margaret thatcher speech writer

Moreover, it's hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier. In the north of Ireland she had the army and the Diplock courts which reached their peak in the mid 1980s. What, in retrospect, seems creative and what destructive? ", This attitude that men are fun but dumb, women are smart but strident, a view of the sexes that seems to come straight out of a Judd Apatow film led to various quotes of hers that some like to twist into proof that Thatcher was an unwitting feminist. The last time I met her was after all this was over. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is This was her last important public statement. first television interview the following day. It's kind of a luxury rent-controlled ghetto for lawyers and barristers, and there is a beautiful tailors, a fine chapel, established by the Knights Templar (from which the compound takes its name), a twee cottage designed by Sir Christopher Wren and a rose garden; which I never promised you. . Statistics now confirm what many people have always recognised: that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. That did the trick.). Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. These values were the exact opposite of those Margaret Thatcher espoused. She worked to enhance its corporate power. The gender remained, its artefacts deployed with calculation. But it was the killing of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane in February 1989 that reveals the depth of the Thatcher government's state collusion policy. Copyright Margaret Thatcher Foundation 2023. of her best Parliamentary speeches in a debate on the strikes, prayed on the More insidiously, it fathered amood of tolerated harshness. It came very hard, getting the words and paragraphs in the right order, a task for which, she eventually admitted, she had hired some help. making her big speech the following day as scheduled. 'It's a wonder nobody has taken a gun to that woman.' There had been Churchill and his defiance; there had been Kipling and his If; there had been her father in his grocer's shop in Grantham. In November 1978, Hannaford and I organized a European fact-finding tour for Reagan, and the first stop was London. She was a gentle and peaceable woman my mother, that is and said few hard words about anyone, but in certain parts of the United Kingdom, and among certain social classes, Mrs T was detested, and not just for what people thought were her policies but for her persona for what she was. The latest pit to close, Maltby in Yorkshire, still has a death and general purpose fund to help fellow miners and their families in times of hardship. Get over her! Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. 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. . She was unashamed about this, loathing localism and rejecting calls to diminish the "strong state". The leading feminist Natasha Walter called Thatcher "the great unsung heroine of British feminism". If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.". It's interesting, though, that even when comedians try to be political, they can never really land a punch on David Cameron, Nick Clegg or George Osborne. Therein, 30 years ago, lay the great Thatcher asset and the electorally lethal Thatcher impact in Scotland. Almost everything said of Thatcher's early years was untrue, partly through her own invention. speech in the House of Commons, her first television interview the following day, euphoric Sent Bobby Sands to an Irish hero's grave without a blink. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. North sea oil was squandered when it should have seeded new industries. Texts for listed statements are available on the site in almost 70 per cent of cases. Flags were flying over Port Stanley on 14 June. Action. Her Irish policy failed miserably. It knew what Thatcher wanted. On taking office she showered money on public sector unions, and her "cuts" were only to planned increases, mild compared with today's. Your local electricity "board" could be a very unfriendly place. Without the Falklands/Malvinas war, which exploited nationalism (as Argentinian dictator Galtieri did) and which Labour would not oppose, she would never have been re-elected in 1983. Author: Margaret Thatcher Year: 1979 Location: London, the UK Occasion: Address to the Parliament. A great windfall in the short-term for asset-owners one form of inflation she encouraged but disastrous for future generations. Thatcher's passing is marked by street parties in Brixton, Belfast, Bristol, Derry, Glasgow and Liverpool, and seething bitterness among the mining families and communities she was allowed (including by scab union and Labour leaders) to destroy. Lecturing me about the comprehensive schools, of which she created more than any minister before or since. We are all on our own. Margaret Thatcher was not known for her sense of humour. There's something distinctively creepy - in a Roman sort of way - about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. There turned out to be no such thing as society, at least in the sense we used to understand it. This zest for ideas was boosted by the 2010 intake, which comprises just under half the parliamentary party. Absurd or not, it does indeed seem alien not least to those born in the 1980s, the generation we shall always call Thatcher's children. 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." 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. The number of days lost through strikes tumbled. On Saturday, 27 February, he wrote in his diary: "PM getting great press went up to the [Capitol] Hill some of the senators tried to give her a bad time, she put them down firmly and with typical British courtesy.". Beleagured Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher makes pun during the 1981 Conservative Party conference speech: "the lady's not for turning" she says to her crit. A week later she spoke It chose her ina fit of desperation, hats and all though it quite liked the hats. She was the daughter of a prosperous civic leader who merely began life as a "grocer". While some remember her as a national saviour, others only see her ruthless demolition of flailing state-owned industries. He'd been a bully, she said, whereas Mrs T was warm and understanding. Everything has its season. This is a political style, an aesthetic even, that has disappeared from view. One might even credit Thatcher with a willingness to jettison the old rules and conventions that used to prevent individuals deciding their own destiny. And we won back three we lost at by-elections. The machinery of modern political management polls, consulting, focus groups is deployed mainly to discover what will make aparty and politician better liked, or worse, disliked. Back when we called her Maggie, when it seemed she would have her wish and "go on and on" in ruling the country, her opponents would lament some new step towards social ruin with the withering, two-word verdict: "Thatcher's Britain.". She showed that modern prime ministers can still mark out room for individual manoeuvre. She was a prime minister who happened to be a woman. Margaret Thatcher's speech writer will miss funeral but 'shed a tear' When the mourners gather for Baroness Thatcher's funeral tomorrow, one important figure from her political past will be . Council house sales and advertising campaigns that encouraged the public to buy shares in privatised companies were meant to broaden the appeal of capitalism. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? The last remnants of the postwar consensus were swept away in the ensuing decade a period that saw the crushing of the trade unions, the Big Bang in the City, council house sales, the privatisation of large chunks of industry, the encouragement of inward investment, tax cuts, attempts to roll back the state, a deep manufacturing recession, a boom in North Sea oil production, and support for the creation of a single market in Europe. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won't repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here. More subtly, Thatcher bequeathed a kind of instinctive rejection of once-valued forms of collective activity. I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. The problem for Labour is that this issue so fundamental, since it underscores so much policy is unresolved in their ranks. She may have got it slightly wrong. 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. to his resignation letter on 1 November, defended herself against rough But perhaps her greatest legacy was New Labour. She was evicted from Downing Street with all the ruthlessness, treachery and warped humanity of what passes for high politics. Where once we stood within a recognisable postwar social democratic European tradition, after Thatcher the country had rowed halfway across the Atlantic, psychologically imbued with US neoliberal individualism. Many whom Reagan encountered in public life thought of him in this way, but most politicians would love to reach even "Grade B" status. The cautious tactician was suppressed. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979. 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. The most important thing Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did for British politics was to understand the significance of Thatcherism and to decide not to reverse it, indeed to carry it forward. 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. Either way, I'm an adult now and none of those things are on telly any more so there's no excuse for apathy. But she became a very effective one. or copyright prevents reproduction on the site. As a result, Labour authorities in eight or so British cities have set up fairness commissions to reduce income differences locally. "No, no, no". Thatcher came to power when the economy was approaching a moment of truth after three decades of poor performance relative to other western countries. Capitalism flourishes on debt, but she insisted that economics were best understood as Mr Micawber's formula in which happiness and misery were separated by a shilling. But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. After leaving office, MT widened and deepened her criticism of the European 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. departing Downing Street on 28 November. All rights reserved. Whatever Tory historians like to claim, this was the critical turning point. Thatcher is remembered for her achievements, but more for a presence, which was wrapped up with being a woman. CD icon next to them in the second column of the results list. November). Large parts of society never recovered, while Germany and other countries managed the transition without such brutality. It was thoroughly "wet". She had left a Britain marked by private affluence and public squalor. At Cheltenham the following month she After all, the right began to refocus only after Tony Blair's second landslide, when people began to recognise they would not drift back into power. Of course, it's in politics that the shadow looms most clearly. Reagan was a highly influential president during his time in office, and had a lot of responsibility concerning the Cold War. Arguably, it was not the sale of council houses that was the problem, but the failure to replace the stock and maintain a sufficient supply of affordable homes. We had had a strange relationship. The welfare state set out to ensure that no one, in the UK at least, would starve or freeze to death, or suffer or die for lack of medical or other care. No sign they learned from her that markets don't move in to fill the gaps when the state is rolled back not then, not now. Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". Rows with Lawson and Geoffrey Howe over a European currency (where she was right) presaged the final shambles of the poll tax. Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008. The word "free" is used to help the audience 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 . Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. That was the daunting task Margaret Thatcher set herself when she arrived in Downing Street in May 1979 at the end of a traumatic decade that had seen a three-day week, inflation topping 25%, a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the winter of discontent. We can't blame (or credit) her for all of this, of course. Not even the Falklands war would push it off the tracks or damage it in any way. with concern about global warming, having done more than any other politician She was always the Spitting Image bully. Thatcher's 11 years of dictating British policy in Ireland was a legacy of bitterness and entrenched division. No one noticed, but she was Blair's first guest at Downing Street in 1997. "Thatcher as mother" seemed, to my tiddly mind, anathema. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. At an international conference in Lisbon in the late 80s, the British faction, among whom were Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Malcolm Bradbury and myself, referred back to Thatcher constantly in our presentations. The pomp and circumstance that will crown her funeral was proffered by Brown, to some shudders from his own side. She also put forward the idea of "a vast . Cameron's crew crudely imagine she intended it. But the sense of community evaporated. Mrs Thatcher was on the way up in British political life. In a world where most media talking heads come from the top few percent of income earners, unions are not only important in wage bargaining, they also provide some of the few well-informed voices whose job it is to speak on behalf of the less well-paid. But Thatcher was still cautious. So it suggests the anachronistic and unaffordable return to a contributory welfare system, while opposing the further opening up of education and health provision; some even float the renationalisation of railways. Thank you, too, Margaret. There is a paradox. This report of the Conservative party conference ran in the Guardian on Saturday October 