"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope."
-Margaret Thatcher, 1979, Paraphrase of "Prayer of Saint Francis" upon arrival at 10 Downing Street
(Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013. Served as the only female Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 through 1990. Her nickname, given to her by Soviet Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda [Red Star], was "The Iron Lady." Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Prologue: Margaret Thatcher Ushers In a New Era of Conservative Politics in Western Democracies
In the 1970's, the outlook on conservatism in the Western world was bleak. During much of the time between World War II and that particular decade, nations in both Europe and North America had grown more and more leftist in nature. This was also the case in Great Britain, where between 1964 and 1979, the Labour Party dominated the House of Commons under the leadership of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, with the exception of the period stretching from 1970-1974, when Edward Heath, a Conservative Party member, was British Prime Minister. With the Winter of Discontent crisis of 1978-79 -- which refers to the time where there were widespread strikes by public sector trade unions demanding larger pay raises following the ongoing pay caps of the Labour Party government led by PM Callaghan against Trades Union Congress opposition to control inflation during the coldest winter in 16 years -- causing much controversy in the way the British public viewed how the government attempted to manipulate the rate of inflation as well as pay wages and soaring unemployment, this led to the victory of Conservative party opposition leader Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 general election, and a new era of conservative politics in Western democracy was born.
Thatcher's Early Life and Education (1925-1948)
Margaret Hilda Robert Thatcher was born on October 13, 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire. She spent her early life in Grantham, where her father, Alfred Roberts, owned two grocery shops. Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and local preacher, and raised Margaret to be a devout Wesleyan Methodist. Alfred came from a Liberal family, but stood as an Independent as was customary in local government. He was Mayor of Grantham in 1945-46 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950.
Margaret attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School. Her school reports showed evidence of her hard work and continual improvement, and she engaged in several extracurricular activities ranging from the arts to athletics. She was head girl in 1942-43. Her collegiate career saw her enroll at Oxford University in 1943, where she studied Chemistry, and graduate in 1947 with Second-Class Honours in the four-year Chemistry Bachelor of Science degree. In her final year, she specialized in X-ray crystallography under the tutelage. Margaret became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946, with her political influences while at the university being such works as Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944), which condemned economic intervention by governments as a precursor to an authoritarian state. After graduating, she moved to Colchester in Essex to work as a research chemist for BX Plastics. In 1948, Margaret applied for a job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), but was rejected after the personnel department concluded she was "headstrong, obstinate, and dangerously self-opinionated." Such characteristics as these that were bestowed upon Margaret by the company would go a long way toward describing her characteristics in her decision making processes as Prime Minister.
Thatcher's Early Political Careers and Her Years as a Member of Parliament (MP): (1948-1970)
Margaret joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno in 1948 as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. One of her friends was also a friend of the Chair of the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent, who were looking for candidates. Officials of the association were so impressed with Margaret that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the Conservative Party's approved list. She was selected in January 1951 at the age of 25 and added to the approved list post ante. She met her future husband, Denis Thatcher, at a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1951. In December of that year, the two married.
In 1950 and 1951, Margaret Thatcher, as she was now known by, was the Conservative candidate for the safe Labour seat in Dartford, where she attracted media attention as the youngest and only female candidate. Though she lost both times to her opponent Norman Dobbs, she managed to reduce the Labour majority by first 6,000 votes, and then later an additional 1,000. During the campaigns, Thatcher was supported by her parents and husband Denis, who would later fund her studies for the bar. Thatcher qualified as a barrister in 1953, and specialized in taxation. That same year, she gave birth to her twins Carol and Mark.
In 1954, Thatcher was narrowly defeated when she sought selection as the Conservative candidate of the Orpington by-election of January 1955. Afterwards, she began searching for a Conservative safe seat and was selected as the candidate for Finchley in April 1958, narrowly beating Montagu Fraser. She was selected as the Member of Parliament (MP) after a hard-fought campaign in the 1959 election. Her maiden speech was in support of her private member's bill Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings Act 1960) requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public. In 1961, she went against the Conservative Party's platform by voting for the restoration of birching as a judicial corporal punishment. She regarded Finchley's Jewish residents "her people" and became a founding member of the Anglo-Israel Friendship League of Finchley as well as the Conservative Friends of Israel. Her stance on Israel was that it had to trade land for peace, and she condemned Israel's 1981 bombing of Osirak as a "grave breach of international law."
October 1961 saw Thatcher promoted to the front bench of the Parliament Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Harold Macmillan's administration. After the Conservatives lost the election in 1964, she became the spokesperson on Housing and Land, in which position she advocated her party's policy of allowing tenants to buy their council houses. In 1966, she moved to the Shadow Treasury team and, as Treasury spokeswoman, opposed Labour's mandatory price and income controls, arguing that they would produce effects contrary to those intended, and distort the economy.
In 1967, she was selected by the United States Embassy to take part in the International Visitor Leadership Program (or what used to be called Foreign Leader Program), a professional exchange program that gave her the opportunity to spend six weeks visiting various U.S. cities and political figures as well as such institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Later that year, Thatcher joined the Shadow Cabinet, where she was appointed Fuel and Power Spokeswoman by opposition leader Edward Heath. Shortly before the 1970 general election, she promoted to Shadow Transport spokeswoman and later to Education.
