speech in the House of Commons, her The main names associated with Fatcha-bashing Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle deny that they relied so heavily on her for material. Britain ceased to be the sick man of Europe and entered the 1990s with its reputation enhanced. 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. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot, she The romantic image of the lady in the tank spurs them on. 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. Reagan would often hasten to remind those paying tribute to his cold war strategy that it was, in the strictest sense of the term, a team effort. They are acolytes of a raw Thatcher cult they have rough-hewn and exaggerated in their own image. Thatcher's Bruges speech 'not anti-EU' - former aide - BBC News an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is wrong with politics? Margaret Thatcher Curriculum Vitae. 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. National Press Club Luncheon Speakers: Margaret Thatcher (Recorded They're not Thatcher. 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." Interview by Benedict King. 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. More than once the view was advanced that it was a pity the IRA had not succeeded in their ultimate objective when they bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Congress. Being a woman is undoubtedly one of the features, possibly the most potent, that makes her ascent to power memorable, 25 years on, in a way that applied to no man. She hated what she called "that French phrase laissez faire". She was "outraged" when the programmes went ahead. By raising the pay of their own staff to a minimum of the living wage, they have set an example which a growing number of large private-sector employers have followed. 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. Tim Bale, author of The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, says it was conviction. Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. Plus there's the fact that comedy is now a big business, and there's less money in sharp satire than gentle observation. In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. When President Reagan died in June 2004, she delivered a This is a political style, an aesthetic even, that has disappeared from view. John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. So instead: "I put it to her that we would be saving money." If I become PM, I will deliver the radical set of reforms need to unleash growth. Books by Margaret Thatcher (Author of The Downing Street Years) - Goodreads It is not true that Thatcher didn't care about the media. During Margaret Thatcher's rise to the top, he was one of the backroom figures whose words helped create her reputation as the Iron Lady. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. Reagan's decision to bomb Libya, spoke The battle with the miners and leftwing councils lay ahead, as did the trauma of an IRA assassination bid. Reagan, who had recently left office as governor of California, was in London to deliver a speech to the Pilgrim Society. It was illegal to put an extension lead on your phone. Behind "omnishambles" headlines, her revolution is being pushed forward on new fronts in schools, health, planning, policing, probation and welfare. Great speeches: 'Orwellian nightmare' if Tories fail, claims Margaret Thatcher. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told If they have no bread, let them eat from food banks that's Thatcherism, the legacy we are still to bury before it buries us. She usually knew the limits to public tolerance, gauging how much of the spirit of '45 abided, so even if it was between gritted teeth, she forced herself to say, "The NHS is safe in our hands": she reorganised but did not privatise it. North sea oil was squandered when it should have seeded new industries. It isn't sad for anyone else. Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. It never was. Such items have an Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. performance at a Press Conference afterwards, the In 1968 she gave a lecture asking What's November). For those of us who were dismayed by her brisk distaste for that cosy state-dominated world, it was never enough to dislike her. Margaret has spent her life fighting for social justice and equality. CD icon next to them in the second column of the results list. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. Second, it's now easier to see the scale of the setback she inflicted on Britain's idea of its own future. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. After material needs have been met, research has repeatedly shown that further rises in material standards contribute less and less to wellbeing. She became deaf to all warning. The remainder are listed without a text because . The spell of community. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . The most widely used measure of income differences shows inequality increasing by more than a third during her period in office. Great speeches: Margaret Thatcher | World | The Guardian a new dominance from Brussels". Margaret expresses that Reagan's leadership was the key to ending The Cold War and unifying a formerly divided nation. Handbag. Under this heading, Thatcher left a dark legacy that, like her successes, has still not disappeared behind the historical horizon. You may not be a fan of Edwina Currie but, really, was she any worse than John Gummer? Selling public housing to the tenants who occupied it was another, on top of the denationalisation of industries and utilities once thought to be ineluctably and for ever in the hands of the state. 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." What saved Thatcher's bacon, and revolutionised her leadership, was Labour's unelectable Michael Foot and the Falklands war. Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? Thatcher's reign helped to inspire alternative comedy by creating a generation so bereft of hope that they started putting on gigs just for the sake of something to do. I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher - The Telegraph An unclubbable outsider, she allied herself to another outsider, Keith Joseph, and his free-market set. Margaret Thatcher (October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013) was the first woman prime minister of the United Kingdom and the first European woman to serve as a prime minister. That did the trick.). "What's going on there, mate?" M argaret Thatcher does an awful lot of crying in The Crown. The pomp and circumstance that will crown her funeral was proffered by Brown, to some shudders from his own side. Perhaps we suspected that reality had created a character beyond our creative reach. Over the years, and through much re-telling, the story had it that Thatcher told Hitchens to bend over, and that she spanked him with her order papers. