thatcher to history? The party she led three times to electoral triumph became unelectable for a generation. (MT gave up public speaking in March 2002.) she Like John Major in her wake, Thatcher was convinced that she understood the Scots yet couldn't understand why we remained so stubbornly resistant towards the notion of understanding her. It led to riots that nobody needed. At the time, Thatcher was the education secretary her first major political role. In her 1982 party conference speech, Margaret Thatcher offered a prediction for the future: "How absurd it will seem in a few years' time that the state ran Pickfords removals and Gleneagles Hotel . Instead state assets and a huge income stream from North sea oil were used to fund a populist programme of tax cuts, privatisation and council housesales. The truth is less significant than the alteration to it. When I think of this memorial, I think of the words of Rupert Brooke, "that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.". And then, perversely, would come the throwaway, sign-off remark to the effect of: "At least you know where you stand with Maggie she hates us and we hate her.". Yet for all these fissures, even Maoist modernisers and the most reactionary social conservatives share a similar stance over the role of the state. And, of course, Nelson provided the intelligence. 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. From 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher held the office of Prime . She became deaf to all warning. The stance was often in broadest terms, more moral than political. A strong pound crippled exports and emptied factories. That speech was a rare instance of a politician saying something tangible. "Thatcher as mother" seemed, to my tiddly mind, anathema. Until then Thatcher had shown the strength of her weakness: a dislike of consensus and aversion to debate, leading to decisive action. But perhaps her greatest legacy was New Labour. Sunstein worked for a Democratic president, but did not meet the Labour leader or key advisers. Hire writer now Order. A Soviet . Women aren't always good for other women because the gender of a person matters a lot less than that person's actual beliefs. She had left a Britain marked by private affluence and public squalor. There had been Churchill and his defiance; there had been Kipling and his If; there had been her father in his grocer's shop in Grantham. Although the "right to buy" and the privatisation of utilities by selling shares to new small investors was often justified as giving rights to "the little people", the reality is that the less well-off fell ever further behind the rich. Are there, even, things we look back on with regret for their passing? Some places have become heritage parks, remembering an industry now vanished. There were rumours of a different philosophy, at least in personal relationships. press to rejoice at the capture of South Georgia on 25 April 1982, announced that White It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. At its heart must be an active programme to create good jobs and raise living standards. How many Oscars does Meryl Streep have? - sportskeeda.com But on their catastrophic economic policy, it's full-speed ahead into the concrete wall. The leading feminist Natasha Walter called Thatcher "the great unsung heroine of British feminism". Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per cent of cases. She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation. She was immensely brisk. 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. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, She was lucky, in her enemies and friends notably Reagan in the Falklands conflict. Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. Margaret Thatcher's speech writer will miss funeral but 'shed a tear' When the mourners gather for Baroness Thatcher's funeral tomorrow, one important figure from her political past will be . The Texan who stole the show at Margaret Thatcher's funeral Capitalism flourishes on debt, but she insisted that economics were best understood as Mr Micawber's formula in which happiness and misery were separated by a shilling. Of course, it's in politics that the shadow looms most clearly. For her own part, she was a social conservative and yet today's right for, say, gay couples to marry if they want to fits with one aspect of the Thatcherite vision of personal choice. 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. A big decline in traditional industries took place across Europe and the US in the 80s and 90s. But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. She showed that modern prime ministers can still mark out room for individual manoeuvre. 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. 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. There was always an element of the erotic in the national obsession with her. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. A massive programme of social housing would be a good place to start, stimulating the economy. Get over her! She lost seven cabinet ministers on the Europe question, a record that permeated the party for years afterwards. the British Embassy in Paris and stated Understandably, less cohesive societies with more drugs, more crime and lower mobility waste talent, and are not good places to do business. 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. April 25, 2020. Talk to a Labour MP and you end up discussing politics and positioning; talk to a Tory, and it tends to be about policy. 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. . And the miners. Not even the Falklands war would push it off the tracks or damage it in any way. studying Thatcher's speeches . But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. These developments set a benchmark. Margaret Thatcher: 'This is no time to go wobbly' and other memorable The result . Simon Heffer, journalist, historian and friend of Margaret Thatcher, recommends the best books to read to gain an understanding of the United Kingdom's first female prime ministerand explains why she was the most influential British leader of the modern era. Margaret Thatcher Quotes (Author of The Downing Street Years) - Goodreads At Cheltenham the following month she Perhaps we suspected that reality had created a character beyond our creative reach. The problem for Labour is that this issue so fundamental, since it underscores so much policy is unresolved in their ranks. There were sporadic resurrections. The relative wealth of the UK 1% had been falling steadily for 50 years when Thatcher took power in 1979; since then it has climbed steeply and is almost back to 1918 levels. Instead, her Big Bang blew the roof off City profits and property booms filled the gap where productive industry should have sprouted. The government's job was to keep inflation low, not to boost growth through demand management. Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is She was the first prime minister to be more accountable to the international market than to the British economy. 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. Margaret Thatcher: Private tears of Iron Lady's speech writer who no It was only in the mid-80s that she became truly radical and remotely comparable to David Cameron in 2010. Where once we stood within a recognisable postwar social democratic European tradition, after Thatcher the country had rowed halfway across the Atlantic, psychologically imbued with US neoliberal individualism. She and her successors John Major and Tony Blair presided over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . The main names associated with Fatcha-bashing Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle deny that they relied so heavily on her for material. The young men were those whose childhood was blighted by the effects of relative poverty and inequality on family life. And for the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher years were among some of the worst of the conflict. And on the 11th June, we even won some nine seats we failed to gain in 1983. The task of representing the White House usually was the role of the vice-president, but in this special case, the Reagans and the Bushes both attended. The 1978 meeting was their last in person until Mrs Thatcher became Reagan's first state visitor, 26-28 February 1981. We had had a strange relationship. "Margaret Thatcher was not a natural communicator. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If You Want Anything Said Ask a Man, Want Anything Done Ask a Woman Many of the effects of inequality have long lag periods. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady". Scottish and by extension UK politics has been skewed ever since. Government policy during the 1980s was little more than a war policy, aimed at defeating or isolating republicanism. Born: 21 June 1932 in Halifax. She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. While some remember her as a national saviour, others only see her ruthless demolition of flailing state-owned industries. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. Margaret Flowers is a leading activist, doctor, teacher, and co-founder of PopularResistance.org, a website that aims to inform and inspire grassroots movements around the world. 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. Whatever Tory historians like to claim, this was the critical turning point. When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. We had an all-out blistering row that delighted the organisers. 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. The virtual state funeral will rehearse again our extravagant fixations. Why don't you get a proper job, she once sneered at me. 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. 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 . John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. The impact that Hayek's writing had on Thatcher, her advisors, and her policies is undeniable. Rather, she was a classic example of a certain kind of conservative woman who believed that all women should pull themselves up just as she had done, conveniently overlooking that not all women are blessed with the privileges that had been available to her, such as a wealthy and supportive husband and domestic help. Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008. She was unashamed about this, loathing localism and rejecting calls to diminish the "strong state". Reagan and Thatcher first met in 1975, as my friend and colleague Peter Hannaford reminded me just today. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for . They looked after their old and young as well as those who were ill or infirm. Margaret Thatcher Curriculum Vitae. Ithink on balance, it was for the better, and so, plainly did Thatcher's chief successor, Tony Blair.
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