Thatcher as the Education Secretary and Cabinet Minister: (1970-1974)
The Conservatives under Edward Heath won the general election of 1970. Subsequently, Thatcher was appointed by the new Prime Minister to the Cabinet post as Secretary of State for Education and Science. During her first months in the position, she attracted attention as a result of the administration's attempts to cut spending. Thatcher gave priority to academic needs in schools. She imposed public expenditure cuts on the state education system, resulting in the abolition of free milk to schoolchildren ages 7-11. Her position was that few children would suffer if schools were charged for milk, but she agreed to provide younger children with a third of a pint daily for nutritional purposes. Cabinet papers later revealed that she had opposed the policy, but had been forced into it by the Treasury. Her decision lead to protests from Labour and the press, and led to the public nicknaming her "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher." It is reported that Thatcher considered leaving politics in the aftermath of this unpopular policy decision, and she would later write in her autobiography: "I learned a valuable lesson [from the experience]. I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit."
Thatcher's term of office was characterized by proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and instead adopt comprehensive secondary education. Though she was committed to the tiered secondary modern-grammar school system and was determined to preserve grammar schools, during her tenure as Education Secretary she only declined 326 of 3,612 for schools to become comprehensives, resulting in the proportion of students attending comprehensive schools rising from 32% to 62%.
Thatcher as Leader of the Opposition: (1975-1979)
Prime Minister Heath's government struggled with oil embargoes and union demands for wage increases. As a result, the Conservatives lost the February 1974 general election. Labour formed a minority government and won a narrow victory over the Conservatives in the October 1974 general election. At this point, Heath had a tenuous grip on the leadership role of the Conservative Party. Thatcher was not the obvious candidate to be his successor, but did eventually become the main challenger, proposing a fresh start. Her main support came from the Conservative 1922 committee, and she defeated Heath on the first ballot and he resigned from his post. In the second ballot, Thatcher defeated William Whitelaw, Heath's preferred successor, and became party leader and Leader of the Opposition on February 11, 1975. For the rest of his life, Heath remained bitter toward Thatcher for what he perceived to be her disloyalty.
Thatcher began attending lunches with members of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank founded by one of Friedrich von Hayek's disciples by the name of Antony Fisher. It was at these lunches that she was influenced by the ideas of Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon, and she became the face of opposition against the welfare state that permeated British society. The organization, along with Thatcher, believed that Keynesian economics was hurting the British economy, and their pamphlets proposed less government, less taxes, and more freedom for businesses and consumers. These ideas would heavily influence the economic policies she would enact during her premiership.
In one of her most famous speeches she delivered on January 19, 1976, Thatcher delivered a scathing attack on the Soviet Union:
"The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial power the world has ever seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about anything before guns."
The Soviet Defense Ministry responded in kind through its official newspaper Krasnaya Zvesda (English translation "Red Star") by calling her the "Iron Lady." It was a nickname she gladly accepted, and one which defined her stances on government policies.
Thatcher worked to prevent the creation of a Scottish assembly, instructing Conservative MP's to vote against the Scotland and Wale Bill in December 1976. The bill was defeated, and then when new Bills were proposed she supported amending the legislation to allow the English to vote in the 1979 referendum on devolution.
In mid-1978, the economy began to improve and the polls showed Labour in the lead, with a general election expected later that year and a Labour victory a serious possibility. Prime Minister James Callaghan shocked many Britons by announcing there would be no general election held until 1979. Thatcher reacted to this by calling the Labour Party "chickens," and Liberal Party leader David Steel acted in kind by saying Labour was "running scared."
The Callaghan government then faced fresh public unease about the direction of the country and a damaging series of strikes during the winter of 1978-79 which became known as the Winter of Discontent. The Conservatives reacted, attacking the Labour government's unemployment record, using advertising with the slogan "Labour Isn't Working." A general election was called after Callaghan's government lost a motion of no confidence in early 1979. This led the Conservatives to a victory in the 1979 general election, and as a result, Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Thatcher as Prime Minister: (1979-1990)
Her Policies on Race and Immigration
Her record on race is a topic on which Thatcher is highly criticized by her opponents. She was the Leader of the Opposition during a period of great racial tension. In commenting about the local elections of May 1977, The Economist noted "The Tory (Conservative) tide swamped the smaller parties. That specifically includes the National Front, who suffered a clear decline from last year." Her standing in the polls rose by 11% after a January 1978 interview for World in Action in which Thatcher said:
"The British character has done so much for democracy, for law, and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in," and, "in many ways [minorities] add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened."
In the 1979 general election, Conservatives attracted voters from the National Front, whose support had almost collapsed. In a July 1979 meeting with Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Home Secretary William Whitelaw, Thatcher objected to the number of Asian immigrants, in context to limiting the number of Vietnamese boat people settling in the UK to fewer than 10,000.
Her Economic and Taxation Policies
Thatcher's economic policy was characterized for it being influenced by monetarist thinking and by noted economists Milton Friedman and Alan Walters. Together with Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe, she lowered direct taxes on income and raised indirect taxes. Thatcher then increased interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thereby reduce inflation, introduced cash limits on public spending, and reduced expenditures on social services such as education and housing.
Some Heath disciples in the Cabinet questioned Thatcher's policies. The 1981 riots in England led the media to suggest a redirecting of Thatcher's policies. Thatcher addressed this issues openly at the 1980 Conservative Party conference in a speech written by playwright Ronald Miller that included the lines: "You turn in if you want to. The lady's not for turning!"
Thatcher was noted for sticking to her guns when it came to creating public policy, and this would definitely be put to the test in the early 1980's with the raging recession. In December 1980, Thatcher's approval rating sank to 23%, the lowest recorded percentage of any Prime Minister in British history. As the recession raged on, she increased taxes much to the chagrin and concern of 364 economists who, in statement they signed, expressed their concerns toward the end of March 1981.
