Margaret Thatcher’s policies

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, served as Brit­ish Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 and leader of the Conserva­tive Party from 1975 until 1990, being the first (and, to date, only) woman to hold either post.

Thatcher led the Conservatives to a decisive electoral vic­tory on 4 May 1979 following a series of major strikes during the previous winter (the so-called “Winter of Discontent”) under the Labour Party government. As a prime minister representing the newly energetic right wing of the Conservative Party (the “Dries,” as they later called themselves, as opposed to the old-style moder­ate Tories, or “Wets”), Thatcher advocated greater independence of the individual from the state; an end to allegedly excessive gov­ernment interference in the economy, including privatization of state-owned enterprises and the sale of public housing to tenants; reductions in expenditures on social services such as health care, education, and housing; limitations on the printing of money in accord with the economic doctrine of monetarism; and legal re­strictions on trade unions.

1979-1983

The main impact of her first term was economic. Inheriting a weak economy, she reduced or eliminated some governmental regulations and subsidies to businesses, thereby purging the manu­facturing industry of many inefficient—but also some blameless— firms. The result was a dramatic increase in unemployment, from 1.3 million in 1979 to more than double that figure two years later. At the same time, inflation doubled in just 14 months, to more than 20 percent, and manufacturing output fell sharply. She had a preference for indirect taxation over taxes on income, and value added tax (VAT) was raised sharply to 15%. Although infla­tion decreased and output rose before the end of her first term, unemployment continued to increase, reaching more than three million in 1986.

Thatcher embarked on an ambitious program of privatization of state-owned industries and public services, including aerospace, television and radio, gas and electricity, water, the state airline, and British Steel. By the end of the 1980s, the number of indi­vidual stockholders had tripled, and the government had sold 1.5 million publicly owned housing units to their tenants.

Nonetheless, rising unemployment and social tensions during her first term made her deeply unpopular. Her unpopularity would have ensured her defeat in the general election of 1983 were it not for two factors: the Falkland Islands War (1982) between Britain and Argentina, over possession of a remote British dependency in the South Atlantic, and the deep divisions within the Labour Party, which contested the election on a radical manifesto that critics dubbed the “longest suicide note in history.” Thatcher won election to a second term in a landslide—the biggest victory since Labour’s great success in 1945—gaining a parliamentary majority of 144 with just over 42 percent of the vote.

1983-1987

Thatcher entered office promising to curb the power of the unions, which had shown their ability to bring the country to a standstill during six weeks of strikes in the winter of 1978—79. Her government enacted a series of measures designed to under­mine the unions’ ability to organize and stage strikes, including laws that banned the closed shop, required unions to poll their members before ordering a strike, forbade sympathy strikes, and rendered unions responsible for damages caused by their members. In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers began a nationwide strike to prevent the closing of 20 coal mines that the government claimed were unproductive. The walkout, which lasted nearly a year, soon became emblematic of the struggle for power between the Conservative government and the trade union movement. Thatcher steadfastly refused to meet the union’s demands, and in the end she won; the miners returned to work without winning a single concession.

A terrorist bombing at a Conservative Party conference in Brighton in 1984, the work of the Irish Republican Army, nearly killed Thatcher and several senior members of her government. By the end of Thatcher’s second term, few aspects of British life had escaped the most sweeping transformation of Britain since the postwar reforms of the Labour Party.

In the Cold War, Thatcher supported United States President Ronald Reagan’s policies of deterrence against the Soviets. US forces were permitted by Thatcher to station nuclear cruise mis­siles at British bases, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She strongly supported the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent, a stance that proved popular with the electorate, given the Labour Party’s repudiation of Britain’s traditional nuclear and defense policies. Thatcher and Reagan, who together made the 1980s the decade of conservatism, shared a vision of the world in which the Soviet Union was an evil enemy deserving of no compromise, and their partnership ensured that the Cold War continued in all its frigidity until the rise to power of the reform- minded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. This was a start of a move by the West back to a new d tente with the USSR under Gorbachev’s leadership, which coincided with the final erosion of Soviet power prior to its eventual collapse in 1991. Thatcher out­lasted the Cold War, which ended in 1989, and those who share her views on it credit her with a part in the West’s victory, by both the deterrence and d tente postures.

