Margaret Thatcher: Thirty years on

[Banquo's Ghost]

I'm rather surprised that no-one has thought to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's victory in the 1979 election. Quite clearly one of the eminent politicians of her era, if not the entire twentieth century, she polarises as much now as when she lived in Number 10. Modern Britain (and it might be argued, much of the world) has been fundamentally changed by her legacy.

Bruce Anderson has written an interesting piece on her influences which might serve as a starting point for discussion.

Here, she had the defects of her qualities, for it would have helped if she had been rather more intellectual. Thatcherism had no theory of the state. When an election was imminent, she would fill the gap by claiming that the NHS was safe with her. Otherwise, and in private, she came perilously close to the position which Carlyle caricatured as anarchy plus the constable. Defence and the police were vital. All the rest of the state was a mere unprivatisable residuum, which had to be preserved for electoral reasons but which would never be much good.

In this, she also displayed the narrowness of her imaginative sympathies. In Margaret Thatcher's world, you worked hard. In so doing, you reaped the harvest of upward social mobility: home ownership, share ownership, a healthy pension, private healthcare and private education. If she had been honest, Mrs Thatcher would have said that apart from a few bizarre, incomprehensible Lefties, it was a mark of economic failure to use state schools and not have health insurance. Although she has a partial excuse for not doing more on education, in that there were bigger dragons to slay, there is no evidence that she would ever have got the education system in a firm Thatcherite grip.

Her lack of imaginative sympathy had another important manifestation. Because of it, the Billy Elliott version of Thatcherism, though grotesquely exaggerated, does not lose all contact with truth. She did not set out to destroy vibrant working-class communities and replace them with the listlessness of hereditary unemployment. But again, if she had revealed her innermost thoughts, they would have included the belief that most of the unemployed have only themselves to blame: that those who really want work will always find it.

It must also be remembered that most of the industries which Mrs Thatcher is accused of destroying were already in the gun-sights of globalisation. They could not have continued to provide those who worked in them with a first-world standard of living. This country had impoverished itself by subsidising sunset industries. Eventually, that would have had to stop. Mrs Thatcher only accelerated the process.

[rory_20_uk]

Excuse me for indulging in a medical paralell:

The patient came to the doctor with a drug problem. The other doctor had just thrown methadone at the patient whenever they asked for it. They felt great, but their health was deteriorating.

The new doctor made them go without. They went into withdrawl. Wracked by pain, anxiety, nausea, diarrhoea for days at a time, barely able to keep fluids down. They got through it and were stronger and fitter because of it.

Some relatives were thankful that the junkie was reformed.
Some could not see past the suffering that the junkie had to do through.

The Thatcher years were harsh. But oddly running a deficit for ever isn't sustainable. Subsidising industries may make the worker's feel better, but the jobs aren't real. If these things had been addressed in the 1950's the upheaval would have been far less - left for longer it would have been even worse.

To detest her is either to be utterly selfish in that she destroyed the subsidies for your industry or is to display a dislocation with reality - somehow everything would have just magically turned around and the economy would have worked producing substandard goods at uncompetative prices even with subsidies.

[Fragony]

The UK still has anniversary's that aren't about world citizenship??

[Rhyfelwyr]

Scotland is not a guinea pig. She's owes an apology.

[InsaneApache]

Excuse me for indulging in a medical paralell:

The patient came to the doctor with a drug problem. The other doctor had just thrown methadone at the patient whenever they asked for it. They felt great, but their health was deteriorating.

The new doctor made them go without. They went into withdrawl. Wracked by pain, anxiety, nausea, diarrhoea for days at a time, barely able to keep fluids down. They got through it and were stronger and fitter because of it.

Some relatives were thankful that the junkie was reformed.
Some could not see past the suffering that the junkie had to do through.

The Thatcher years were harsh. But oddly running a deficit for ever isn't sustainable. Subsidising industries may make the worker's feel better, but the jobs aren't real. If these things had been addressed in the 1950's the upheaval would have been far less - left for longer it would have been even worse.

To detest her is either to be utterly selfish in that she destroyed the subsidies for your industry or is to display a dislocation with reality - somehow everything would have just magically turned around and the economy would have worked producing substandard goods at uncompetative prices even with subsidies.

^ What he said.

[Furunculus]

an excellent article, and the right person at the right time to turn around the shiny turd that was the good-ship-britain circling ever closer to the drain of history.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Scotland is not a guinea pig. She's owes an apology.

Why? If you don't pull your own bootstraps up they will be pulled for you.

Just for the record, the failure of the "poll tax" was not that it used the electoral register but that not everyone was required to be listed on said register, thereby creating potential unfairness.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I don't even want to argue about this, that woman was a criminal of the worst order.

It almost makes we want to consider independence just to prevent anyone similar ever coming to power again.

[Furunculus]

lol, despite being a massive Unionist, the fact that i know that many scots and welsh consider her politics evil almost makes me want them to secede so that at least english politics will no longer be polluted with lefty nonsense.

[rory_20_uk]

The need for Scotland died since Catholic France won't invade.