By 1982, however, the UK began to show signs of economic recovery. Inflation had decreased from a high of 18% down to 8.6%. There was one very disturbing economic trend burdening the British economy, however, and that was the level of unemployment. At that point of economic recovery, Britain had over 3 million people without jobs. By 1983, overall economic growth was even stronger, with inflation and mortgage rates being at their lowest levels since 1970, though manufacturing had dropped off by 30% since 1978. Still, unemployment remained high, peaking at 3.3 million in 1984.
By 1987, unemployment was falling, the economy was stable and strong, and inflation was low. Opinion polls showed that the Conservatives had a comfortable lead, prompting Thatcher to call for a general election for June of that year despite the deadline for an election being 12 months away. Thatcher won a third successive election.
Thatcher reformed local government by replacing domestic rates -- a tax based on a nominal rental value of a home -- with the Community Charge (or poll tax) in which each amount was charged to each adult resident. The Community Charge was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in England and Wales in 1990. The policy proved to be among the most unpopular of her premiership. Public disquiet led to a riot of anywhere between 70,000 to 200,000 protesters in London on March 31, 1990 in Trafalgar Square, which deteriorated into what is now referred to as the Poll Tax Riots. Approximately 113 people were injured and 340 arrested. The Community Charge was abolished by Thatcher's successor, John Major.
Her Policies Regarding Industrial Relations
Thatcher was committed to reducing the power of labor unions. She accused labor unions of undermining parliamentary democracy and economic performance through their engagement in strikes. Several unions went on strike in response to legislation introduced to curb their power, but resistance eventually collapsed. Only 39% of union members voted for Labour in 1983. According to the BBC, Thatcher "managed to destroy the power of the trade unions for almost a generation."
The miner's strike was the biggest confrontation between unions and the Thatcher government. In March 1984, the National Coal Board (NCB) proposed to close 20 of the 174 state-owned mines and cut 20,000 of the 187,000 jobs. Two-thirds of Britain's miners, led by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) under Arthur Scargill, downed tools in protest. Scargill had refused to hold a ballot on the strike, having previously lost three ballots on a national strike, leading to the strike being declared illegal. Thatcher refused to meet the union's demands, and compared their dispute to the Falklands War two years earlier (1982). She declared in a speech:
"We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty."
After a year on strike, in March 1985, the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. The cost to the economy was estimated at around 1.5 billion pounds, and the strike was blamed for much of the pound's fall against the U.S. dollar. Miners helped bring down the Heath government. Thatcher was determined to succeed where he had failed. Her strategy of preparing fuel stocks, appointing a union-busting NCB by the name of Ian MacGregor, and ensuring police were adequately trained and equipped with riot gear, contributed to her success in defeating labor unions.
Her Policy of Privatization
(Above: Thatcher on a visit to the University of Salford, 1982. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
The policy of privatization was crucial in Thatcher's economic policies that were common referred to as "Thatcherism." After 1983, the sale of state utilities accelerated, and more than 29 million pounds were raised from the sale of nationalized industries, as well as 18 billion pounds from the sale of council houses.
The policy of privatization, especially in the preparation of implementing it, was associated with the marked improvements in performance, particularly in the realm of labor productivity. The privatization of utilities industries such as gas, water, and electricity, were what was considered natural monopolies and thus there was little increase in competition. The privatization of industries that showed improved often did so while still being owned by the state. British Steel made great gains in profitability while still being a state-run industry under the government-appointed chairmanship Ian MacGregor, who faced down the trade-union opposition to close plants and reduce the workforce by half. To compensate for the loss of direct government control, regulation was greatly expanded, with the foundation of regulatory bodies like Ofgas, Oftel, and the National Rivers Authority. There was no clear pattern to the degrees of competition, regulation, and performance behind privatized industries. In most cases, privatization benefit consumers in terms of lower prices and better efficiency, but they came with mixed results.
Thatcher always resisted privatizing British Rail, telling Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley that "Railway privatization will be the Waterloo of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again." However, British Rail did become privatized under Thatcher's successor, John Major. It was termed as "a disaster" by The Economist.
The privatization of public assets were combined with financial deregulation in an attempt to fuel economic growth. Geoffrey Howe abolished Britain's exchange controls in 1979, allowing more capital to be invested in foreign markets, and the Big Bang of 1986 removed many restrictions on the London Stock Exchange. The Thatcher government encouraged growth in the finance and service sections of the economy to compensate for the nation's ailing manufacturing industry.
Thatcher on Northern Ireland
In 1980 and 1981, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison carried hunger strikes in an effort to regain the status of political prisoners that had been removed in 1976 by the preceding Labour government. Bobby Sands began the 1981 strike, saying he would fast until death unless prison inmates won concessions over their living conditions. Thatcher refused to institute a return to political prisoner status for the prisoners, citing "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political." Nevertheless, however, the government privately contacted republican leaders in a bid to end the hunger strikes. After the deaths of Sands and nine others, some rights were restored to the paramilitary prisoners, but they still were not granted official recognition of their political status. As a result, violence escalated dramatically in Northern Ireland over the hunger strikes, and in 1982, Sinn Fein politician Danny Morrison declared Thatcher to be "the biggest bastard we have ever known."
In the morning hours of October 12, 1984, the IRA attempted to assassinate Thatcher with explosive devices at the Brighton Hotel, and the Prime Minister narrowly escaped injury and death. Four people were killed, including the wife of Cabinet Minister John Wakeham. Thatcher was staying at the hotel to attend the Conservative Party conference, which she insisted should open as scheduled the following day. She delivered her speech as planned, a prudent political move that drew wide support across the political spectrum and increased her popularity with the public.
