Thatcher before the Falklands War of 1982 never seemed other than a passing phenomenon. The war proved a turning point
Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s most famous Prime Minister since Churchill.
Over 11 years she transformed her nation and gave birth to an “-ism” in use to this day. She was not widely loved, but she was admired even by those who disagreed with her.Thatcher was a truly revolutionary leader. She was dissatisfied by what she saw round her and set herself to change it utterly.She saw socialism and wanted the opposite, freedom from the state.She was no conservative, other than in an emotional attachment to a certain sort of Britishness, but preached ceaselessly for change.She bred a generation of politicians all of whom took her as their reference point and all of whom dedicated themselves to the cause of reform.Thatcher believed in a revolution aimed at a society where class was overwhelmed by the benign, equilibrating forces of a free-market economy.The cult of get-rich-quick linked the Big Bang with what became the “Nigel Lawson boom” of the late 80s.The associated stereotypes, the yuppie in a black suit, the Cockney futures trader, the “phone number” bonus, the Porsche and the Cotswold manor became icons of Thatcher’s Britain, cruelly contrasted with the unemployed miner and docker.She turned the working class from a repository of nostalgia and cultural romance into an aspirant bourgeoisie.To her middle class was what the working class all wanted to become.The test of any revolution is, did it work and did it last? When on November 20 1990 Thatcher’s cabinet colleagues trooped into her Commons room and told her to go, the world gasped.What had they done? The answer is they had decided Thatcherism could best be preserved if its progenitor were removed from the scene, and they were right.After the fall, the legacy was continued by John Major, Tony Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to become the ruling consensus of British government.These three men, Thatcher’s “sons”, were convinced disciples, going where even their mistress had feared to tread.She treated them, with varying degrees of faith, as her heirs.I witnessed the Thatcher era from the start.
I worked on the fringes of the Conservative party before the 1970 general election as it sought a new direction in Opposition under Edward Heath.Like most observers, I at first viewed Thatcher’s Tory leadership as transitional, a rightist rebellion, possibly shock therapy, probably a mistake.Thatcher did not seem a natural leader, let alone a prime minister. Her voice was shrill and manner hectoring.She was a bad listener and responded to suggestions with a cantankerous right-wing tick.The experience of the 1970 Heath government left Thatcher a brutal realist.Thatcher before the Falklands War of 1982 never seemed other than a passing phenomenon. The war proved a turning point.
She was emboldened to confront previously intractable forces ranged against her: the trade unions, Europe, local government and enemies within her own party.
Thatcher enjoyed only the briefest of real ascendancy. It lasted from the defeat of the miners in 1985 to the Poll Tax revolt of 1989.
Only then was she able to bring the full force of her “-ism” to bear on public administration.Her style was that of battle rather than debate. Her bossiness made her few friends and her treatment of subsidiary institutions was brutal.She could show a fierce contempt for civil servants, academics, nationalised industries and civic leaders.“None of you can be any good,” she told the British Rail Board over lunch, “or you would be in private industry.”
She was loved and loathed. Her name still evokes a fierce reaction in people over the age of forty.
Thirty years after its genesis, Thatcherism was still regarded by most Britons with bemusement.What was this word, this ideology, this policy, this woman, who dominated the lives of so many yet with which few seemed to have sympathy?To its acolytes there was no argument because there was no alternative. To both left and right the conservative tradition in British politics was as good as dead.Revolution, reform, change was all. Thatcher said so, and Blair agreed.His continued quest for competition and choice in state health and education left his party angry and the country baffled.Nor was his chancellor Brown far behind, as he struggled to privatise more of the health service, Post Office, law and order and even job centres.There was no sign of public support for all this, but the Blair government seemed on a Thatcherite autopilot. It could not stop.Young Britons viewed the Thatcher era much as older one had viewed Attlee’s welfare state. They took it for granted.But the bitterly fought reforms of the 80s were not replicated in the rest of Europe – until perhaps now.We can now see her departure in 1990 as the end of the beginning.Labour prime ministers Blair and Brown, were, like John Major before them, prisoners of a revolution effected by Thatcher in the 1980s.They had abandoned traditional Labour policies and espoused the revolution to gain office in 1997 and then found that, in her phrase, “there was no alternative”.Brown at the Treasury, even more than Blair in Downing Street, adhered to Thatcherism in almost every particular.As an enthusiast for privatisation, price mechanisms, welfare reform, Euroscepticism and the profit motive he outshone every other chancellor of Thatcherism.But like them he failed to see the downside in the Thatcher revolution.Even as it liberated the private sector of the British economy, it seemed to cramp the public sector in regulation and red tape, enmeshing it in reorganisation and frequent chaos. Staff and public alike were left disgruntled and ministers constantly forced to promise more change.Thatcherism had proved its capacity to galvanise, yet not to calm, to stimulate yet not necessarily to deliver.It has proved strangely unhelpful to David Cameron as he now wrestles with similar problems to those of the lady he professes to admire.Edited extract from THATCHER AND SONS: A Revolution in Three Acts by Simon Jenkins – Penguin, £9.99.
Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s most famous Prime Minister since Churchill.
Over 11 years she transformed her nation and gave birth to an “-ism” in use to this day. She was not widely loved, but she was admired even by those who disagreed with her.Thatcher was a truly revolutionary leader. She was dissatisfied by what she saw round her and set herself to change it utterly.She saw socialism and wanted the opposite, freedom from the state.She was no conservative, other than in an emotional attachment to a certain sort of Britishness, but preached ceaselessly for change.She bred a generation of politicians all of whom took her as their reference point and all of whom dedicated themselves to the cause of reform.Thatcher believed in a revolution aimed at a society where class was overwhelmed by the benign, equilibrating forces of a free-market economy.The cult of get-rich-quick linked the Big Bang with what became the “Nigel Lawson boom” of the late 80s.The associated stereotypes, the yuppie in a black suit, the Cockney futures trader, the “phone number” bonus, the Porsche and the Cotswold manor became icons of Thatcher’s Britain, cruelly contrasted with the unemployed miner and docker.She turned the working class from a repository of nostalgia and cultural romance into an aspirant bourgeoisie.To her middle class was what the working class all wanted to become.The test of any revolution is, did it work and did it last? When on November 20 1990 Thatcher’s cabinet colleagues trooped into her Commons room and told her to go, the world gasped.What had they done? The answer is they had decided Thatcherism could best be preserved if its progenitor were removed from the scene, and they were right.After the fall, the legacy was continued by John Major, Tony Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to become the ruling consensus of British government.These three men, Thatcher’s “sons”, were convinced disciples, going where even their mistress had feared to tread.She treated them, with varying degrees of faith, as her heirs.I witnessed the Thatcher era from the start.
I worked on the fringes of the Conservative party before the 1970 general election as it sought a new direction in Opposition under Edward Heath.Like most observers, I at first viewed Thatcher’s Tory leadership as transitional, a rightist rebellion, possibly shock therapy, probably a mistake.Thatcher did not seem a natural leader, let alone a prime minister. Her voice was shrill and manner hectoring.She was a bad listener and responded to suggestions with a cantankerous right-wing tick.The experience of the 1970 Heath government left Thatcher a brutal realist.Thatcher before the Falklands War of 1982 never seemed other than a passing phenomenon. The war proved a turning point.
She was emboldened to confront previously intractable forces ranged against her: the trade unions, Europe, local government and enemies within her own party.
Thatcher enjoyed only the briefest of real ascendancy. It lasted from the defeat of the miners in 1985 to the Poll Tax revolt of 1989.
Only then was she able to bring the full force of her “-ism” to bear on public administration.Her style was that of battle rather than debate. Her bossiness made her few friends and her treatment of subsidiary institutions was brutal.She could show a fierce contempt for civil servants, academics, nationalised industries and civic leaders.“None of you can be any good,” she told the British Rail Board over lunch, “or you would be in private industry.”
She was loved and loathed. Her name still evokes a fierce reaction in people over the age of forty.
Thirty years after its genesis, Thatcherism was still regarded by most Britons with bemusement.What was this word, this ideology, this policy, this woman, who dominated the lives of so many yet with which few seemed to have sympathy?To its acolytes there was no argument because there was no alternative. To both left and right the conservative tradition in British politics was as good as dead.Revolution, reform, change was all. Thatcher said so, and Blair agreed.His continued quest for competition and choice in state health and education left his party angry and the country baffled.Nor was his chancellor Brown far behind, as he struggled to privatise more of the health service, Post Office, law and order and even job centres.There was no sign of public support for all this, but the Blair government seemed on a Thatcherite autopilot. It could not stop.Young Britons viewed the Thatcher era much as older one had viewed Attlee’s welfare state. They took it for granted.But the bitterly fought reforms of the 80s were not replicated in the rest of Europe – until perhaps now.We can now see her departure in 1990 as the end of the beginning.Labour prime ministers Blair and Brown, were, like John Major before them, prisoners of a revolution effected by Thatcher in the 1980s.They had abandoned traditional Labour policies and espoused the revolution to gain office in 1997 and then found that, in her phrase, “there was no alternative”.Brown at the Treasury, even more than Blair in Downing Street, adhered to Thatcherism in almost every particular.As an enthusiast for privatisation, price mechanisms, welfare reform, Euroscepticism and the profit motive he outshone every other chancellor of Thatcherism.But like them he failed to see the downside in the Thatcher revolution.Even as it liberated the private sector of the British economy, it seemed to cramp the public sector in regulation and red tape, enmeshing it in reorganisation and frequent chaos. Staff and public alike were left disgruntled and ministers constantly forced to promise more change.Thatcherism had proved its capacity to galvanise, yet not to calm, to stimulate yet not necessarily to deliver.It has proved strangely unhelpful to David Cameron as he now wrestles with similar problems to those of the lady he professes to admire.Edited extract from THATCHER AND SONS: A Revolution in Three Acts by Simon Jenkins – Penguin, £9.99.