Born a commoner, she died a baroness. For the right-wing icon, the first British female Prime Minister, receiving a noble title was perhaps the fulfilment of her aspirations. For Margaret Thatcher, with the right drive and determination, everything is possible.
Many of Margaret Thatcher’s ideas survived and provided the cornerstone of Tony Blair’s New Labour
People need to believe in and help themselves, rather than wait to be helped. Poverty is a sign of weakness and the poor have only themselves to blame.
Of course, Thatcher never knew what it meant to be poor. Her father may have been a grocer but was rich enough to pay her studies at Oxford. Then she married a successful businessman who could afford to finance her rise into the upper echelons of the ‘aristocratic’, Conservative Party.
At the peak of her political career, good marketing changed ‘Mrs Thatcher’ into ‘Maggie’, to boost her popular appeal. The Prime Minister may have been self-confident, tough and domineering but she was still a mother and housewife.
It was also the work of the Saatchis, to project her to the world as ‘the Iron Lady’. The nickname was originally coined by the Russians to tease Thatcher. She came to like it for she believed that “the Lady is not for turning’’.
When Thatcher arrived in Downing Street in 1979, Britain was considered to be the ‘sick man of Europe’. The empire was gone but its wasteful habits lingered on. For a while, North Sea oil financed Britain’s excesses. Its economy was in long-term decline: inflation exceeded 20 per cent, many employees were on reduced working hours and it had been forced to seek a bailout from the IMF. To make things worse for the country, the world economy was in recession and, by 1981, unemployment surpassed the three million mark.
Unemployment was considered to be public enemy number one. Thatcher decided to break away from the past, to combat big government and let the market run the economy. Priority shifted to controlling inflation. Public enterprise became a dirty word and Thatcher abolished State controls and embarked on an extensive privatisation programme.
The Iron Lady considered organised labour to be her main enemy at home. The showdown came in 1984-85 when the National Union of Mineworkers went on a strike that lasted for more than a year. Thatcher outlasted the miners and dealt a fatal blow to the trade union movement.
Still, she did nothing to stop the decline of British manufacturing and just hoped that this would be made good for by the boom in financial services. The centre of gravity of Britain’s economy shifted dangerously towards ‘paper’ capitalism. Thatcher drastically cut corporate taxes and income tax rates for the super rich were halved. She was in favour of strengthening the European Single Market but resisted giving up the sterling for her country to join the euro.
On the international front, Thatcher’s opportunity came in April 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. She did not hesitate to send the British navy to recapture the far-away, south Atlantic islands. This victory consecrated her global reputation.
Teaming up with Ronald Reagan, she too was instrumental in ending the Cold War and bringing down the Soviet system.
The ideas and beliefs followed by the tandem led to a paradigm shift in public policymaking as well as academic study. They gave birth to the neoliberal era, with its blind faith in market forces and materialistic individualism.
This new thinking quickened the pace of globalisation and radically transformed the State and economics in the last two decades and a half. The 2008 financial meltdown proved to be a reality check for utopia promised by neoliberalism. The return of big government was necessary to save the financial sector from its own greed.
Thatcher’s achievements came at a high price, especially for British middle and lower classes. For her success in life was just about making money.
Her defenders claim that she was misinterpreted when she was quoted as saying that “there is no such thing as society”. There is no doubt that she did weaken community life. Social inequality and poverty grew worse since her rule. Thatcher’s strong hand enabled her to become the first Prime Minister to win three elections in a row.
She proved that there can be more to modern leadership than following citizen surveys. Eleven years as Premier changed her steadfastness to hard-headedness.
Her insistence to introduce a poll tax, whereby the rich and poor would pay the same for local government services, persuaded her own Cabinet to mutiny against her. She was forced to resign but many of her ideas survived and provided the cornerstone of Tony Blair’s New Labour.
Thatcher was as controversial in her death as she was in her public life. Many commentators felt no remorse and deemed that in death “we are not all as one”.
Her passing away rekindled such deep resentments that people took to the streets to rejoice and almost 3,000 individuals joined the Facebook group Maggie’s Good Riddance Party. Liverpool fans carried a banner reading: “You didn’t care when you lied, we don’t care when you died”.
Thatcher has been a beacon of right-wing politics. Many of the issues she addressed continue to confront and divide public opinion.
Like her or not, she surely was a person of high conviction. David Cameroon told the BBC, “we are all Thatcherites now”.
Well, not entirely true.
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