[Rhyfelwyr]

It's all very well to say that once Scotland's industry has been crippled and the wealth sucked down to the south of England... the north can join us if they want.

[Che Roriniho]

Some people are considering a state funeral. Most, however, are wondering if she actually has to be dead before we bury her.

[Furunculus]

yeah, i have heard that joke before, and i laughed then too, but i still hold that nastiness of the view reflects badly on the teller.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's all very well to say that once Scotland's industry has been crippled and the wealth sucked down to the south of England... the north can join us if they want.

Your primary industries were shipbuilding and steelworks.

Given that we have no ore under the hills (and when we did it wasn't much good), and British ships were basically crap by this point there wasn't any other way for it to go.

Scottish industry wasn't making money, and it was allowed to fail. Same thing happened EVERYWHERE. The shipyards down here either went bust or shrivelled up and stopped taking on new men.

England suffered less because overall it had a more varried economy, more universities, more oppertunities. Everybody suffered somewhat under Thatcher, and likely everyone will suffer under Cameron as well.

Thing is, neither Dave nor Maggie can be held responsible for the excesses of a Labour government.

If you want to longe an intelligent compalint, you might want to start with the miss-management of the fallout, but that wouldn't change the weapon needed to save the economy.

[Pannonian]

One legacy not yet touched on in this thread is the culture of individualism, or the consumer culture. Whether this was made by the prosperity that Britain enjoyed, or whether it was made by the religion of individual responsibilities that Thatcher believed in, there was a shift from the old conservative ideas of social responsibility (conservative includes both Tories and socialists), towards an emphasis on individual rights (consumer rights), which society (the seller) had to fulfill. That IMHO was the greatest legacy of Thatcherism, which is why her politics cannot adequately be described as Tory or conservative, for it was neither, but liberal.

[rory_20_uk]

I think that by 1979 a lot of this had already happened. The 50's, 60's and 70's were all years where the old order fell away, so I think that these changes were already advanced when she came to office.

[Furunculus]

good point, but i have always believed in traditional liberal politics, which is one reason why i don't vote liberal-democrat or labour.

[CountArach]

Here's to 30 years of greed!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Countries change over time. After the war, for decades, the UK was the most socialized country west of the Iron Curtain.

Yes, contemporary talk of ultra-liberalism as an 'Anglo'-tradition is historically off the mark. The UK and New Zealand - always the most 'British' of the dominions - had a social system that makes anything that ever happened in Scandinavia appear heartlessly ultraright. Neo-liberalism has spread from America into the British world. This neo-liberalism could make common cause with, trace some of its origin in, some British traditions. But on the whole, in the modern version it is an alien import into the (former) British world. Compare, for example, the vast difference in social systems that still divides Canada from the US. Britain, as is so often shamelessly forgotten both within and without the UK, is not a country with an inherent 'Anglo-style capitalist' tradition, but is instead the very inventor of the welfare state.

By 1979, Britain was bankrupt. A poor country, the second poorest in the EU. A new course was needed.

This, however, is not really what Thatcher did. She did not set out a new course* for Britian so much as destroy the obsolete. What she did, with sardonic pleasure one might add, was destroy the old in Britain. Arguably rightfully so. But with near psychopathic ruthlessness. Did she psychologically try to wash off the traces of her own modest origins by lashing out onto the poor?

*This honour, for better or for worse, I think belongs to Blair and New Labour.

[Louis VI the Fat]

It's all very well to say that once Scotland's industry has been crippled and the wealth sucked down to the south of England... the north can join us if they want.

The EU has Structural Funds. These have two aims: to 'cushion' economic transition. That is, investments into preserving the social fabric of regions that undergo economic transition. And two, to stimulate this economic transition form underdevelopment or obsolecence into a viable economy.

Scotland was left ravaged by the Thatcherite reforms. Whether these reforms were necessary is open to debate. I for one think they were. Even so, with breathtaking heartlessness, with an abruptness that borders on the brutal, Scotland was abandoned by London during the Thatcher era.

Scottish shipyards build an Empire. Empire gone, Scotland got the boot.

The European Union, however, will not abandon an entire region to poverty. Access to the world's largest market, and investments in economic infrastructure, have done for Scotland what London refused to do:

In Scotland, Structural Funds are the significant source of European Union funding for economic development in Scotland. Programmes run over a seven year period. From 2000-2006 Structural Funds spending provided over £1.1 billion of support for Scotland, supporting the Scottish Government's aims of boosting economic growth and improving productivity in Scotland while reducing economic and social disparities.

Europe has never believed that Scotland or Ireland should be abandoned to perennial backwardness. Unlike Margaret 'I want my money back' Thatcher, Europe did believe that all those regions in the British Isles that were relegated by history and London into destitution could be propelled into viable economies through central investment.

[Idaho]

Thatcher was a product of the times. Her 'ideology' was non-existant. She largely just continued the monetarist policies imposed on Britain by the IMF in 1976. The ephemera of her ideology masked choices based on what she liked and who her friends were. What she said and what she did were usually completely divorced - "roll back the frontiers of the state", "reduce public spending" actually translated into the biggest increases of public spending and massive increases in state power and scope.

