But on their catastrophic economic policy, it's full-speed ahead into the concrete wall. Given the global economic crisis, rampant corporate greed and growing inequality, this should be a time of great ferment, with endless policy proposals bubbling up to challenge the post-Thatcher consensus at a time of immense and unsettling change. She had left a Britain marked by private affluence and public squalor. This was hardly the first or even the worst example of a dig at Thatcher tinged so needlessly with sexism. . Reagan had sought to meet with then Prime Minister James Callaghan, but the request was rejected, and bucked to then Foreign Minister David Owen. 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. Perhaps Labour would benefit from another defeat, given the danger of taking power unprepared and turning into a zombie government, like the tragedy unfurling in France. In the three years prior to receiving these weapons the loyalist death squads killed 34 people. A meeting in Downing Street had left the Pakistan leader besotted with the older woman's wisdom and generosity: '"I tell you, she's such a kind person.". Thatcher's 11 years of dictating British policy in Ireland was a legacy of bitterness and entrenched division. First was the sheer depth of hostility towards the Tories in general. It led to riots that nobody needed. Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. When I started knocking on Highland doors in May 1983, two things struck me more than any other. defended Ronald As Danny Dorling says in his 2004 study of the rise in violence: "Those who perpetrated the social violence that was done to the lives of young men starting some 20 years ago [the mid-80s] are the prime suspects for most of the murders in Britain." To use a less bizarre analogy: if Thatcher was the headmistress, they were junior teachers, authoritative but warm enough that you could call them "mum" by accident. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot (20 More subtly, Thatcher bequeathed a kind of instinctive rejection of once-valued forms of collective activity. Across Yorkshire or south Wales, Kent or Nottinghamshire, there are villages that have never recovered from the closure of coal mines, ordered by a Thatcher who ruled there was no place for pits that were not "economically viable", regardless of the social consequences. These developments set a benchmark. Getting the record straight. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. That, plus (inevitable) de-industrialisation, coupled to her perceived overbearing and patronising manner. Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society", that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness. She is an anomaly; a product of the freak-onomy of her time. The "crime" he was accused of was to reclaim the oil revenue from local and foreign thieves, and use it to tackle poverty. They lived in close-knit communities built around and based on employment at the local colliery. And for all the tributes being paid by ministers this week, the issues at the topof the government's agenda are all to do with clearing up the mess she created. Speaking personally, it was a personal privilege beyond measure to have witnessed and participate in the blossoming of the special ties that continued throughout her entire time in office. She preferred markets, and a strong but minimal central state that backed their rule. And that made it easy to mock her. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history. These talks, sometimes joined by the prime minister and run by his aide Rohan Silva, show the restless search for new ideas that still grips the right, one of the least recognised legacies of Margaret Thatcher. They rallied around each other when times were hard. Symbolically, the key moment was the defeat of the miners after the year-long pit strike in March 1985. There was only one state-approved answering machine available. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . Thatcher's unwavering belief in the invisible hand of the market meant that she did not believe it was part of her job description to put anything in its place. And in 1983, for the first time, children born in Britain to non-British parents were denied automatic citizenship, fostering further racism and discrimination in immigration policy. Reagan was a highly influential president during his time in office, and had a lot of responsibility concerning the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, gave a eulogy to the grieving American people in honor of the late Ronald Reagan on June 11th, 2004. She lavished praise on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, then in its infancy, and laid out the . to his resignation letter on 1 November, defended herself against rough She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. Seeing as women aren't a minor Brit-flick grateful for even a bad review, that truism doesn't quite hold true here. Certainly, in 1983, it did not occur to me to criticise Harold Macmillan or Alec Douglas-Home on the doorstep as a sure-fire vote turner. The lady was too shrewd to try that, and barely succeeded in reducing the share of the national income taken by the public sector. However, for almost a decade Sinn Fin had been patently trying to build a peace process and unfolding events on the world stage including