On November 6, 1981, Thatcher and Irish leader Taoiseach Garrett FitzGerald had established the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Council, which was a forum for meetings between the two governments. On November 15, 1985, the two leaders signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement, the first time the British government had given the government of the Republic of Ireland an advisory role in the governance of Northern Ireland. In protest, the Ulster Says No movement attracted 100,000 protesters to a rally in Belfast. Ian Gow resigned as Minister of State in the HM Treasury, and all 15 Unionist MP's resigned their seats in Parliament. Only one seat was not returned in the subsequent by-elections of January 23, 1986.
Thatcher's Policy on Foreign Affairs
(Above: Thatcher's Cabinet at the White House in Washington, D.C., meeting with Reagan's Cabinet in 1981. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
(Above: Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the White House. Courtesy The New York Times.)
Thatcher took office during the Cold War and became closely allied with President of the United States Ronald Reagan based on their shared distrust and disdain of and for Communism, although she strongly disagreed with Reagan's October 1983 invasion of Grenada. President Reagan had assured Thatcher that he had no intentions of invading the country, and the act of doing so led Thatcher to never again fully being able to trust him. During her first year, she supported NATO's decision to deploy U.S. nuclear cruise and Pershing missiles into Western Europe and permitted the U.S. to station more than 160 cruise missiles at Royal Air Force (RAF) Greenham Common, starting on November 14, 1983. This decision triggered mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Thatcher then bought the Trident nuclear missile submarine system to replace Polaris, which tripled the UK's nuclear forces at an eventual cost of more than 12 billion pounds (at 1996-97 prices). Her preference for defense ties with the U.S. was demonstrated in the Westland affair of January 1986, when she acted with colleagues to allow the struggling helicopter manufacturer Westland to refuse a takeover offer from the Italian firm Agusta in favor of the management's preferred option, a link with Sikosky Aircraft Corporation. Thatcher's Defense Secretary who had supported the Agusta deal, Michael Heseltine, resigned in protest.
On April 2, 1982, the ruling junta in Argentina ordered the invasion of the British-controlled territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, thus triggering the Falklands War. The crisis was labeled "a defining moment of her [Thatcher's] premiership." At the suggestion of Harold Macmillan and Robert Armstrong, she set up a small War Cabinet (formerly called ODSA, Overseas and Defense committee, South Atlantic) to take charge of the conduct and operations of the war, which by April 5-6, 1982, had authorized and dispatched a naval task force to retake the islands. Argentina surrendered on June 14, 1982, and operation was declared to have been a success, notwithstanding the deaths of 255 British troops and three Falkland islanders. Argentina's death toll was 649, half of them from when the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the ARA General Belgrano on May 2, 1982. Even in victory, though, Thatcher's critics criticized her for the neglect in the the Falkland Islands' defense that ultimately led to war, and Labour MP Tam Dalyell in Parliament for the decision to sink the General Belgrano. Overall, however, Thatcher was considered by the public to be a highly-capable and committed war leader. "The Falklands Factor," an economic recovery beginning in early 1982, and a bitterly divided opposition led to Thatcher's second election in 1983. She often referred after the war to the "Falklands Spirit," which led to speculation that Thatcher preferred the streamlined decision making of her War Cabinet over the painstaking deal-making of peacetime cabinet government.
Thatcher visited China in September 1982 to discuss with the nation's leader Deng Xiaoping the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997. She was the first British Prime Minister to ever visit the Communist state, and China was the first Communist country Thatcher had ever visited. Two years of back-and-forth negotiations resulted in Thatcher making the concession to the Chinese government and signing to Sino-British Joint Declaration in December 1984 in Beijing, handing over Hong Kong's sovereignty to China in 1997.
Although saying she was in favor of peaceful negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa, Thatcher opposed South African sanctions by the Commonwealth and the European Community (EC). She attempted to preserve trade with South Africa while attempting to persuade the regime to abandon apartheid. This included "[c]asting herself as President Botha's candid friend," and inviting him to visit the UK in June 1984 in spite of the "inevitable demonstrations" against his regime. Thatcher, however, dismissed the African National Congress (ANC) in October 1987 as a "typical terrorist organisation."
Thatcher opposed European integration, which became more pronounced and vociferous after her third election victory in 1987. During a 1988 speech in Bruges, Belgium, she outlined her opposition to proposals from the EC, forerunner of the European Union, for a federal structure and the increased centralization of decision making. Thatcher and her party had originally supported this measure in the 1975 national referendum, but she believed that the role the organization should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and she feared that the EC's views opposed her policies of smaller government and deregulation. In 1988, she stated:
"We have not successfully rolled the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels."
Thatcher was firmly opposed to the UK's membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which was a precursor to the European monetary union, believing that it would constrain the British economy, despite the urging of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, she was eventually persuaded to join by John Major in October 1990, at what proved to be too high a rate.
(Above: U.S. President George H.W. Bush awarding Thatcher with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
In April 1986, Thatcher permitted U.S. F-111's to use Royal Air Force bases for the bombing of Libya in retaliation for the alleged bombing of a Berlin discotheque, citing the right of self defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. This proved to be an unpopular decision by her, as polls showed that fewer than one in three Britons approved of Thatcher's decision. She was in the U.S. on a state visit when Iraqi dictator invaded Kuwait in August 1990. During her talks with U.S. President George H.W. Bush, she recommended intervention and pressured him to deploy troops to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Bush was apprehensive about the plan, and Thatcher, in apparent disgust, said, "This [is] no time to go wobbly!" Thatcher's government provided forces to the international coalition in the build-up to the Gulf War, but she had resigned under pressure by the time hostilities commenced on January 17, 1991.
