Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday aged 87, was a politi-cal giant who transformed the British economy and completely changed the country’s political landscape. She was Britain’s first and only woman Prime Minister as well as the first woman to lead a major Western industrialised democracy.
Thatcher knew exactly what she wanted to achieve and had the courage of her convictions
Thatcher, nicknamed the ‘Iron Lady’ was a strong-willed woman who divided public opinion and who did not believe in consensus. She defied the odds to become leader of the Conservative Party, knew exactly what she wanted to achieve and had the courage of her convictions.
She won three successive general elections by a landslide and was the longest serving British Prime Minister in modern times.
Along with Clement Atlee, Labour Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951, who set up the National Health Service and created the modern British welfare state, Thatcher will probably go down as the most important peacetime Prime Minister of the UK in the modern era. She was not only a national politician of great significance but also a key figure on the global stage.
When Thatcher was first elected in May 1979 Britain was then commonly referred to in international circles as the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. The inflation rate in 1979 was 13 per cent, the country was plagued by strikes, the economy was stagnant, loss making state-owned industries were being heavily subsidised and in 1976 the country had to request a bailout from the IMF.
It was against this backdrop that Thatcher was elected by a massive majority in 1979. During her 11-year period in office, Thatcher diminished the role of the state in the economy, slashed taxes and public expenditure, reformed welfare, curbed the excessive power and influence of the trade unions, kept inflation under control, liberalised the labour market and the economy, privatised numerous government-owned companies and industries, created a share owning democracy, sold off council housing to tenants, brought Britain back from the brink of ungovernability and presided over impressive economic growth.
She also liberalised the stock market and financial services in what is known as the ‘Big Bang’ – in effect a mini revolution which resulted in the financial sector becoming a major pillar of the British economy.
A number of analysts, however, have argued that Britain is now too dependent on the finance sector and its liberalisation went too far and contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
Thatcher also defeated militant organised labour and introduced legislation which made voting by workers compulsory before any strike action can be ordered. She confronted the miners’ union in a bitter dispute in 1984-85 when she closed a number of unproductive pits, causing thousands of miners to lose their job. The miners decided to go on strike but capitulated after a year.
This defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers was a major victory for Thatcher and her Conservative Party. The NUM was one of the strongest unions in the country and had brought about the collapse of the Conservative Government led by Edward Heath through strike action in 1974, so Thatcher’s victory over them in 1985 was very symbolic. However, it came at a high cost, as entire mining communities were devastated through massive job losses.
Although Thatcher’s economic legacy is largely positive, and successive governments, both Conservative and Labour, did not repeal most of her reforms, she was a divisive figure and could appear to be insensitive and uncaring to the plight of those who were struggling, especially those who lost their jobs as a result of her policies.
Unemployment shot up during the early years of her premiership and the jobless rate remained particularly high in some northern cities.
Thatcher’s policies and the fact that the Conservative Party won four successive elections (the last one under John Major in 1992) had a profound effect on British politics. The election of Tony Blair as Labour leader in 1994 was, in fact, a turning point.
Under Blair, Labour moved to the political centre, embraced the market and accepted many of Thatcher’s economic policies, such as privatisation and the taming of the trade unions.
Indeed, when asked to name her greatest achievement, Thatcher is said to have replied: “Tony Blair”.
As Peter Mandelson, one of the founders of New Labour, told The Independent: “The effect of Margaret Thatcher was to remind the Labour Party that it had to listen to the public and not just its activist base in order to be elected. In particular, we had to speak to the aspirational working class to whom Lady Thatcher appealed and who we had to win back”.
Thatcher also drastically changed the Conservative Party, turned it to the right, made it almost irrelevant in Scotland and transformed it into an English eurosceptic party – something which has had a profound effect on the British public’s perception of Europe as well as how the UK deals with the EU today.
Although Thatcher keenly supported the Single European Act, in 1986 she became increasingly hostile to further European integration and strongly opposed the single currency. Her September 1988 Bruges speech marked a turning point for her party on Europe and from then on she became more and more antagonistic towards the EU. This split the party, which contributed to her downfall in 1990.
On the international front, Thatcher was a major figure who helped defeat communism, recognised that Mikhail Gorbachev was indeed different to his predecessors and liberated the Falklands from Argentinian military occupation – which certainly took a lot of guts. Many of her economic reforms served as a model for other countries, notably the new democracies of Eastern and Central Europe.
Together with President Ronald Reagan, she forged a rock solid UK-US relationship and pursued a policy of peace through strength which greatly contributed to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. She was no American puppet, however, and strongly opposed the US invasion of Granada when this took place in October 1983. She was, nevertheless, on the wrong side of history on South Africa and infamously dismissed the African National Congress (ANC) as “a typical terrorist organisation”.
In Northern Ireland, Thatcher was a tough and uncompromising believer in the Union, was despised by Irish Republicans and narrowly escaped death in an IRA terrorist bomb attack on her Brighton hotel at the Conservative Party Conference in October 1984. She did, however, sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, a substantial political achievement which paved the way for the improved relations between Republicans and Unionists that eventually led to the peace process.
Soon after her third electoral victory in 1987, Thatcher became increasingly intolerant towards her own ministers, and she made the fatal mistake of wanting to introduce the hated poll tax, which was very controversial and opposed by many Conservatives.
The resignation of her deputy Prime Minister, Geoffrey Howe, in November 1990 over policy differences on Europe, followed by a dramatic resignation speech in Parliament, finally triggered her downfall after her Cabinet colleagues told her she could not win a leadership election.
Whatever one thinks of her, Thatcher is, without doubt, one of the towering figures of modern times who changed the political landscape of her country and of the world.