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. Unable to win the leadership ballot outright, she stood on the steps of As a child she unnerved me but we are not children now and we are free to choose our own ethical codes and leaders that reflect them. "She had been offered the chance to get on and effectively she then refused to offer it to otherpeople. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . Many are children of the Thatcher age. "The News" was the pompous conduit through which we suckled at the barren baroness through newscaster wet-nurses, naturally; not direct from the steel teat. Look at the trains on the track, the phone in your house, the trio of 1980s teenagers who lead the three main parties. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually. Unquestionably, a major component of what Reagan achieved was mirrored in what Baroness Thatcher herself achieved. morning, Available for everyone, funded by readers. When Heath fell, her promoters ran her as a stalking horse because, as a woman, they thought she could not win. April 17, 2013, 6:40 PM. Secondly, the balance of power in industrial relations was shifted decisively in favour of employers. Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off. . Thatcher is gone, but Thatcherism has infected and discredited all mainstream parties, depriving us of a chance to turn it down. My mate John and I were wandering there together, he expertly proselytising on the architecture and the history of the place, me pretending to be Rumpole of the Bailey (quietly in my mind), when we spied in the distant garden a hunched and frail figure, in a raincoat, scarf about her head, watering the roses under the breezy supervision of a masticating copper. In towns and valleys poleaxed by the Iron Lady, there may be glasses raised at her passing. The centralised statism that dominated politics for much of the 20th century, given its last pathetic gasp under the profligate government of Gordon Brown, ultimately failed the poor while proving financially unsustainable and unsuited to modern times. Margaret Thatcher Essay Adam Smith's invisible hand ended up raising two fingers to her moral project. From a peak of 13 million in 1979, trade union membership had declined by 30% by 1990, and is now not much more than half what it was. It was not yours, but belonged to the Post Office: in effect, the government. It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. "Being powerful is like being a lady. declared that she wanted our money back. 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. Defending The Venezuelan Embassy, Organizing Peace for Ukraine with BBC Radio 4 - Green Originals, Margaret Thatcher She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism. In the 2011 biographical drama film "The Iron Lady," Meryl Streep plays the role of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. She would not have been half the . Nor, contrary to myth, did Thatcherism emerge fully formed in May 1979. This speech was delivered soon after her taking office in 1979. That 1983 general election contained the telltale seeds of eventual Scottish Tory self-destruction. 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. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. Draining down those 11 years to their memorable essence, what does one light upon? 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". We are all on our own. Margaret Thatcher's landmark Bruges speech about the future of Europe was never intended to push the UK towards the exit, the man who wrote it says. The Yale Book of Quotations also states, "Thatcher is said to have used this in a 1965 speech.". Margaret Thatcher: sitcom star - British Comedy Guide When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied Instead, her Big Bang blew the roof off City profits and property booms filled the gap where productive industry should have sprouted. The poll tax showed the opposite, the weakness of Thatcher's strength. Its strategies included the shallow and ineffectual 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement which was about creating a political alliance involving the Dublin establishment, the SDLP and the British to defeat Irish republicanism. Too timid, too in thrall, the 13-year Labour government rarely dared challenge the attitudes she planted in the national psyche. In her speech, Thatcher used rhetorical techniques to show the strength and principles of Reagan and project those values onto the American people. In rich societies such as the UK, what makes most difference to the real quality of our lives is the quality of community life and social interaction. If you want anything done, ask a woman.". 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. And when I and several other Sinn Fin leaders were elected to the Assembly in 1982 we were barred from entry to Britain. . At its heart must be an active programme to create good jobs and raise living standards. After being asked to deliver a eulogy for the late Ronald Reagan on June 11, 2004, Margaret Thatcher gave a speech about her dear friend, and highlighted his best qualities through her writing. The current crop of leaders are so dull, so ill-defined, so lacking in personality that it's almost impossible for comedians to rage against them. After the 1987 election, Thatcher cut an increasingly isolated figure. 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. She wanted to win, but did not put much faith in the quick smile. The Iron Lady had a green thumband a surprisingly green philosophy. In former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's eulogy speech for President Ronald Reagan (2004), she elucidates what a kind and powerful man he was. As working families in poverty now account for more than half of those below the poverty line, a government committed to "making work pay" should surely encourage this trend and raise the minimum wage. Every quality had its obverse, but she had a myth-making charisma to capture the world's imagination. In fact, several countries have adopted these ideas with startlingly successful results; just changing the wording on some forms raised an extra 200m income tax in Britain, while personalised text messages drastically reduced the use of bailiffs to recover court fines. It made minor savings at best and was, as the .