(Above: Margaret Thatcher, on the left, at the Soviet Embassy in London visiting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, center, and his wife Raisa, on April 1, 1989. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
Thatcher was one of the first Western leaders to responded warmly to reformist Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Following the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetings and the reforms Gorbachev enacted in the Soviet Union, she declared in November 1988 that "We're not in a Cold War now," but rather in a "new relationship much wider than the Cold War ever was." She went on a state visit to the Soviet Union in 1984 and met with Gorbachev and Nikolai Rzyhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Minister. Thatcher was originally opposed to German reunification initially, telling Gorbachev that:
"[German unification would lead] to a change of postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security."
Her concerns were added to by the fear that a united Germany would align itself more closely with the Soviet Union and move away from NATO. In contrast, she was in favor of Croatian and Slovenian independence. In a 1991 interview for Croatian Radiotelevision, Thatcher commented on the Yugoslav Wars, stating she was critical of Western governments for not recognizing the breakaway republics of Croatia and Slovenia and supplying them with arms after the Serbian-led Yugoslav Army attacked.
Challenges to Thatcher's Leadership and Her Resignation (1989-90)
(Above: Margaret Thatcher in 1990. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)
In 1989, an obscure backbench MP named Sir Anthony Meyer challenged Thatcher for the Conservative Party's leadership in the party's leadership election. Of the 374 Conservative MP's eligible to vote, 314 of them vote for Thatcher and 33 for Meyer. Her supporters in the party viewed the result as a success, and rejected suggestions that there was discontent within the party.
During her premiership, Thatcher had the second-lowest average approval rating, at 40%, of any postwar Prime Minister. Polls consistently showed her to be less popular with the public than her party. A self-described conviction politician, Thatcher always insisted that she did not care about her poll rating, preferring, instead, to reflect on her unbeaten record in elections.
Opinion polls in September 1990 reported that Labour had built a 14% lead over the Conservatives, and by November the Conservatives had been trailing Labour for 18 months. These ratings, combined with Thatcher's combative personality and willingness to override the opinions of her colleagues, contributed to discontent within the party.
On November 1, 1990, Geoffrey Howe, who had been the last remaining member of Thatcher's original cabinet from 1979, resigned from his post as Deputy Prime Minister over her refusal to agree to a timetable for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In his November 13 resignation speech, Howe commented on Thatcher's European stance:
"It is rather like sending you opening batsman to the crease only for them to find the moment that the first balls are bowled that their bats had been broken before the game by the team captain."
Howe's resignation proved to be the death knell in the coffin of Thatcher's premiership.
The next day, Michael Heseltine challenged Thatcher for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Opinion polls indicated that should Heseltine win the party's leadership position, it would give the Conservatives a lead over Labour. Although Thatcher won the first ballot, Heseltine attracted sufficient support (152 votes) to force a second ballot. Under party rules, Thatcher not only had to win a majority of the votes, but her margin had to be equivalent to 15% of the 372 Conservative MP's in order to win the leadership position outright. She came up short by four votes. Thatcher initially stated she intended to "fight on and fight to win" the second ballot, but upon consulting with members of her Cabinet, she was persuaded to withdraw. After seeing the Queen, calling world leaders, and making one final Commons speech, she left 10 Downing Street in tears. She regarded her ouster as an act of betrayal by the Conservative MP's.
Thatcher was replaced by her Chancellor John Major, who would serve as Prime Minister until 1997, when Labour won the general election. Major saw an upturn in Conservative support in the 17 months leading up to the 1992 general election, and led the party to its fourth consecutive victory in the general election on April 9, 1992. Thatcher favored Major over Heseltine in the leadership contest, but as the years rolled on, her support for him weakened.
Margaret Thatcher's Record: The Verdict of History
Margaret Thatcher was the first of the new era Conservatives in Western democracies. The state of the Right in those nations, including both the U.S. and Great Britain, was bleak prior to 1979. Several things happened leading up to the explosion of Conservative politics on the world scene in the late 1970's, how it overlapped into the 1980's, and lasted until the 1990's:
The History of British Economic Policy from 1945-1979, and How "Thatcherism" Saved It
- The Labour government of 1945-51 enacted a political program based on collectivism which included the nationalization and direct government control of the nation's economy. Both world wars had demonstrated the potential behind greater state involvement. This underlined the future direction of the postwar economy, and was supported in large part by the Conservatives. However, the initial hopes for nationalization were not fulfilled and more nuanced ideas for economic management emerged, such as state direction rather than state ownership. Throughout it all however, the prevailing wisdom would remain the same: the practice of Keynesian economics which called for greater state involvement in the economy.
- The concept of nationalizing the coal mines had been accepted in principle by owners and miners a like prior to 1945. The owners were paid 165 million pounds. The government created the National Coal Board to manage the miners, and loaned 150 million pounds to modernize the system. The general condition of the coal system had been unsatisfactory for many year due to poor productivity. In 1945, there were 28% more coal mines in the workforce than in 1890, yet production had only increased by a paltry total of 8%. Young Britons avoided this occupation, for between 1931 and 1945, the percentage of miners over 40 years old rose from 35% to 43%, while the numbers for those over 65 years old increased by 24,000. The number of surface workers decreased between 1938 and 1945 by only 3,200. But in that same time, the number of underground workers decreased by 69,600, thus substantially altering the balance of labor in the mines. That accidents, breakdowns, and repairs were nearly twice as costly in terms of production in 1945 as they were in 1939 was probably a byproduct of the war. Output in 1945 averaged approximately 3.3 million tons weekly; by the summer of 1946, it was clear there was a national shortage for the upcoming winter with stockpiles some 5 million tons too low. Thus, nationalization exposed both a lack of preparation for public ownership and the Labour government's failure to stabilize the economy for such a change. Also lacking were any significant incentives to increase coal production to meet demand.
