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The Iron Lady's uneven legacy
Saturday, April 13, 2013
THROUGHOUT the eleven years that she occupied 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher's default wardrobe colour was blue — preferably royal blue. Sometimes she would appear wearing an outfit of another colour, always accompanied by her trademark handbag. One colour she didn't appear to recognise was grey — as in shades or nuances; to put it plainly, subtlety.
Margaret Hilda Roberts, as she was for the first 26 years of her life until she married an affable, successful businessman, Denis Thatcher, was a mentally sharp woman who grew up in the small town of Grantham, Lincolnshire. Her family was sufficiently well off to send her to a private girls' school before she won a scholarship to Oxford, where she studied chemistry. After that, she worked as a research chemist and then — bankrolled by Denis — studied law.
It was while at Oxford that the young Ms Roberts became drawn to politics. She won office on her first attempt, in 1959, in the London constituency of Finchley and soon found herself on the front bench of Harold MacMillan's Government. The party lost power and then returned to office after an election in 1970, and the new leader, Ted Heath, appointed Thatcher to the Cabinet in charge of education. She quickly earned her first taste of public opprobrium when she abolished free milk for schoolchildren. Critics hung the label "Margaret Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher" and she was never allowed to forget it. After the usual political cycling in and out of power, the Conservatives won an election early in 1979 and Thatcher made history - she became Britain's first female prime minister.
What the Great Britain Thatcher inherited was anything but great. It was a hidebound, class-riddled, calcified society led by a ruling class which operated on rules more suited to a feudal society than one of the late 20th century. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Britain's factories, techniques and industrial practices had barely changed over several generations. This was partly because Britain ended the second World War on the winning side. Its main enemies, Japan and Germany, had been bombed flat and thus had a clean slate upon which to write a new industrial blueprint. Its chief ally, the United States, was a newcomer to the industrial scene, and its industries were enjoying an unprecedented explosion of growth engendered by the self-same war.
Britain, on the other hand, was lumbered with old equipment — many factories were using the same machinery they had before World War I; its industrial leaders were encumbered with old-fashioned ideas and techniques, and its sullen workforce was clustered in unions which themselves harked back to the early days of struggles for a share of the wealth they produced.
While the industrial bosses were content to spend most of their days in leather seats in musty old clubs puffing cigars while sipping port and whisky, the union bosses were savouring their more recently won power and influence, while forgetting what they were there for. Workers were content with what became essentially a three-day workweek and regular pints in the pub.
The state's presence in all aspects of life
The murderous effects of the Great War, the crushing poverty of the depression and the crumbling of their once-mighty empire made the British afraid to face a cut-throat existence after World War II. Many public amenities — like water supplies, electricity and telecommunications — were already run by the State, and the Labour Government which won office as the war ended built up an all-encompassing nanny state. There was the National Health Service, which survives to this day after considerable tweaking to make it fiscally sustainable. The Government nationalised industries, from coal and iron mines to steel works and the extensive railway system. Generations grew up in what they called "council houses", owned by local governments and let to low-income tenants at low rents.
Thatcher swung a blunt meat cleaver at all those hoary old institutions and practices. In 1986, Britain had 186 coal pits operated by about 170,000 coal miners. Today, there are only four coal operations, run by 2,000 miners. Employing privatisation — which sounds like an operation on your nether region without benefit of anaesthetic — she sold off state-owned enterprises and deregulated the financial sector. About the only important entities she left untouched were the National Health Service and British Rail, which was broken up and scattered to the winds by her successor, John Major.
Many of those spouting opinions about how wonderful Thatcher was in dismantling Britain's state economy, while sending some three million people to the unemployment rolls and gutting many communities, fail to mention that she had a new-found source of wealth. The oil fields in the North Sea had just began to produce some of the world's easiest-to-refine oil, offering billions of pounds in revenues. Instead of salting away the money in trust — as the other big North Sea oil producer, Norway, has done — Thatcher used it to finance her privatisation and tax-cutting schemes.
While the problem of inefficient state industries and worker lassitude certainly needed to be addressed, Thatcher's dull-blade, sweeping, broad-brush approach has left the country lacking in several areas. Britain has been transformed from a manufacturing to a service economy owned by foreigners, who control such vital assets such as airports, and seriously lacks public housing. Thatcher sold those council flats and houses at bargain-basement prices, and many who bought them have made handsome profits flipping them. But very few new units were built, and now Britain has homeless people wandering the streets.
