She was not a writer. 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. That was before Thatcher modishly renamed the service British Telecom and sold it off. To Britons of my generation, she . We are all on our own. Viewed from today, that past Britain is indeed a foreign country. Maybe my memory is fanciful. The problem for Labour is that this issue so fundamental, since it underscores so much policy is unresolved in their ranks. MT gave her first 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. No elderly person would be deprived of the dignity of spectacles, dentures or a hearing aid because they couldn't afford them. But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. The papers date from Margaret Thatcher's childhood to the end of her life, and include tens of thousands of photographs, as well as a vast collection of press cuttings, and many audio and video tapes of public and private events. We were wary of this. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. Look inside your own house, at the water coming out of the tap: once a public utility but, after Thatcher, the property of private companies, many foreign-owned. 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 was lucky, in her enemies and friends notably Reagan in the Falklands conflict. 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. 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. She adopts an endearing and sentimental tone using ethos, repetition, and . She was catapulted into the Conservative leadership by a small group of ideologues centred around a thinktank, determined to roll back the statist ideas that dominated Britain after the postwar Attlee government. She continued for some reason to consider me worth talking to. Literature had nothing to do with politics, the Italian writers said. Thatcher has said that negotiation, and not strong economic sanctions, is the way to persuade South Africa's white-minority government to dismantle apartheid. 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. Why don't you get a proper job, she once sneered at me. Rhetorical Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Speech | ipl.org 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. 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. Reagan had sought to meet with then Prime Minister James Callaghan, but the request was rejected, and bucked to then Foreign Minister David Owen. There is now, however, an opportunity to commit to a new politics that learns lessons from her ambition yet undoes the damage and focuses on reconstruction. Back when we called her Maggie, when it seemed she would have her wish and "go on and on" in ruling the country, her opponents would lament some new step towards social ruin with the withering, two-word verdict: "Thatcher's Britain.". Peggy Noonan. Materialistic individualism was blessed as a virtue, the driver of national success. Tasteless." Under Heath and Jim Callaghan the question was widely asked: had democracies become "ungovernable"? Rhetorical Analysis Of Margaret Thatcher's Speech Maggie and Me: How Thatcher Changed Britain | The New Yorker But without any question, sitting behind her desk, she was wearing ahat. cent of cases. Narrowly judged, the Thatcher economic revolution was a success. Well, everything really, even her name. "She's jolly nice," one of them said, "much better to work for than [James] Callaghan." National Press Club Luncheon Speakers: Margaret Thatcher (Recorded Yet the Daily Mail has morefemale bylines than any other UK paper and is not exactly a totem of gender equality andfemale-friendliness. To use a less bizarre analogy: if Thatcher was the headmistress, they were junior teachers, authoritative but warm enough that you could call them "mum" by accident. She was right, he was wrong. A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. She was the first prime minister to be more accountable to the international market than to the British economy. In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. 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. After being asked to deliver a eulogy for the late Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech about her dear friend, and highlighted his best qualities through her writing. 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. declared that she wanted our money back, invited the As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. Accounts vary. Or maybe audiences just really, really hated her and wanted to blow off some steam. "Yes and that was one of the many weird things about her," smirked Alexei Sayle. Curiously, the phrase does not sound as dated as it should. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was known for her lack of a sense of humour. Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. 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 . recommended by Simon Heffer. three press interviews (15-17 November) when Howe's resignation speech 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". At her first conference speech, she chastised the Labour Party on economic . Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. I just now watched the British Gas one again. Thatcher was a divisive woman who created discord, not harmony. The government's welfare bill has been swollen by tax credits and housing benefit caused by the labour market reforms and council house sales of the 1980s. 4.44 avg rating 39 ratings 2 editions. Until her final poll-tax hubris, she knew when swerving was the better part of valour and despite that famous one-liner, she was sometimes for turning. I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . Margaret has spent her life fighting for social justice and equality. Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? But she became a very effective one. What Is Wrong With Margaret Thatcher's Voice On 'The Crown - Esquire 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." Having no social or political connection with the class most affected, she gave a very good impression of not caring. first television interview the following day. It came very hard, getting the words and paragraphs in the right order, a task for which, she eventually admitted, she had hired some help. Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per cent of cases. He was a political and historical figure and the need to accurately portray his legacy and prevent misleading hagiography easily outweighed precepts of death etiquette that prevail when a private person dies. Climate, freedom and denial: What "Green Thatcherism" teaches us today MT won election as Conservative leader on 11 February 1975 and gave a euphoric at The Hague in May 1992. speech which caused the Soviets to dub her "the Iron Lady", one Superlatives can be agreed: a remarkable first woman PM; the first winner of three elections in a row; brave; tough; relentless; clever; sleeplessly driven by a self-confident conviction that overawed her enemies. Alamat kami. I met her just once, as a reporter in the press pack that followed her tour around Greece and Yugoslavia in 1980. She gave it her best shot. Sue Gray used to be my boss. Of all the things to criticise Thatcher for, calling her out for being a woman seems like something of a wasted bullet. 