Of course, it's in politics that the shadow looms most clearly. speech in July 1945, delivered in a town close to Grantham while she We are all on our own. Margaret Thatcher might seem to some like an unlikely pioneer of the need for climate action but, in the late 1980s, she made a series of remarkable speeches and interventions on the subject and . There are more than 8,000. To project the ideas of strength and . She was a radical conservative, known for dismantling nationalized industries and social services, weakening union power.She was also the first incumbent prime minister in the UK removed on a vote of their own party. Thatcher's social instincts were always nostalgic conservative. 4.44 avg rating 39 ratings 2 editions. Words. (Interestingly, Currie also recalled that when she approached Thatcher in 1988 to get approval for the world's first national breast-screening programme, she tried to appeal to the PM initially "as a woman" but that swiftly proved unsuccessful. Original, independent voices such as BBC director general Alasdair Milne were brutally silenced. bowling at the Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November) and gave The Political Rhetoric and Oratory of Margaret Thatcher Secondly, the balance of power in industrial relations was shifted decisively in favour of employers. Symbolically, the key moment was the defeat of the miners after the year-long pit strike in March 1985. The economic crisis that Britain faced had been created not by the working class itself, these wholesome people that Sir Keith remembered from his vac weeks in Barnsley, but by a working-class leadership that was determined to bring the whole system crashing down. In her thoughtful and prescient remarks, the Prime Minister reached back into history to recall how far the English-Speaking Peoples had come since victory in . Her Irish policy failed miserably. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya in April 1986 and spoke Every quality had its obverse, but she had a myth-making charisma to capture the world's imagination. A Soviet . If you want anything done, ask a woman.". He was listened to with rapt attention, unsurprisingly, since in both Washington and Westminster his "nudge" theories are saving significant sums of taxpayers' money. Prime Minister Thatcher inherited a settled state of British Europeanness, in which Brussels and the [European] Community began to influence, and often determine, the British way of doing things. They rallied around each other when times were hard. Margaret has spent her life fighting for social justice and equality. We can't blame (or credit) her for all of this, of course. Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. at The Hague in May 1992. Witness the steady downgrading of local government or the persistent assumption that the private sector will always be better than the public. But she became a very effective one. (They also reveal how she loved to surround herself with yes men who were always men.) three press interviews (15-17 November) when Howe's resignation speech 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. It was a visit warmly welcomed by President Reagan, with a resplendent state nner on the first evening. She, for one, never underestimated her friend from California, then a state of some 24 million. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was known for her lack of a sense of humour. And for the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher years were among some of the worst of the conflict. But this didn't come without a price. announced that White The authors show just how much . The young men were those whose childhood was blighted by the effects of relative poverty and inequality on family life. In January 1976 she gave the Dignity and decorum ruled the day - except in the poisoned anonymity of the internet. One Sunday recently while staying in London, I took a stroll in the gardens of Temple, the insular clod of quads and offices between the Strand and the Embankment. How many Oscars does Meryl Streep have? - sportskeeda.com Or maybe audiences just really, really hated her and wanted to blow off some steam. 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. At a party leaders' meeting in Washington, DC in 1985, Prime Minister Thatcher spent all day in the House of Commons, then boarded Concorde and flew to Washington to participate until late into the evening; she took such policy co-operation very seriously. 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. for turning. I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. Hire a Writer. She would, say some who knew her, have a found a way to finesse a change of direction by now. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. Quotation being the warmest form of praise, Larkin was naturally touched. they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the At her first conference speech, she chastised the Labour Party on economic . She hurled herself into NHS reform, changes to schools and universities, utilities privatisation and, eventually, local government reform. The economy had become more productive, more competitive and more profitable. The US academic Cass Sunstein was in Britain at the end of last month. For a start, she had a superb memory for a brief, and she would have had no problem memorising quickly any number of lines. John O'Sullivan, CBE (born 25 April 1942) is a British conservative political commentator and journalist. If it ended in disaster, the seeds were only partly hers. Endeavouring to persuade the British into an attitude of hostility to the group with which she spent 11 years deepening their connection must take a high place in any catalogue of anti-statesmanship. We still live in the land Margaret built. I will know that we have finally broken from the kind of capitalism that she championed and which died in 2008 when we see workers elected on to company boards. with