In Africa, Thatcher presided over the orderly establishment of an independent Zimbabwe in 1980 after 15 years of illegal separa­tion from British colonial rule under a white minority. However, she encountered considerable criticism both at home and abroad for her opposition to international sanctions against the apartheid regime of South Africa.

1987-1990

By leading her party to victory in the 1987 general election Margaret Thatcher became the longest continuously serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since Lord Liverpool (1812 to 1827). After her third electoral victory, she adopted a steadily 11 more hostile attitude toward European integration. She resisted “federalist” continental trends toward both a single currency and a deeper political union. Her traditionally pro-European party be­came divided, and a string of senior ministers left the Cabinet over the issue.

The implementation of a poll tax in 1989 produced outbreaks of street violence and alarmed the Conservative rank-and-file, who feared that Thatcher could not lead the party to a fourth consecutive term. Spurred by public disapproval of the poll tax and Thatcher’s increasingly strident tone, Conservative members of Parliament moved against her in November 1990. Although she defeated her most senior opponent, former defense minister Michael Heseltine, by 204 votes to Heseltine’s 152, her total fell four votes short of the necessary majority plus 15 percent, and she decided not to contest the election in a second ballot. On Novem­ber 22 she announced her resignation as Conservative Party leader and prime minister, paving the way for her replacement by John Major six days later.

Margaret Thatcher has undoubtedly made a great impact on British and global politics. Her departure was one of the most dramatic events in British political history.

She was a divisive figure, and some still hold her responsible for destroying much of the UK’s manufacturing base, consigning many to long-term unemployment (reaching 4 million in the dec­ade she was in power). However, supporters of privatisation and of the free market cite the recovery of the economy during the mid- 1980s and the present-day success of the British economy, with its relatively low unemployment and structural shift away from manufacturing towards the service sector. An unfortunate effect of her policies was that many of the publicly supported industries and industrial plants that shrank or closed down were the predominant employers in their areas, thus causing pockets of very high un­employment, while the growth of new services and technologies normally took place in other usually more prosperous areas.

When Thatcher took over in 1979, Britain was sometimes nicknamed as the “sick man of Europe” in the 1970s. Arguably, the UK emerged from the 1980s as one of the more successful economies in Europe. While the unemployment rate did eventu­ally come down, it came after initial job losses and radical labour market reforms. These included laws that weakened trade unions , and the deregulation of financial markets, which certainly played a part in returning London to a leadership position as a European financial centre, and her push for increased competition in tel­ecommunications and other public utilities¹

Perceptions of Margaret Thatcher are mixed among the Brit­ish public. Few would argue that there was any woman who played a more important role on the world stage in the 20^lh century. In perhaps the sincerest form of flattery, Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, himself a thrice-elected Prime Minister, has acknowl­edged her importance. Thatcher herself indirectly acknowledged Blair during a Conservative leadership contest when she said “The Conservative Party doesn’t need someone that can beat Mr Blair. They need someone like Mr Blair.”

Thatcher is credited by Ronald Reagan with persuading him that Mikhail Gorbachev was sincere in his desire to reform and liberalize the Soviet Union. The resulting thaw in East-West rela­tions helped to end the Cold War. In recognition of this, Lady Thatcher was awarded the 1998 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award by Mrs. Nancy Reagan. The award is only given to those who “have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom worldwide,” and “embody President Reagan’s life long belief that one man or woman can truly make a difference.” Presi­dent Ronald Reagan, who was not able to attend the ceremony, was a longtime friend of Lady Thatcher.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1752