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. Rhetorical Analysis Of Margaret Thatcher's Eulogy Speech | ipl.org No such alarms ring in Cameron's ears. Prime Minister Thatcher delivered the fourth speech to Congress by a British prime minister. The passing of Chvez is mourned by the many millions who loved him in Latin America and everywhere. at Brighton, insisting that the Conference go on and Their target was "the enemy within" working-class power and the so-called culture of entitlement. After material needs have been met, research has repeatedly shown that further rises in material standards contribute less and less to wellbeing. A distinction is often made between two traditions of British Conservative thought: the paternalist "one nation/middle way" tradition, and the more libertarian one that is associated with Margaret Thatcher. It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. Much of any leader's record is unremarkable dross, and Thatcher was no exception. 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 Mikhail Gorbachev, for one, learned the hard way. 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. (They also reveal how she loved to surround herself with yes men who were always men.) 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. be a nation in retreat". 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. Thatcher's use of rhetorical devices supports her eulogy because the concept of Reagan being more. 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. The 1978 meeting was their last in person until Mrs Thatcher became Reagan's first state visitor, 26-28 February 1981. What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. November 15, 2020 9:00 AM EST. But within a few years, a third of children were poor, a sign of the yawning inequality from which the country never recovered. Her gender led her into government and the shadow cabinet, despite Edward Heath's aversion to her. Philip Larkin visited Downing Street where the prime minister quoted approvingly one of his lines to him "Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives." Much has been written about the special significance and warmth of the British-American alliance during the two terms of Ronald Reagan. The Messed Up Truth About Margaret Thatcher - Grunge.com When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. They married the personality and belief to action. series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, replied Many of today's more controversial benefits, such as disability, date back to the 80s. In 2009, Boris Johnson lamented that Thatcher had become "a boo-word in British politics, a shorthand for selfishness and me-first-ism, and devil-take-the-hindmost and grinding the faces of the poor.". The last remnants of the postwar consensus were swept away in the ensuing decade a period that saw the crushing of the trade unions, the Big Bang in the City, council house sales, the privatisation of large chunks of industry, the encouragement of inward investment, tax cuts, attempts to roll back the state, a deep manufacturing recession, a boom in North Sea oil production, and support for the creation of a single market in Europe. 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! This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. Thatcher's Bruges speech 'not anti-EU' - former aide - BBC News The latest pit to close, Maltby in Yorkshire, still has a death and general purpose fund to help fellow miners and their families in times of hardship. We Americans will not see you again in our time, but we will never forget you. Norman and Margaret hold, and will always hold, a unique place in our esteem and affection. 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. This legacy remains intact with a party that places a premium on radical thinking and, for all its flaws, sets the political agenda. 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. 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. After leaving office, MT widened and deepened her criticism of the European A week later she spoke Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), who in 1979 would become Great Britain's first female Prime Minister, traveled to the United States and Canada in September 1975, seven months after becoming the leader of Britain's Conservative Party, then out of power. 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. In truth, Thatcher is one of the clearest examples of the fact that a successful woman doesn't always mean a step forward for women. The virtual state funeral will rehearse again our extravagant fixations. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.". I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. Demonising unions and stripping the great mass of private-sector workers of a voice and power in the workplace is still the root of the great living standards crisis that saw the share of wealth going to wages slide long before Lehman Brothers failed. be a nation in retreat". 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. Any attempts at revisionism do no favours to her, women or feminism. Witness the steady downgrading of local government or the persistent assumption that the private sector will always be better than the public. "What's going on there, mate?" 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 . Alexei Sayle blames Twitter and the "multiplicity of voices" in the modern world. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. 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. Reagan was received coolly, and the discussion was highly superficial, if only because the British side clearly did not care to engage on substance: meet for a serious discussion with a movie actor and a "Grade B" actor at that? It became obvious that, while granting that I had "convictions", she never read a word of my stuff. We liked disliking her. 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. Gloves. Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . Perhaps she had just come inside. Margaret Thatcher's environmental record: She was a climate hawk. She was among the first Western leaders to There are more than 8,000. "We have not Author: Margaret Thatcher Year: 1979 Location: London, the UK Occasion: Address to the Parliament. speech in July 1945, delivered in a town close to Grantham while she Her vision for Britain made a lot of people feel like outsiders, which made them the ideal audience for comedy. Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. She was an ardent pro-European, and her 1979 manifesto made no mention of radical union reform or privatisation. Out! Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher and British Conservatism's Politics If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't. Thatcher's title is Baroness. As she cut local housing budgets, she sent housing benefit soaring in compensation. Speech to Conservative Party Conference - Margaret Thatcher In rich societies such as the UK, what makes most difference to the real quality of our lives is the quality of community life and social interaction. In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. In a break with tradition and protocol, Reagan decided he'd also attend the "return dinner" at the British Embassy the next evening. Which raises the question: why isn't this happening now? Sharp definition, hard edges, no effort at fuzzy contours (David Cameron, take note). All rights reserved. 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. Margaret Thatcher 'the Lady's not for turning' - YouTube You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. 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. That gives them the nerve to set about cutting benefits and the public realm with a glee they don't bother to hide. Any such objections would have been invalid. In 1984 Britain had 186 working coalmines and approximately 170,000 coalminers. with concern about global warming, having done more than any other politician We have his example. April 17, 2013, 6:40 PM. Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" of British politics who died Monday at the age of 87, is being lionized as the woman who tilted British domestic and economic policy to the right. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), the United Kingdom's first female prime minister, served from 1979 until 1990. . 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. As the coalition sets about shrinking the welfare state, it's still embarked on Thatcher's project of rolling back the frontiers of the state, dismantling the settlement that held from 1945 until it unravelled in the 1970s. The Man Whose Powerful Critique of Socialism Influenced Margaret Thatcher Until then Thatcher had shown the strength of her weakness: a dislike of consensus and aversion to debate, leading to decisive action. Almost everything said of Thatcher's early years was untrue, partly through her own invention. 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". Thatcherism failed to destroy the welfare state. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told Critical Commentary: Margaret Thatcher outlined the British policy in relation to various world issues. I am reminded of this every time the debate comes up about whether more female bylines would reduce sexism in the media. Gillian Anderson's Portrayl of Margaret Thatcher's Voice in 'The Crown After the 1987 election, Thatcher cut an increasingly isolated figure. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. 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. make the case for intervention to protect Bosnia when Serb concentration All Rights Reserved. The remainder are listed without a text because . The speakers form a rollcall of the globe's most interesting thinkers: Amartya Sen, the Nobel-winning Indian economist; Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli psychologist and another Nobel winner; and Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, who focused on land rights for the poor. in a statement the following morning (22 November), hours before she Visit a station and notice the plethora of competing train companies, replacing the single British Rail that operated in the pre-Thatcher days the fruit of a rail privatisation that was not hers, but was made possible only by the serial privatisations she had pioneered and made normal. When Margaret Hilda Thatcher took over as Prime Minister, in May, 1979, I was sixteen. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, as far as can be known. Understandably, less cohesive societies with more drugs, more crime and lower mobility waste talent, and are not good places to do business. Feminists disowned her by insisting that though she was a woman, she was not a sister. Margaret Thatcher's speech writer will miss funeral but 'shed a tear' In her diminished presence I stared like an amateur astronomer unable to describe my awe at this distant phenomenon. Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off. The poll tax showed the opposite, the weakness of Thatcher's strength. But keeping the show on the road is what all of them must first attend to, because there's nobody else to do it. In October 1984 she survived an IRA bomb during the Conservative Conference On Sunday, looking down at the waterfront, I could see how these had been replaced by a housing estate, a supermarket, and sometimes by nothing at all. speech in the House of Commons, her Larkin's evoked the treacherous mind (of an adversary, of a cabinet colleague) helplessly exposed to her steely regard. We can't blame (or credit) her for all of this, of course. There's still the rage, still the unfairness, so where is the comedy? She may have got it slightly wrong. On the day Thatcher died, the Daily Mail ran a piece claiming that Coco Chanel "was a feminist before the word existed". Thirdly, industrial policy was all but abandoned. Margaret Thatcher was not known for her sense of humour. 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." She showed that modern prime ministers can still mark out room for individual manoeuvre. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, But awoman who, at the time, thought that chancellor was the top mark at which she might aim. Debate continues on whether Margaret Thatcher saved or destroyed British industry, but there is one industry that she practically created. She, for one, never underestimated her friend from California, then a state of some 24 million. "Fatcha" was an instant punchline back then: simply saying it was enough to get a laugh. She was a prime minister who happened to be a woman. Thatcher is remembered for her achievements, but more for a presence, which was wrapped up with being a woman. I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country as we continue to evolve. 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. Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in the 1984 Birthday honours for "services to the study of Economics". Bruges speech - Wikipedia 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. Oil helped Thatcher paper over the cracks, but Britain's age-old problem finding a way to pay its way in the world remains. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. 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. While "one nation" Conservatives condone some forms of redistribution, their libertarian . The spell of community. I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. June 5, 1992 - Is named a life peer on the Queen's honor list. Not even the Falklands war would push it off the tracks or damage it in any way. The best books on Margaret Thatcher - Five Books
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