the European Community when she On taking office she showered money on public sector unions, and her "cuts" were only to planned increases, mild compared with today's. Interviewing him, I was struck by a Victorian sort of kindness; as an Oxford student in the 1930s he'd worked in his vacation helping families of the unemployed in the Yorkshire coalfield one of them had even named their baby Keith in his honour. The set text is still Thatcher's declaration quoted in The Audience that "There is no such thing as society". A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. This, too, we still live with. The welfare state, with its unemployment and housing benefits and free healthcare, actually protected wages: employers could not force workers to accept low pay or unpaid overtime because of the job's healthcare provision, as they do in the US. The government's job was to keep inflation low, not to boost growth through demand management. Scotsman Obituaries: Bernard Ingham, press secretary who ensured Yes, QI can report that a newspaper called the Evening News on . Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. Plus there's the fact that comedy is now a big business, and there's less money in sharp satire than gentle observation. There are pangs of nostalgia, yes, because for me she's all tied up with Hi-De-Hi and Speak and Spell and Blockbusters and "follow the bear". On 30 October 1990 she made the first of the An unclubbable outsider, she allied herself to another outsider, Keith Joseph, and his free-market set. I was a professional writer. So the woman I met in Curzon Street, dimpling elegantly, can now be seen in history with an unexpected achievement to her credit. . Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. wrong with politics? The events of that awful summer of '81 polarised Irish society, north and south. But there were also cuts for basic-rate taxpayers: the 1988 budget, for example, cut the top rate of tax from 60% to 40% and the standard rate from 27% to 25%. speech in the House of Commons on 5 February 1960 and gave her These values were the exact opposite of those Margaret Thatcher espoused. Was it cruelty? This was my mother speaking at some point in the middle 1980s. The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. declared that she wanted our money back. She refused to reform social security, or even curb its abuse. She describes Reagan as her friend and continues to narrate his good acts in America during his presidency. A Study of the Emotional Eulogy of Margaret Thatcher to Ronald Reagan She forced us to decide what was truly important. She was lucky, in her enemies and friends notably Reagan in the Falklands conflict. Margaret Thatcher - HISTORY It was under her leadership that in 1982 that the Force Research Unit (FRU) was established within the British Army Intelligence Corps. September 25, 2020. So we agreed to reactivate the back channel. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. 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. making her big speech the following day as scheduled. The evidence shows that greater equality provides the foundation on which higher standards of social wellbeing can be built. Statistics now confirm what many people have always recognised: that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. Mobilising society, by rule of law, against the trade union bosses was undoubtedly an achievement. Getting the record straight. She and her successors John Major and Tony Blair presided over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity. By raising the pay of their own staff to a minimum of the living wage, they have set an example which a growing number of large private-sector employers have followed. It is odd to reflect that in Thatcher's time, the British novel enjoyed a comparatively lively resurgence. The author uses this idea of freedom in her writing to allow the audience to feel and understand the mission of Reagan--"to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism" (6-7). The problem for Labour is that this issue so fundamental, since it underscores so much policy is unresolved in their ranks. The proportion of children living in relative poverty more than doubled during the 80s, and the damage has never been undone. In his usual slightly dishevelled style, he went to Downing Street to discuss his pioneering concepts of behavioural economics and attempts to implement them under Barack Obama. On one visit, our campaign chairman, William J Casey, later director of the CIA, came along, and we had a fruitful meeting at 10 Downing Street. And he would credit the contribution of Helmut Kohl, who rose to power in Germany in part because of the influence of Thatcher and Reagan. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. Another head of government died recently who, like Thatcher, was called divisive. It was sad that she had to learn it in war, a grim example to her British and US successors. Now she would more likely have been beaten to the Tory leadership by one of the Etonians in cabinet. In 1980, I made several fast round trips to London, Paris and Bonn, and, on each occasion, had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Thatcher. Rows with Lawson and Geoffrey Howe over a European currency (where she was right) presaged the final shambles of the poll tax. History, Sample Essay. She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. 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. People would denounce them unequivocally, often in graphic terms. The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. The Lady forced the opposition party to accommodate itself to the new, Thatcherite settlement in which the market would rule unless stated otherwise. No gloves, or hats, except for royalty or at funerals, but feet on the table, whisky glass at hand, into the small hours of solitude, for want of male cronies in the masculine world she dominated for all her 11yearsin power. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is But the left also needs to look beyond the turbulent events in Europe to appreciate the speed of global change and the complications this creates for welfare-laden economies: the dynamos and innovators are increasingly found in Africa, Asia and Latin America rather than France, Germany and Spain. Speeches, interviews & other statements - Margaret Thatcher Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games . Books by Margaret Thatcher (Author of The Downing Street Years) - Goodreads Bob Slayer, one of the genuine alternative comedians on the scene, likes to note the irony of what's become of comedy. Gillian Anderson's Portrayl of Margaret Thatcher's Voice in 'The Crown She all but erased his political legacy to stamp her own image on the nation, so Britain before and after Thatcher were two different countries. Almost everything said of Thatcher's early years was untrue, partly through her own invention. What is really left by Thatcher to history? "They did their thing with no chance of making any money, so they stood up in crappy pubs and said, 'I hate Maggie'. The passing of Chvez is mourned by the many millions who loved him in Latin America and everywhere. rejecting Commission proposals at the Rome European Council with the words Perhaps this is unsurprising: four years ago Ed Miliband sneered at "nudge" economics as something "very fashionable in the Guardian for a few months before the financial crisis". She, and Blair after her, brought an unprecedented dirigisme to the NHS, education, police and local government. She hated what she called "that French phrase laissez faire". 100% Success rate. Council house sales and advertising campaigns that encouraged the public to buy shares in privatised companies were meant to broaden the appeal of capitalism. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. It never was. Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per The day before she died I passed through Greenock on the train. She was 87. Meanwhile, you struggle to identify deep thinkers in party ranks beyond a couple of veteran stalwarts; even the left's thinktanks appear moribund or merely harking back to an idealised past. Thirdly, industrial policy was all but abandoned. MT prayed on the It led to riots that nobody needed. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." Are there, even, things we look back on with regret for their passing? It may be wrong to imagine that she intended to de-industrialise Britain, but the policies followed by her government had that effect. More than once the view was advanced that it was a pity the IRA had not succeeded in their ultimate objective when they bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton. decision to resign. But Labour is no less in thrall. Thatcher became a supremely self-confident leader. 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. deeply felt eulogy, filmed in advance and relayed by video link to screens in the National Cathedral in Washington. They built and provided their own welfare facilities and, well before today's welfare state was built, miners created their own welfare systems to alleviate hardship. of her best Parliamentary speeches in a debate on the strikes, prayed on the Privatisation did not feature in the Conservative election campaign, while the tougher approach to trade union reform had only really become evident since the winter of discontent, and even then was a gradual process. These include, "We have to show them that we're better than they are", and "Women can get into corners that men can't reach!" at Brighton, insisting that the Conference go on and They do not have to charm, schmooze or play tag with the press. She said "there is no such thing as society", and set out to prove it by promoting individual greed and competition for everything. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others. 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. This legacy remains intact with a party that places a premium on radical thinking and, for all its flaws, sets the political agenda. Sue Gray used to be my boss. She was the first prime minister to be more accountable to the international market than to the British economy. Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. The 70s was Britain's most equal decade. Britain's relative decline came to an end, although that was more due to slowdowns in countries such as France and Germany than an acceleration in UK productivity growth. studying Thatcher's speeches . And nor could Thatcher, much to her relief as she allegedly abhorred the word, as doubtless Chanel did, too. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . Sent Bobby Sands to an Irish hero's grave without a blink. Over the years, and through much re-telling, the story had it that Thatcher told Hitchens to bend over, and that she spanked him with her order papers. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. Nor, contrary to myth, did Thatcherism emerge fully formed in May 1979. Margaret Thatcher's government defended structured political and religious discrimination and political vetting in the north, legislated for political censorship and institutionalised, to a greater extent than ever before, collusion between British state forces and unionist death squads. 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. John Major, the "detoxification" successor, was fated to implement many of her unattempted reforms. She invited the 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! Thatcher's Bruges speech 'not anti-EU' - former aide - BBC News It isn't sad for anyone else. 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 a prime minister who happened to be a woman. "Margaret Thatcher was not a natural communicator. 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. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said.