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Sayle recorded the song Get Me Mrs Thatcher, but says that in general he felt Thatcher jokes were a bit too easy, although he still shudders at the memory of a "wicked, incompetent mindset that was the spirit of the 80s". 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. Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. Her unforgettable presence, but also her policy achievements. 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 . 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. 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. And on the 11th June, we even won some nine seats we failed to gain in 1983. 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. It was not yours, but belonged to the Post Office: in effect, the government. By 1990 it was transformed. 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. For a national matriarch she is oddly unmaternal. 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. 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. 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. But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. Thatcher came to power when the economy was approaching a moment of truth after three decades of poor performance relative to other western countries. Maggie and Me: How Thatcher Changed Britain. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. 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. A decade later they were wiped out in terms of Scotland-based Westminster constituency representation. In 1976 it still did not help and in the same year they had to take a loan in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [] . Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." 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." Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. 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. So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? Born: 21 June 1932 in Halifax. 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 Iron Lady had a green thumband a surprisingly green philosophy. The spell of community. She hurled herself into NHS reform, changes to schools and universities, utilities privatisation and, eventually, local government reform. Above all, they lack her competence at running the machinery of government. A longer version of this article appears on Gerry Adams' blog, Margaret Thatcher was good at destruction. June 30, 1992 - Swearing . Every quality had its obverse, but she had a myth-making charisma to capture the world's imagination. But on their catastrophic economic policy, it's full-speed ahead into the concrete wall. Margaret Thatcher. make the case for intervention to protect Bosnia when Serb concentration 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. Today's Tories walk in Thatcher's footsteps, battling with their estranged cousins in Ukip over who is the rightful heir to her Eurosceptic legacy. 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. Where copyright is the problem, the full text can be found on the Complete Just look around. She would not have been half the . Not all writers were against her. But, as the prince in Lampedusa's The Leopard says: "For things to remain the same, everything must change.". You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. Thatcher and Reagan went on to facilitate a colossal transfer of wealth from poor to rich, leading to the world economic crash we now witness. Margaret Thatcher was a hugely divisive figure in British politics. Reagan was a highly influential president during his time in office, and had a lot of responsibility concerning the Cold War. At a banquet in Belgrade the press sat next to the so-called "Garden Girls", who were the secretaries at No 10. This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. Rhetorical Analysis Of Margaret Thatcher's Speech 722 Words | 3 Pages . Reagan, for one, recognized the importance of Margaret Thatcher's presence as British prime minister, but would caution any discussionpartnerthat Pope John Paul played an equally important role. What saved Thatcher's bacon, and revolutionised her leadership, was Labour's unelectable Michael Foot and the Falklands war. Out! And nor could Thatcher, much to her relief as she allegedly abhorred the word, as doubtless Chanel did, too. Margaret Thatcher has 43 books on Goodreads with 14026 ratings. When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied Therein, 30 years ago, lay the great Thatcher asset and the electorally lethal Thatcher impact in Scotland. In the three years after the shipment they killed 224 and wounded scores more. Fourthly, policy was aimed at those who, according to the prime minister, wanted to get on in life. Second, it's now easier to see the scale of the setback she inflicted on Britain's idea of its own future. Their reckless private finance of public investment and services went beyond anything she dared dream of. In 11 years, Thatcher promoted only one woman to her cabinet, preferring instead to elevate men whom Spitting Image memorably and, in certain instances, accurately, described as "vegetables". 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. 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. The drastic results of these policies were intentional. She wanted to win, but did not put much faith in the quick smile. She was immensely brisk. 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. Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. "Labour is stuck because they do not want to carry on the slimming down of the state and devolution of power but nor do they really want to reverse it," said one central Tory figure. Emery Evans . That said, by the mid-1980s it was clear that the Conservative government's economic policy was based on a handful of core principles. I was on my own. When she walked into Downing Street promising harmony instead of discord, only one in seven children was poor and Britain was more equal than at any time in modern history. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. of times. Reversing Britain's long-term economic decline. "Maggie Thatcher" two fierce trochees set against the gentler iambic pulse of Britain's postwar welfare state. Thatcher was born as Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, England. One might even credit Thatcher with a willingness to jettison the old rules and conventions that used to prevent individuals deciding their own destiny. Words. Narrowly judged, the Thatcher economic revolution was a success. Edited text: This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980. Feminists disowned her by insisting that though she was a woman, she was not a sister. In January 1983 she 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. Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society", that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness. 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. 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". performance at a Press Conference afterwards, the Unable to win the leadership ballot outright, she stood on the steps of 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. Whatever Tory historians like to claim, this was the critical turning point. The machinery of modern political management polls, consulting, focus groups is deployed mainly to discover what will make aparty and politician better liked, or worse, disliked. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. Police charges against picketing union printers in Wapping enabled the Murdoch empire to flourish, ensuring their power and hers. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya in April 1986 and spoke She hated what she called "that French phrase laissez faire". She had just finished the first volume of her memoirs, which she insisted was all her own work. 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"). Everything has its season. It was not interested in a resolution. wrong with politics? The proportion of children living in relative poverty more than doubled during the 80s, and the damage has never been undone. I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. studying Thatcher's speeches . Steely, certainly. After the Dublin European Council in November 1979 she began a long battle Promises. Conscious of being awoman, and incapable of pretending otherwise. Few would argue that they have not endured. This is a political style, an aesthetic even, that has disappeared from view. Well, everything really, even her name. She wrecked her own party, while promoting, via many a tortuous turn, Labour's resurrection. 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. There are more than 8,000. Knocking up a flan for Denis or helping Carol with her algebra or Mark with his gun-running, are jarring distractions from the main narrative; woman as warrior queen. But these concrete achievements do not wholly explain why she still looms so large, large enough that not one but two current West End plays The Audience and Billy Elliot grant Thatcher a pivotal, if largely unsympathetic, role, whether seen or unseen. Her onslaught on the trade unions left those movements pale imitations of their former selves, too weak to resist the drive to the "flexible labour market" which has seen Britain become the home of what one senior Labour figure calls "crappy jobs", with low pay and no protection. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. Another head of government died recently who, like Thatcher, was called divisive. What, in retrospect, seems creative and what destructive? Today we have four coalmines and around 2,000 miners. It is full of insights into a neglected aspect of how Thatcher came to dominate British politics." (Andrew Gamble, University of Sheffield, UK) "A fascinating insight into the world of speech writing. Hats. Reagan, who had recently left office as governor of California, was in London to deliver a speech to the Pilgrim Society. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. It is no coincidence the three most influential centre-right thinktanks were all conceived over the following months. Among them was loyalist Brian Nelson, a former British soldier and member of the Ulster Defence Association. Arguably, it was not the sale of council houses that was the problem, but the failure to replace the stock and maintain a sufficient supply of affordable homes. 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. It was thoroughly "wet". In fact, several countries have adopted these ideas with startlingly successful results; just changing the wording on some forms raised an extra 200m income tax in Britain, while personalised text messages drastically reduced the use of bailiffs to recover court fines. It led to riots that nobody needed. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. Her political antennae refused to allow her to privatise the coal industry, British Rail or the post office. for turning. Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. September 25, 2020. It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. Trying to trim back spending in her department, she ended the milk subsidies for all children over the age of seven. This zest for ideas was boosted by the 2010 intake, which comprises just under half the parliamentary party. And in 1983, for the first time, children born in Britain to non-British parents were denied automatic citizenship, fostering further racism and discrimination in immigration policy. Strident, divisive, and in her own view infallible, and for these reasons hard to mourn.