- In 1955, unemployment reached a postwar low of just 215,000, or barely 1%.
- The loss of the Empire and the material losses during the two world wars had fundamentally affected the basis of Britain's economy. First, its traditional markets were changing as Commonwealth countries made bilateral trading arrangements to local ore regional powers. Second, the initial gains made by Britain in the world economy were in relative decline as those countries whose economic infrastructures were seriously damaged by the war repaired these and reclaimed their stake in the world market. Third, the British economy changed structure by shifting toward a service-sector economy from its manufacturing and industrial origins which caused some regions of the nation to become economically depressed. Finally, part of consensus politics meant support of the Welfare State and of a world role for Britain, Both of those things required more taxation and a buoyant economy to provide those taxes.
Thus, the Labour Government's creation of a socialist economy and the Welfare State for the British people created the flawed system of government Thatcher would eventually inherit in 1979.
- The phrase most characteristic of the premiership of Conservative Party's Harold Macmillan that went, "(most of) our people never had it so good" began to look hollow by the 1960's, as the Conservative government presided what was known as a "stop-go" economy as it attempted to prevent inflation from spiraling out of control without stifling economic growth. Economic growth continued to struggle at about half the rate of Germany and France at the time. However, industry had managed to remain strong in the 20 years following World War I, and extensive housebuilding and construction of new commercial developments and public buildings also helped unemployment stay low during this time. The Labour Party under Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 was unable to provide a solution either, and eventually was forced to devalue the pound again in 1967. According to economist Nicholas Craft, the low economic growth during this period was attributed to a lack of competition in some sectors of the economy, especially the nationalized industries, poor industrial relations, and insufficient vocational training. Craft also said this was a period of government failure caused by poor understanding of economic theory, "short-termism," and a failure to confront interest groups.
- Both parties came to the decision that Britain needed to enter the European Economic Community (EEC) in order to revive its economy. The decision came after establishing a European Free Trade Association (EFTA) with other non-EEC countries since this provided little economic stimulus to Britain's economy. Levels of trade with the Commonwealth halved in the period 1945-65 to around 25% while trade with the EEC had doubled during that same period. Charles de Gaulle vetoed an attempt at British membership in 1963 and again in 1967. In 1973, Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath led Britain into the EEC. As late as that year, Britain still effectively had full employment, at a rate of 3% unemployed.
- However, with the decline of Britain's economy in the 1960's, the trade unions began to strike, leading to a complete breakdown with the Labour government of Harold Wilson and the Conservative government of Edward Heath. Despite a brief period of calm negotiated by the re-elected Labour government of 1974 known as the Social Contract, a breakdown of the unions occurred again in 1978, leading to the Winter of Discontent, and the end of the Labour government of James Callaghan, who had succeeded Wilson in 1976. The extreme industrial strife along with rising inflation and unemployment led Britain to be nicknamed as "the sick man of Europe," though the term originally referred to the Ottoman Empire during the 19th Century.
- Unemployment had also rise during this difficult period for the British economy. Some 1.5 million were unemployed in 1978, nearly triple the figure at the state of the decade, at a national rate of well over 5%. It had exceeded 1 million since 1975. An important note: during the 1970's, oil was discovered in the North Sea of the coast of Scotland.
With the economic woes the British government had failed to address over a period of nearly 20 years, a new economic policy would be introduced by Thatcher after her ascension to the office of Prime Minister in 1979. Her economic policies are detailed below:
- Thatcher's election marked the end of the postwar consensus (mixed economy, the establishment of the National Health Service, the nationalization of various industries, and the creation of the welfare state) and a new approach to economic policy, including privatization and deregulation, reform of industrial relations, and tax changes. Competition policy was emphasized rather than industrial policy; consequent deindustrialization and structural unemployment were more or less accepted. Thatcher's battles with the unions resulted in the Miner's Strike of 1984.
- The Thatcher government applied monetarist policies to reduce inflation, and reduced public spending. Deflationary measures were implemented against the backdrop of the early 1980's recession. As a result, unemployment began to rise sharply from early 1980, to 2 million people a year and reaching 2.5 million during 1981. By 1982, 3 million people in Britain were unemployed for the first time in 50 years, though this time the figure accounted for a lesser percentage of the population than the early 1930's percentage, now standing at 12.5% rather than in excess of 20%. In areas hit particularly hard by the loss of industry, unemployment was much higher, coming close to 20% in Northern Ireland and exceeding 15% in many parts of Wales, Scotland, and northern England. The peak of unemployment actually came some two years after the recession ended and growth had been reestablished, when in April 1984 unemployment reached 3.3 million.
- Many state-controlled firms were privatized, including British Aerospace (1981), British Telecom (1984), British Leyland (1984), Rolls-Royce (1987), and British Steel (1988). The electricity, gas, and English water industries were split up and sold off. Exchange controls, in operation since the war, were abolished in 1979. British net assets abroad rose nearly nine-fold from 12 billion pounds at the end of 1979 to nearly 110 billion pounds at the end of 1986, a record postwar level and second only to Japan. Privatization of nationalized industries increased share ownership in Britain: the proportion of the adult population owning shares increased from 7% in 1979 to 25% in 1989. The Single European Act (SEA), signed by Thatcher, allowed for the free movement of goods within the European Union area. The ostensible benefit of this was to give the spur of competition to the British economy, and increase its ultimate efficiency.
