These talks, sometimes joined by the prime minister and run by his aide Rohan Silva, show the restless search for new ideas that still grips the right, one of the least recognised legacies of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher - HISTORY In front of his journalist colleagues he was told to stand right in front of her so that she could hit him lightly with her order papers. 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. Margaret Thatcher, Signed Speech on Hayek, 2003, Estimate 1,500-2,000 . The virtual state funeral will rehearse again our extravagant fixations. In 1979 she inherited a nation that was the "sick man of Europe", an object of constant transatlantic ridicule. She made one While some remember her as a national saviour, others only see her ruthless demolition of flailing state-owned industries. Selling public housing to the tenants who occupied it was another, on top of the denationalisation of industries and utilities once thought to be ineluctably and for ever in the hands of the state. Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Congress - Hillsdale College Thatcher was suspicious of democracy. There were big tax cuts for those on the highest incomes, driven by the belief that this would encourage entrepreneurship. People would denounce them unequivocally, often in graphic terms. Too timid, too in thrall, the 13-year Labour government rarely dared challenge the attitudes she planted in the national psyche. John O'Sullivan, CBE (born 25 April 1942) is a British conservative political commentator and journalist. Either way, I'm an adult now and none of those things are on telly any more so there's no excuse for apathy. Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told rejecting Commission proposals at the Rome European Council with the words We were not unique in such a response but she failed to appreciate that Scots are balanced, canny folk insofar as we have a well-developed chip on each shoulder. Rows with Lawson and Geoffrey Howe over a European currency (where she was right) presaged the final shambles of the poll tax. declared that she wanted our money back. It's true that whenever there's a major news story, millions of people immediately begin strip-mining it for puns and bon mots, making it harder for professional comics to develop focused, funny material that nobody's heard before. Behind "omnishambles" headlines, her revolution is being pushed forward on new fronts in schools, health, planning, policing, probation and welfare. 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. One might even credit Thatcher with a willingness to jettison the old rules and conventions that used to prevent individuals deciding their own destiny. 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. It was a visit warmly welcomed by President Reagan, with a resplendent state nner on the first evening. 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. But Thatcher was still cautious. This is a style whose absence is much missed. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. 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. A senior civil servant said, "It worked because we all knew exactly what she wanted.". She lost seven cabinet ministers on the Europe question, a record that permeated the party for years afterwards. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady". I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. It was all very well for me to write books. As coal, steel and shipbuilding fell under her wrecking ball, whole communities were destroyed. It was mostly foreigners who could not understand why she fell. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. 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. It knew what Thatcher wanted. 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. They were puzzled by the Scots' antipathy, given the Falklands war and the strong militaristic history of the Highlands and elsewhere. If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't. Whatever Tory historians like to claim, this was the critical turning point. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. The US academic Cass Sunstein was in Britain at the end of last month. Margaret Thatcher was a hugely divisive figure in British politics. For miners, greed was a destructive force, not a force for good. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. A big decline in traditional industries took place across Europe and the US in the 80s and 90s. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady", one Edited text: This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980. She usually knew the limits to public tolerance, gauging how much of the spirit of '45 abided, so even if it was between gritted teeth, she forced herself to say, "The NHS is safe in our hands": she reorganised but did not privatise it. Everything has its season. She was immensely brisk. 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. How dare her apologists and beneficiaries of her legacy refer to trade unions like the NUM as "corrupt" in the face of their bonuses and tax cuts! That's history, but what matters to us is her legacy now that her heirs and imitators rule in her wake. In 1968 she gave a lecture asking What's She had left a Britain marked by private affluence and public squalor. Hats. 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. Critical Commentary: Margaret Thatcher outlined the British policy in relation to various world issues. This legacy remains intact with a party that places a premium on radical thinking and, for all its flaws, sets the political agenda. The remainder are listed without a text because . She mesmerised us. 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. 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? Yet I wrote columns of pretty unremitting hostility to most of what she did. Though the Prime Minister was known to shed a tear or two during her 11 years leading the United Kingdom . 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. News of Margaret Thatcher's death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her. TRIBUTES were paid last night to Sir Bernard Ingham, the longstanding press secretary to Margaret Thatcher and a columnist in The Yorkshire Post until just a few weeks ago. Thatcher's most baleful influence on government was not on industries and services she privatised but those she did not. To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. The Iron Lady had a green thumband a surprisingly green philosophy. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. Many of today's more controversial benefits, such as disability, date back to the 80s. And he would credit the contribution of Helmut Kohl, who rose to power in Germany in part because of the influence of Thatcher and Reagan. For she changed the ethos of Britain as well as its landscape. 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. A growing body of research now shows that the quality of social relations is among the most powerful influences on the happiness, health and wellbeing of populations in the rich countries. Margaret Thatcher - UN General Assembly Climate Change Speech (1989) She may have got it slightly wrong. This was most evident in the shooting dead of three unarmed IRA activists in Gibraltar in March 1988. Scotland was her mission impossible. a new dominance from Brussels", the Talk to a Labour MP and you end up discussing politics and positioning; talk to a Tory, and it tends to be about policy. led Michael Heseltine to run against her for the party leadership. During the speech, . The Independent has the story. In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. Sir Bernard died after a short illness, his family said. The Cameron generation wrongly see in the 1980s a revolution to emulate, starting with an economic crisis just like hers, as a chance to reshape everything. Out! 