Privatisation of national industry was chanced upon. Her government needed to raise money quickly so decided to sell off govt assets. They were as suprised as anyone as to the popularity of the move - and retrospectively turned it into ideology.

The poll tax was chanced upon at random too. The civil service presented a range of options to replace rates. Almost as a joke the poll tax was tacked onto the presentation.

Her husband and her husband's circle all become multi-millionaires under her govt.

Like all British rightwingers - she held at her heart a contradiction. That people should be at liberty only to do the sorts of things she herself would do.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Modern Britain (and it might be argued, much of the world) has been fundamentally changed by her legacy.

Britain under Thatcher made an abrupt transition from a socialized welfare state into a neo-liberal economy. This, I think, was not so much owing to Thatcher as to Britain's economic history. No other country in Europe was this economically outdated. No other country was this socialized. This combination made the UK into one of Europe's poorest countries. For decades, with the exception of Ireland, the whole of democratic Europe enjoyed a higher standard of living than Britons. Britain was only slightly ahead of the wealthiest communist countries.

A change was inevitable. Two options were possible: a gradual, 'social' transition. Or an abrupt, heartless transition. Only this was the choice for Britain, not change itself. As such, as so often, the exceptional individual did not create history, history created the exceptional individual. A Thatcher would've happened anyway. One does not need to admire Thatcher for Britain's economic recovery in the 1980's anymore than one should admire a politician elected in February for bringing about spring and summer.

The only choice was heartless or social transition. Was Thatcher's choice of heartlessness right? I'll throw all the Thatcherites a bone. Within Europe's 'core', there are two other contemporaneous examples of transitions of regions who have similar outdated traditional industries combined with socialized welfare. These are Wallonia and Eastern Germany. Both chose the 'gradual, social' path to economic transition. Both failed, fail to this day. Despite continuous heavy support from the functioning part of the economy of their countries - Flanders in Belgium and the West in Germany - the transition is simply not coming about. This would suggest that going cold turkey is the viable option. Alas.

[Furunculus]

Here's to 30 years of greed!

after thirty years of slovenly and unnecessary decline it was a breath of fresh air!

[Furunculus]

Access to the world's largest market, and investments in economic infrastructure, have done for Scotland what London refused to do

you keep stating that free-market trading is some great bountiful gift of the EU, and not the natural state of civilised affairs, which i find bizarre. it isn't.

[Furunculus]

"roll back the frontiers of the state", "reduce public spending" actually translated into the biggest increases of public spending and massive increases in state power and scope.

Like all British rightwingers - she held at her heart a contradiction. That people should be at liberty only to do the sorts of things she herself would do.

got some figures to back that up boyo?

how very divorced from reality.

[Furunculus]

The only choice was heartless or social transition. Was Thatcher's choice of heartlessness right? I'll throw all the Thatcherites a bone. Within Europe's 'core', there are two other contemporaneous examples of transitions of regions who have similar outdated traditional industries combined with socialized welfare. These are Wallonia and Eastern Germany. Both chose the 'gradual, social' path to economic transition. Both failed, fail to this day. Despite continuous heavy support from the functioning part of the economy of their countries - Flanders in Belgium and the West in Germany - the transition is simply not coming about. This would suggest that going cold turkey is the viable option. Alas.

^ first sensible thing you've said on the issue, congrats ^

[CountArach]

after thirty years of slovenly and unnecessary decline it was a breath of fresh air!

Greed > Imperial Decline

Right...

Not sure I follow?

[KukriKhan]

God... I guess it has been 30 years. I remember the Thatcher-Reagan-Kohl "team" as though they were last month.

From a US perspective (at the time): hard money times were upon us; we had a behemoth bent on our destruction to contend with, and militarily, we were all still finding our way in a post-colonial, post WWI/WWII (and for the US, a postVN) age. Previous regimes, pursuing a simultaneous "guns and butter" paradigm, had spent us into almost unfathomable debt and unemployment. Somebody had to make the hard decisions. They did.

I was not a fan of them at the time - I thought their policies picked on the already poor too hard. Looking back, though, I can see that events seem to control them and their decisions, more than vice-versa. Any so-called 'ideology' didn't actually exist beforehand, except rhetorically, but was rather contructed after the fact: "We've done this, and this, and that, therefore, we must believe this."

I still remember the muppetization of the 3 on TV; what a crack-up. :)

[Furunculus]

Greed > Imperial Decline

Right...

Not sure I follow?

I don't think you really appreciate the scale of the damage that was done by britain's retarded little flirtation with a centralised command economy.

the difference is obvious enough if you compare Britain in the mid seventies to britain in the mid nineties.

[Vladimir]

If you're looking for perfect governance keep looking. The Regan/Thatcher/His Hatness victory against the Soviets leaves me with a good impression of the era.

It's also interesting to see how people are lining up on this. So many people are following stereotypical patterns.