the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, and the release of Mandela were evidence that governments, and apparently intractable situations, could change. Reagan was received coolly, and the discussion was highly superficial, if only because the British side clearly did not care to engage on substance: meet for a serious discussion with a movie actor and a "Grade B" actor at that? It is my view that Thatcher authorised the killings at Gibraltar. Great speeches: 'Orwellian nightmare' if Tories fail, claims Margaret Thatcher. in his defence during the IranContra affair later that year.. Elected for a third term in June 1987, she told By 1987, anti-Tory tactical voting had taken hold. Government will respond to clear leadership if it knows what a leader wants. This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous. But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. she In 1976 it still did not help and in the same year they had to take a loan in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [] . In 11 years, Thatcher promoted only one woman to her cabinet, preferring instead to elevate men whom Spitting Image memorably and, in certain instances, accurately, described as "vegetables". She was "outraged" when the programmes went ahead. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. "Maggie Thatcher" two fierce trochees set against the gentler iambic pulse of Britain's postwar welfare state. Asked to report on the "state of things" in our country, we could barely see past her. To Britons of my generation, she . can do business together". But Labour is no less in thrall. There are still some great comics doing political material, with Mark Steel and Mark Thomas flying the flag of alternative comedy, while people such as Josie Long and Chris Coltrane find the funny in activism. 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. Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. Any attempts at revisionism do no favours to her, women or feminism. The Cameron generation wrongly see in the 1980s a revolution to emulate, starting with an economic crisis just like hers, as a chance to reshape everything. 1971 was the year of Ted Heath's Conservative government, which was trying to make huge savings to the budget. Peggy Noonan. she warned that she was not The first time I met Margaret Thatcher, I swear she was wearing gloves. Under Heath and Jim Callaghan the question was widely asked: had democracies become "ungovernable"? Your local electricity "board" could be a very unfriendly place. Faced down trade union leaders after her early years apprentice years, when Jim Callaghan's Britain was falling apart in which the commonest fear was that the little lady would not be able to deal with them across the table. When all the public amenities were flogged, the adverts made it seem to my childish eyes fun and positive, jaunty slogans and affable British stereotypes jostling about in villages, selling people companies that they'd already paid for through tax. Thatcher is often credited with showing that you could get to the top whatever your background. The last time I met her was after all this was over. studying Thatcher's speeches . Why don't you get a proper job, she once sneered at me. The Tories triumphed, of course, and lost only two sitting MPs Hamish Gray and the social-security scrounger-bashing Iain Sproat, who vacated his marginal Aberdeen seat and headed for the Scottish Borders, only to suffer defeat there at the hands of the Alliance. She wrecked her own party, while promoting, via many a tortuous turn, Labour's resurrection. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". The Big Bang of City deregulation, the Tell Sid scramble for buying and selling shares, the sense that money is the highest value, wealth the greatest sign of worth all these were hallmarks of the Thatcher era in its mid-80s pomp. It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. A distinction is often made between two traditions of British Conservative thought: the paternalist "one nation/middle way" tradition, and the more libertarian one that is associated with Margaret Thatcher. She was the daughter of a prosperous civic leader who merely began life as a "grocer". But Thatcher was still cautious. But these concrete achievements do not wholly explain why she still looms so large, large enough that not one but two current West End plays The Audience and Billy Elliot grant Thatcher a pivotal, if largely unsympathetic, role, whether seen or unseen. I wouldn't say I have got myself a Kennedy-type speech-writer yet . Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. Their reckless private finance of public investment and services went beyond anything she dared dream of. She also put forward the idea of "a vast . The remainder are listed without a text because sometimes no record survives Making sure the verdict wasn't purloined by others. Research papers can be complex, so best to give our essay writing service a bit more time on this one. And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown.". making her big speech the following day as scheduled. Chavez was indeed a divisive and controversial figure, and it would have been reckless to conceal that fact out of some misplaced deference to the grief of his family and supporters. Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her.
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