11 1980, Edited and full versions of Margaret Thatcher's 'The lady's not for turning' speech, delivered at the Conservative party conference in Brighton on 10 October 1980, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every The US academic Cass Sunstein was in Britain at the end of last month. Hats. From the valleys of Wales to the far reaches of Scotland, miners were, by and large, socialists by nature but this was tempered by strong Christian beliefs. Many are children of the Thatcher age. Real Analysis Solved Problems, Synthesis Essay Freedom Of Speech, Photography Dissertation Titles, Reflective Essay Writers Service Usa, Sample Of The Resume 4423 . The proportion of children living in relative poverty more than doubled during the 80s, and the damage has never been undone. successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to It was seen for what it was, nothing to do with economics, but purely an attempt to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers by wiping out the entire industry. The poll tax showed the opposite, the weakness of Thatcher's strength. Those abandoned places are also landmarks in Thatcher's Britain. Thatcher was never insensitive to the impact of her policies on the poor. The British inflation was in 1975 up at 24, 11% [] and with the union's constant claim for higher salaries, nobody expected it to drop to a normal level. Prime Minister Thatcher delivered the fourth speech to Congress by a British prime minister. A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. I am reminded of this every time the debate comes up about whether more female bylines would reduce sexism in the media. So we agreed to reactivate the back channel. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. Whathappened at the hands of this woman's indifference to sentiment andgood sense in the early 1980s brought unnecessary calamity to the lives of several million people who losttheir jobs. Following several small strokes she announced, in March 2002, that her career as a speechmaker had ended. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. The "crime" he was accused of was to reclaim the oil revenue from local and foreign thieves, and use it to tackle poverty. This was my mother speaking at some point in the middle 1980s. When she returned from Paris many cabinet colleagues showed that I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher. A splendid synergy was created, deliberately and with just that in mind on both sides of the Atlantic. She and her successors John Major and Tony Blair presided over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity. Trying to trim back spending in her department, she ended the milk subsidies for all children over the age of seven. Interview by Benedict King. camps were revealed in August 1992. She failed to replace those jobs with well-paid equivalents. a new dominance from Brussels". cent of cases. Though the Thatcher years could also be called the Saatchi years, reaching a new level of presentational sophistication in the annals of British politics, they weren't about getting the leader liked. The main names associated with Fatcha-bashing Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle deny that they relied so heavily on her for material. Until then Thatcher had shown the strength of her weakness: a dislike of consensus and aversion to debate, leading to decisive action. 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. It may be wrong to imagine that she intended to de-industrialise Britain, but the policies followed by her government had that effect. Lady Thatcher, you honor us by coming to the site of Sir Winston's pivotal speech, an event Westminster College has immortalized with the beautiful Winston Churchill Memorial. November 15, 2020 9:00 AM EST. 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. In towns and valleys poleaxed by the Iron Lady, there may be glasses raised at her passing. The Thatcher government was across all the details of this shipment. But on their catastrophic economic policy, it's full-speed ahead into the concrete wall. Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. Yet by the autumn of 1981 they had made her so unpopular that bets were being taken at the October party conference that she would be "gone by Christmas". 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 . Throw the Lib Dems into the mix and it becomes highly combustible. You would need to wait six weeks for an engineer. Elton has previously said that he did two minutes about Thatcher and two hours about his knob, and all anyone ever remembered was the Thatcher material. She undoubtedly rescued the prestige of the country from its postwar nadir, but at a high cost to the generosity of its political and social culture. they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the On her return to London, she sent me a warm and complimentary letter, a prize in my personal archives. Margaret Thatcher had planned to attack Labour's unwillingness to condemn picket-line violence in her 1984 conference speech but changed her mind when an IRA bomb hit The Grand Hotel in Brighton. Words. Britain ceased to be the sick man of Europe and entered the 1990s with its reputation enhanced. By the 1983 election she had sold off only Britoil and some council houses. Perhaps she had just come inside. After material needs have been met, research has repeatedly shown that further rises in material standards contribute less and less to wellbeing. We might now be taking stock, post credit crunch, of our losses and gains since the 1986 deregulation of the City, but it is doubtful that we will ever undo her legacy. In 1990 Thatcher authorised the then British secretary of state Peter Brooke to reopen back-channel negotiations with republicans. Then they discovered that they could make money, so they dropped all that. If a leader's record is to be measured by the willingness of the other side to decide itcannot turn back the clock, then Thatcher bulks big in history. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship it's just not British. In a twitter of panic, Labour shadow ministers sent out pleas yesterday: "Hoping all Labour supporters will respond with dignity and respect to news of Baroness Thatcher's death." The price we all continue to pay for Thatcherite policies is to live in a less cohesive and more antisocial society, in which community life is weaker, people feel less able to trust each other and fewer of those in government have the experience and compassion to represent or understand the vast majority. Given the nature of her legacy "survival of the fittest" a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn't surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness? She was able to reach It's telling that Tony Blair's domestic legacy amounts to two responses to Thatcherism: forcing Labour to accept it and then compensating for the damage the Tories had wreaked through sustained underinvestment in the public realm.

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