- The early 1980's recession saw unemployment hit 3,000,000, but the subsequent recovery, which saw growth of over 4% in the late 1980's, led to contemporary claims of a British "economic miracle." It is not clear whether "Thatcherism" was the sole reason for the economic boom of the 1980's. However, many of the economic policies put in place by the Thatcher governments have been kept in place since, and even the Labour Party which had been so opposed to the policies had by the late 1990's, on its return to government after nearly 20 years in opposition, dropped all opposition to them.
- By the end of 1986, Britain was enjoying an economic boom, which saw unemployment go into free fall and drop to 1,600,000 by December 1989.
While it is interesting that the author of the Wikipedia would post judgment on the "British Economic Miracle" as "... not [being] clear whether 'Thatcherism' was the sole reason for the economic boom of the 1980's," what can be fairly certain is that her policies were recognized by all of the nation's political parties as having played a major role in the economy's massive growth period. Furthermore, I will reiterate what the author of the Wikipedia article stated:
"However, many of the economic policies put in place by the Thatcher governments have been kept in place since, and even the Labour Party which had been so opposed to the policies had by the late 1990's, on its return to government after nearly 20 years in opposition, dropped all opposition to them."
Finally, to dispel the myth that many of my leftist British friends try to perpetuate, Thatcher did not bring Britain to its knees with high unemployment at the end of her premiership, but rather it existed as she was working to fix the economic woes befuddling the nation. Again, unemployment had reach 3.3 million Britons in April 1984; by December of 1989, it had dropped substantially to 1.6 million.
Thatcher's Legacy in Foreign Policy
In an article titled "Margaret Thatcher's Foreign Policy Legacy" published on the The Chatham House website by Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, he acknowledges "The Iron Lady's" legacy as being almost as identified by her foreign policy as it was her domestic. He describes her bursting onto the international stage with her fledgling foreign policy with the following paragraphs:
"The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan soon after the start of her premiership in 1979 was a chance for Margaret Thatcher to demonstrate her Cold War credentials commitment to U.S. leadership. She was quicker than U.S. President Reagan to recognize the winds of change blowing through the U.S.S.R. after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. But it was left to Reagan to chart the new course that would culminate a few months after his presidency in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Yet in the end, Margaret Thatcher was defined almost as much by foreign as domestic policy. It started with the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands in March 1982, when she was tested as never before. In absence of unconditional support by the United States and faced with a divided Cabinet, she made a momentous decision and did so by dispatching the Task Force to repossess to Falklands. She knew that it could all have gone wrong, and end with her resignation. But it ended in a British military success and a rapid turnaround in her popularity left a lasting mark on the rest of her premiership. There would be no more self-doubts and she would become the ultimate conviction politician."
On her record in European foreign policy, Bulmer-Thomas said:
"If the Falklands told us much about Thatcher's decision-making style, it was Europe that revealed her inner convictions. This was not apparent at first, and, as late as 1986, she signed the Single European Act that represented a crucial advance in the European project and a key step toward 'ever closer union.' She would later claim that her officials had not clearly explained the implications of what she was signing. If it seems improbable, there could be no doubting her subsequent opposition to any steps towards greater European union and her visceral opposition to anything that smacked of European federalism."
Bulmer-Thomas then talks about her close friendship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and that "despite not being told before the event about the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 - that the Anglo-American relationship was sufficient to meet British foreign policy needs with the development of a common foreign policy with the European Union." This belief, Bulmer-Thomas asserts, may seem "absurd" by today's standards, but no one -- not President Reagan nor her Cabinet -- were prepared to tell her any differently, though Geoffrey Howe did so and paid the consequences by being relieved of his duties by Thatcher. Howe's later contribution to later political downfall was, in Bulmer-Thomas's words, "no doubt sweet revenge."
Bulmer-Thomas then becomes critical of Thatcher's campaign against European integration, saying that despite her victory in procuring the British rebate, "left her party a poisonous legacy." "On the other hand," says Bulmer-Thomas, "she was the one of the first to sense the opportunity given by the end of the Cold War to enlarge the European Union eastwards." Well after she had left the British political scene, Thatcher was all too pleased and willing to welcome these new members to the European Union. Her hope, though, that a British partnership with former Communist nations would be achieved was never realized, as this was her hope to combat the Franco-German alliance.
While Thatcher was noted for being a conviction politician, she was also capable of being very flexible and pragmatic. When faced with the issue of Hong Kong, where a British treaty consisted of a sovereign territory (the island) and a real estate lease (the New Territories), the Prime Minister could have argued to simply abandon the lease by citing that it was not needed. However, she knew that having one party without the other made no sense, which led her to explain to the British people that doing this would lead the Chinese government of Deng Xiaoping to merely "turn off the water supply." This was, according to Bulmer-Thomas, a pragmatic response that Argentine foreign minister, Guido di Tella, was quick to note.
After being ousted from power by her own party in 1990, Margaret Thatcher carried out many activities related to her premiership's foreign policy. One such activity was serving the as the chair of the Board of London University's Institute on United States Studies on which Bulmer-Thomas himself served ex officio as Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies. His description of her contributions to the panels was that she was efficient, but there was never an occasion in which she did not take the opportunity to speak with passion about her personal friendship with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Britain's strategic partnership with the U.S., and they worked together to solve most of the world's problems.
Bulmer-Thomas concluded the article by stating an opinion I found to be most erroneous and therefore representing the Left's attempt at discrediting everything the partnership between Reagan and Thatcher accomplished:
"That belief [The Anglo-American partnership solving the world's problems during the 1980's]. profoundly wrong as it has proved to be, was probably what marked out her foreign policy more than anything else."