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. National Press Club Luncheon Speakers: Margaret Thatcher (Recorded At the time, Thatcher was the education secretary her first major political role. Underestimating Ronald Reagan was an error committed by many of his critics and opponents; Reagan never minded a bit, thinking that being underestimated yielded him a significant advantage. In her eulogy for the former president, Thatcher uses specific structure, tone and diction, and word choices throughout her writing to . 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. The first time I met Margaret Thatcher, I swear she was wearing gloves. 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. June 5, 1992 - Is named a life peer on the Queen's honor list. Literature had nothing to do with politics, the Italian writers said. Larkin's evoked the treacherous mind (of an adversary, of a cabinet colleague) helplessly exposed to her steely regard. Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. That was before Thatcher modishly renamed the service British Telecom and sold it off. M argaret Thatcher does an awful lot of crying in The Crown. Watch a million words pour out today placing her anywhere from Boudicca to the wicked witch of the west. Defending The Venezuelan Embassy, Organizing Peace for Ukraine with She was right, he was wrong. The cautious tactician was suppressed. Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Heath: they seem, by comparison, evanescent figures. series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, 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. It was a watershed moment in Irish politics. 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. Toastmasters International -Famous Speechwriters Draining down those 11 years to their memorable essence, what does one light upon? 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. 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. Typically, this distinction is mapped onto the ideas that Conservatives hold about equality. Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. Only today are we facing the cost. 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. In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. We might now be taking stock, post credit crunch, of our losses and gains since the 1986 deregulation of the City, but it is doubtful that we will ever undo her legacy. But she also provided great material. There are many reasons for this. They looked after their old and young as well as those who were ill or infirm. She would, say some who knew her, have a found a way to finesse a change of direction by now. with concern about global warming, having done more than any other politician studying Thatcher's speeches . (No wonder it sold 7m copies a week). "The News" was the pompous conduit through which we suckled at the barren baroness through newscaster wet-nurses, naturally; not direct from the steel teat. The most widely used measure of income differences shows inequality increasing by more than a third during her period in office. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. Margaret Thatcher Essay: Health Category. She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation. In this moment she inspired only curiosity, a pale phantom, dumbly filling her day. ", 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 woman, however, changed. Flags were flying over Port Stanley on 14 June. Thatcher jokes were big business, from Rik Mayall's student rants in The Young Ones, to Harry Enfield's satire of Thatcher's children with his Loadsamoney character. Asked to report on the "state of things" in our country, we could barely see past her. On 30 October 1990 she made the first of the And nor could Thatcher, much to her relief as she allegedly abhorred the word, as doubtless Chanel did, too. The word "free" is used to help the audience But now the history was what mattered. To Britons of my generation, she . Firstly, control of inflation rather than the pursuit of full employment was the centrepiece of macro economic strategy. 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. On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. Thatcher's reputation never recovered from the ruthless budgets of 1980 and 1981, or her insensitivity to colleagues. Such items have an 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. 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.". 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!" 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. She famously changed the law after Bobby Sands was elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. The left misleads us and maybe itself when it says that Thatcher's policies, extended by New Labour and then by the coalition, have failed. camps were revealed in August 1992. Margaret has spent her life fighting for social justice and equality. We can't blame (or credit) her for all of this, of course. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually. 1971 was the year of Ted Heath's Conservative government, which was trying to make huge savings to the budget. 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. But Labour is no less in thrall. History, Sample Essay. Scottish and by extension UK politics has been skewed ever since. Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Eulogy By Margaret Thatcher an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not The eulogy is a good illustration of Thatcher's feelings for . Though the Thatcher years could also be called the Saatchi years, reaching a new level of presentational sophistication in the annals of British politics, they weren't about getting the leader liked. That did the trick.). For those of us who were dismayed by her brisk distaste for that cosy state-dominated world, it was never enough to dislike her. Large parts of society never recovered, while Germany and other countries managed the transition without such brutality. bowling at the Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November) and gave It was a Charles I moment in British history. How Does Ronald Reagan Use Syntax In A Throw To Our Dead opportunities. 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. Some places have become heritage parks, remembering an industry now vanished. recommended by Simon Heffer. In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. make the case for intervention to protect Bosnia when Serb concentration 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. True, Labour, James Callaghan and the unions played their part by blocking Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife attempt to create German or Nordic co-operation between unions and industry that might have rescued unions from Thatcher's crushing. And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown.". An Inconvenient Truth About Margaret Thatcher: She Was a Climate Hawk. Cabinet rank in 1970 without appearing on television more than a handful 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. Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008. It was under her leadership that in 1982 that the Force Research Unit (FRU) was established within the British Army Intelligence Corps. Handbag. We have his example. At times the Conservative party is so anarchic as to appear almost ungovernable, like a plethora of pressure groups pushing pet causes rather than a united group ruthlessly focusing on political success. Perhaps we suspected that reality had created a character beyond our creative reach. The Crown: How Margaret Thatcher Was Removed from Power in 1990 - ELLE Today we have four coalmines and around 2,000 miners. 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. The lady was too shrewd to try that, and barely succeeded in reducing the share of the national income taken by the public sector. Thatcher answered that question, re-energising the concept of democratic leadership.