margaret thatcher speech writer
The day before she died I passed through Greenock on the train. In January 1976 she gave the This was heightened by the suspicion that this power was not consciously deployed. We had an all-out blistering row that delighted the organisers. Thatcher came to personify those ready to push anyone aside to gain power in a man's world and strengthen that world with their ambition. Though she recognised the dangers of global warming, Thatcher's industrial and economic policies prioritised economic growth. The time was 1973. The widening of income differences between rich and poor that took place during the 80s (particularly from 1985) is the most rapid ever recorded. Unable to win the leadership ballot outright, she stood on the steps of series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, replied Margaret Thatcher was a hugely divisive figure in British politics. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. Hire a Writer. Charles Powell was a senior foreign policy . Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . Thatcher came to power when the economy was approaching a moment of truth after three decades of poor performance relative to other western countries. The government's job was to keep inflation low, not to boost growth through demand management. In truth, Thatcher is one of the clearest examples of the fact that a successful woman doesn't always mean a step forward for women. Governments can rarely claim to have stimulated the arts but Thatcher, always rather impatient with the examined life, drew writers on to new ground. see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising No children excluded from school activities because mothers couldn't pay. 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. That, plus (inevitable) de-industrialisation, coupled to her perceived overbearing and patronising manner. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. What is really left by Thatcher to history? She made one She was the first prime minister to be more accountable to the international market than to the British economy. Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. By John Cassidy. 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 But we reckoned we got Thatcher only too well and didn't like what we saw, far less what we heard. June 30, 1992 - Swearing . Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. The woman dubbed as the Iron Lady during her premiership made her last tearful speech as the leader of the country from the doorstep of . Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . 1971 was the year of Ted Heath's Conservative government, which was trying to make huge savings to the budget. When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. She would appear in public to drape a hankie over a model BA plane tailfin because she disliked the unpatriotic logo with which they'd replaced the union flag (maybe don't privatise BA then), or to shuffle about some country pile arm in arm with a doddery Pinochet and tell us all what a fine fellow he was. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. The fact is that if both sides removed their ideological blinkers, as Thatcher, remarkably perhaps, managed to do, then her trilogy of speeches in the late 1980s still offer some of the best and . Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. The remainder are listed without a text because sometimes no record survives Larkin's evoked the treacherous mind (of an adversary, of a cabinet colleague) helplessly exposed to her steely regard. For those miners and their families to be referred to as the "enemy within" by Thatcher was something they would never forgive and, if there is rejoicing at her death in those communities she set out to destroy, it can only be understood against this background. April 8, 2013. She wrecked her own party, while promoting, via many a tortuous turn, Labour's resurrection. But perhaps her greatest legacy was New Labour. A longer version of this article appears on Gerry Adams' blog, Margaret Thatcher was good at destruction. But really, such statements were anything but, first because sweeping statements about genders are the opposite of gender equality and second because they revealed her real attitude towards women, which lay behind her notable lack of female-friendly policies, her utter lack of interest in childcare provision or positive action. Here is an excerpt from People [PMT]: "In politics," Margaret Thatcher once acidly observed, "if you want anything said, ask a man. We might speculate that an adviser had offered Thatcher a selection of good lines, or that she had asked to see some. If it ended in disaster, the seeds were only partly hers. It was not interested in a resolution. 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. It was not yours, but belonged to the Post Office: in effect, the government. When Margaret Hilda Thatcher took over as Prime Minister, in May, 1979, I was sixteen. Even some leading figures on the left have jealously praised the right's creativity and ideological crusaders. 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. Public Statements of Margaret Thatcher on CD-ROM, 1945-90, edited Christopher Thatcher was born as Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, England. They looked after their old and young as well as those who were ill or infirm. 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. 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. This is what we mean by the Thatcher revolution, imposing on Britain, for better or for worse, some of the liberalisation that the major continental economies know,20 years later, they still need. It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. Great speeches: 'Orwellian nightmare' if Tories fail, claims Margaret Thatcher. We are all on our own. Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought toannihilate. 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. Whether pushing each other off the road, barging past social rivals, beating up rival soccer fans, or idolising wealth as the only measure of virtue, Brits became more unpleasant to be with. She abolished city-wide local government, capped spending and expected the poll tax to further undermine alternative voices. of her best Parliamentary speeches in a debate on the strikes, prayed on the Action. The challenge for the left is to fashion new and genuinely progressive policies in an age of austerity, when more money is not the answer to any question. Therein, 30 years ago, lay the great Thatcher asset and the electorally lethal Thatcher impact in Scotland. The organised working class, almost alone, had put Britain on the skids. declared that she wanted our money back, invited the As the coalition sets about shrinking the welfare state, it's still embarked on Thatcher's project of rolling back the frontiers of the state, dismantling the settlement that held from 1945 until it unravelled in the 1970s. Look inside your own house, at the water coming out of the tap: once a public utility but, after Thatcher, the property of private companies, many foreign-owned. Margaret has spent her life fighting for social justice and equality. One thinks now of the closing words of her splendid 2004 eulogy of Ronald Reagan, and how those words so perfectly speak a tribute to her life and works: "We here still move in twilight. She was immensely brisk. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. It was a Charles I moment in British history. speech in the House of Commons, her The lady was too shrewd to try that, and barely succeeded in reducing the share of the national income taken by the public sector. The dominance of finance in the economy and the failure of bank regulation flowed from her belief that markets should always be left to themselves. These developments set a benchmark. That was before Thatcher modishly renamed the service British Telecom and sold it off. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. Nations need to know the big picture of where they belong and, coinciding with the Thatcher appearance at the top, clarity had apparently broken through the clouds of historic ambivalence. 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. Hats. Debate continues on whether Margaret Thatcher saved or destroyed British industry, but there is one industry that she practically created. For the most part, there's no material there. Privatisation was the single most massive attack on democracy we have seen. This unit recruited agents who were then used to kill citizens. She gave it her best shot. Reagan would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president, the next year. In her eulogy for the former president, Thatcher uses specific structure, tone and diction, and word choices throughout her writing to . Perhaps it is more simple for all the iniquities of capitalism, the tide of history favours the right. Such items have an One also can't forget what happened to the agency that made Thatcher worldfamous: the Conservative party, of which she seemed such an improbable leader. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. 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. She continued for some reason to consider me worth talking to. As a physician, she has been a vocal advocate for a single-payer healthcare system that would . The most widely used measure of income differences shows inequality increasing by more than a third during her period in office. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot (20 Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. It is odd to reflect that in Thatcher's time, the British novel enjoyed a comparatively lively resurgence. They recognised the need for cohesion when at any time disaster could strike a family unit or indeed a whole community. drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to As I see it, and as one who had the pleasure of knowing both, they would recognize the huge opportunity created by the presence of each in the respective national and international policy-making role. The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by. 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. No single mother raising children was to be called "workless", skipping meals to feed them and forced to ditch them to submit to "workfare" or a starvation wage. No such alarms ring in Cameron's ears. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she To have achieved all this alone would have made Margaret Thatcher a towering, transformational figure, one who altered the physical fabric of the nation. Reagan, for one, recognized the importance of Margaret Thatcher's presence as British prime minister, but would caution any discussionpartnerthat Pope John Paul played an equally important role. Fourthly, policy was aimed at those who, according to the prime minister, wanted to get on in life. Without it, she would have been nothing. Thatcher became prime minister because she was a woman, not despite it. Police charges against picketing union printers in Wapping enabled the Murdoch empire to flourish, ensuring their power and hers. Was it cruelty? Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. of times. In her 1982 party conference speech, Margaret Thatcher offered a prediction for the future: "How absurd it will seem in a few years' time that the state ran Pickfords removals and Gleneagles Hotel . She was able to reach Quotation being the warmest form of praise, Larkin was naturally touched. (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. to his resignation letter on 1 November, stated 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. She made her remarks To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. We were wary of this. What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. The great contradiction in her politics was that someone who yearned for the certainties of small-town shopkeeper economics helped create the amoral yuppiedom of 80s excess and an explosion of cultural resistance that is still an ironic positive legacy of her time in power. When John Lennon was told of Elvis Presley's death, he famously responded: "Elvis died when he joined the army," meaning of course, that his combat clothing and clipped hair signalled the demise of the thrusting, Dionysian revolution of which he was the immaculate emblem. This was the feminine creature who, two years later, was leader of the Conservative party. There's still the rage, still the unfairness, so where is the comedy? The battle with the miners and leftwing councils lay ahead, as did the trauma of an IRA assassination bid. She, and Blair after her, brought an unprecedented dirigisme to the NHS, education, police and local government. Promises. Until her final poll-tax hubris, she knew when swerving was the better part of valour and despite that famous one-liner, she was sometimes for turning. Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." Thatcher's threat to butcher the mining industry, destroy the fabric of mining communities and in particular the trade union to which miners had a bond of loyalty, was met with the fiercest resistance any government has met in peacetime. This site follow the same rules (and shares an editor). In the prime Thatcher years they required a severity of will to carry through that would now, if called on, bewrapped in so many cycles of deluding spin as to persuade us it hadn't really happened. "You see," she announced in her self-satisfied way, "it just goes to show what people can do when they have to. ", As Matthew Parris evocatively put it in Monday's Times, "She rather liked men (preferring our company, perhaps, to that of women), [but] she thought us the weaker sex. The main names associated with Fatcha-bashing Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle deny that they relied so heavily on her for material. she warned that she was not She gave Nigel Lawson at the Treasury his head and was genuinely alarmed when he cut income tax to 40%. In 1982, the English Collective of Prostitutes occupied a church for 12 days in protest against "police illegality and racism in King's Cross" the area to which many sex workers known as "Thatcher's girls" had travelled from high unemployment areas in the Midlands and the north. This regrettable transformation was blessed by a leader who probably did not know it was happening because she didn't care if it happened or not. They are a more energetic and impressive group than their predecessors, often with experience outside politics that makes them impatient and independent-minded. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. 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. 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%. Just look around. She became deaf to all warning. 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.