Sadly, the Left in Britain whose socialist politcies had dictated the prior 34 years of British politics before Thatcher won the 1979 general election seems to be the prevailing final word on Thatcher's foreign policy.
Conclusion: Thatcher Was the First Champion of Modern Conservatism Polities Worldwide
(Above: Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher looks toward the camera as she meets current-Prime Minister David Cameron inside 10 Downing Street on June 8, 2010, in London. Courtesy of Getty Images)
ABC New 2 in Baltimore, MD, wrote an article recounting the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. Here are just some of the things said about "The Iron Lady":
"Love her or hate her, one thing's beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher changed Britain.
"'The Iron Lady,' who ruled for 11 remarkable years, imposed her will on a rundown, fractious nation -- breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and a more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from 10 Downing Street.
"For admirers, Thatcher was a savior who rescued Britain from ruin and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary economic renaissance. For critics, she was a heartless tyrant who ushered in an era of greed that kicked the weak out onto the streets and let the rich become filthy rich.
Said former Thatcher press secretary Bernard Ingham:
"Let us not kid ourselves, she was a very divisive figure. She was a real toughie. She was a patriot with a great love for this country, and she raised the standard of Britain abroad."
As was said above and reiterate in this article, Thatcher "never showed an ounce of doubt" once in power, and she was often intimidating to members of her own Cabinet.
The greatest legacy of her international correspondences was her friendship with the man she called "Ronnie" -- which this article wrote was "some [people] spoke of it as a schoolgirl crush." Even then, she would not back down when she did not agree with Reagan on important matters despite the U.S. being the richer and the vastly strongly partner in the so-called "special relationship." An example of this was her deep disagreement with Reagan's invasion of Grenada.
Thatcher would not allow Britain to be bullied, as exampled by her show of leadership during the Falklands Crisis. When diplomacy failed, it was she who ordered the military force to retake the islands despite naysayers. In her memoir titled "Downing Street Years," Thatcher explained her conviction on making the decision:
"When you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway, what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the queen's subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was prime minister."
Thatcher's determination to keep the islands came into conflict with Reagan, who sent Secretary of State Alexander Haig to both London and Buenos Aires in an attempt to reach a peaceful solution even as British warships had already deployed to the Falklands.
U.S. diplomat Jim Rentschler kept a private diary which included descriptions of Thatcher during the Falklands Crisis:
"And here's Maggie, appearing in a flower-decorate salon adjoining the small dining room (...) sipping orange juice and sherry. La Thatcher is really quite fetching in a dark velvet two-piece ensemble with grosgrain piping and a soft hairdo that heightens her blonde English coloring."
But the niceties ended over dinner:
"High color is in her cheeks, a note of rising indignation in her voice, she leans across the polished table and flatly rejects what she calls 'the woolliness' of our secondstate formulation."
So "The Iron Lady" was firm and resolute in her convictions even when her policies were at odds with those of the United States.
Here are some figures supporting the Thatcher record economically:
- The percentage of adults owning shares rose sharply from 7% in 1979 to 25% when she resigned in 1990.
- More than a million families bought their council homes, with an increase from 55% to 67% in owner occupiers from 1979 to 1990.
- The houses were sold at a discount ranging between 33-50%.
- Personal wealth rose by 80% during the 1980's largely as a result of rising house prices and increased wealth. I attribute this to her choosing to abandon the failed socialist policies of the past that were part of the Keynesian economic model and switching over to a free-market, monetarist style promoted by Milton Friedman. Again, it was Labour who enacted this economic structure. Labour is the party of the Left in the UK.
- Shares in privatized utilities were below their market value to ensure quick and wide sales, rather than maximize national income.
The Left will also use the excuses that Thatcher's premiership was an abject failure for the reasons that it caused high unemployment and social unrest. Furthermore, the Left will claim that she did little to advance to causes of women, and her policies on immigration are viewed by some as "as part of a rising racist public discourse," which Professor Martin Barker has called "new racism." But as the record shows above, while it is true that unemployment more than doubled between 1979 and 1984 to as many as 3.3 million out of work, it is also a know fact that by 1989, unemployment had dropped dramatically to approximately 1.6 million out of work. The ultimately irony in this is that the Labour Party, which had strongly opposed Thatcher's policies of privatization and deregulation, wound up maintaining the majority of her economic policies when they defeated the Conservatives in the 1997 general election. So Thatcher's record on domestic policies, as well as her foreign policies, is solid.
Sadly, on April 8, 2013, Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke, a chronic condition with which she became afflicted in 2002. Another sad thing is that several Britons felt the necessity to denigrate her good name out of disdain for her politics during the state funeral proceedings. Her politics were uncompromising and unyielding, which the history I have provided through laborious research and recording bears out. One sign in what might have been Trafalgar Square read, "Ding-dong! The Witch is Dead!" It seems as if politics in Britain are taken more seriously than they are in the U.S. from an emotional perspective. None other than Elton John sang a song highly critical of Thatcher in 1983 titled, "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher." And even U.S. news services mention more about her perceived shortcomings than they do her triumphs. As a result, I felt it necessary to pay tribute to "The Iron Lady" by writing this article. She was named the fourth-greatest British Prime Minister of the 20th Century by MORI, which is a leading market research group company in Great Britain and Ireland; was number 16 in a BBC poll of The Top 100 Greatest Britons in 2002; and was named to TIME Magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. Despite all the hate and vitriol for her by her opponents, Thatcher's place in history has been etched in stone.
(Above: Thatcher speaks on the concept of taxation and the myth of the existence of public money at the 1983 Conservative Party conference.)
(Above: Thatcher's last day as Prime Minister was spent debating Labour MP's over socialism on November 22, 1990.)
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