Whole communities have been hollowed out with the departure of industry. Derby, a city not far from Thatcher's hometown, was the birthplace of the railway industry. Serious rail manufacturing has moved to Germany and other parts of Europe, and about the only significant industry left in Derby is car manufacturing; Rolls-Royce — one of the few serious British high-tech organisations left — and a Toyota car plant.
A former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, acknowledges that some of what Thatcher tore down needed to be torn down, but adds: "She was a better destroyer than a builder". She did open the windows on the country's economy, but in doing so replaced a sense of community with an ethos of greed and selfishness. Like many self-made people, Thatcher had very little time for the rest of us ordinary folk whose lives are directed by outside forces. And while she cracked the thickest glass ceiling of all, she quickly pulled up the drawbridge. Thatcher never mentored other women and appointed only one to her Cabinet in more than a decade in office.
In the course of her political career, Thatcher accumulated many sobriquets. Her favourite was one she acquired before becoming prime minister. In 1976 she made a speech attacking the Soviet Union, whose leaders she said sought world domination and "put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns". In response, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) dubbed her the "Iron Lady".
Once, when showed a bronze statue of herself, she was reputed to have said, "I would have preferred iron". Perhaps the most apt comment I have heard all week came in this terse letter in one of my local papers: "The Iron Lady is gone. May she rust in peace".
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz2QNBSDr00
Saturday, April 13, 2013
THROUGHOUT the eleven years that she occupied 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher's default wardrobe colour was blue — preferably royal blue. Sometimes she would appear wearing an outfit of another colour, always accompanied by her trademark handbag. One colour she didn't appear to recognise was grey — as in shades or nuances; to put it plainly, subtlety.
Margaret Hilda Roberts, as she was for the first 26 years of her life until she married an affable, successful businessman, Denis Thatcher, was a mentally sharp woman who grew up in the small town of Grantham, Lincolnshire. Her family was sufficiently well off to send her to a private girls' school before she won a scholarship to Oxford, where she studied chemistry. After that, she worked as a research chemist and then — bankrolled by Denis — studied law.
It was while at Oxford that the young Ms Roberts became drawn to politics. She won office on her first attempt, in 1959, in the London constituency of Finchley and soon found herself on the front bench of Harold MacMillan's Government. The party lost power and then returned to office after an election in 1970, and the new leader, Ted Heath, appointed Thatcher to the Cabinet in charge of education. She quickly earned her first taste of public opprobrium when she abolished free milk for schoolchildren. Critics hung the label "Margaret Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher" and she was never allowed to forget it. After the usual political cycling in and out of power, the Conservatives won an election early in 1979 and Thatcher made history - she became Britain's first female prime minister.
What the Great Britain Thatcher inherited was anything but great. It was a hidebound, class-riddled, calcified society led by a ruling class which operated on rules more suited to a feudal society than one of the late 20th century. The birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Britain's factories, techniques and industrial practices had barely changed over several generations. This was partly because Britain ended the second World War on the winning side. Its main enemies, Japan and Germany, had been bombed flat and thus had a clean slate upon which to write a new industrial blueprint. Its chief ally, the United States, was a newcomer to the industrial scene, and its industries were enjoying an unprecedented explosion of growth engendered by the self-same war.
Britain, on the other hand, was lumbered with old equipment — many factories were using the same machinery they had before World War I; its industrial leaders were encumbered with old-fashioned ideas and techniques, and its sullen workforce was clustered in unions which themselves harked back to the early days of struggles for a share of the wealth they produced.
While the industrial bosses were content to spend most of their days in leather seats in musty old clubs puffing cigars while sipping port and whisky, the union bosses were savouring their more recently won power and influence, while forgetting what they were there for. Workers were content with what became essentially a three-day workweek and regular pints in the pub.
The state's presence in all aspects of life
The murderous effects of the Great War, the crushing poverty of the depression and the crumbling of their once-mighty empire made the British afraid to face a cut-throat existence after World War II. Many public amenities — like water supplies, electricity and telecommunications — were already run by the State, and the Labour Government which won office as the war ended built up an all-encompassing nanny state. There was the National Health Service, which survives to this day after considerable tweaking to make it fiscally sustainable. The Government nationalised industries, from coal and iron mines to steel works and the extensive railway system. Generations grew up in what they called "council houses", owned by local governments and let to low-income tenants at low rents.
Thatcher swung a blunt meat cleaver at all those hoary old institutions and practices. In 1986, Britain had 186 coal pits operated by about 170,000 coal miners. Today, there are only four coal operations, run by 2,000 miners. Employing privatisation — which sounds like an operation on your nether region without benefit of anaesthetic — she sold off state-owned enterprises and deregulated the financial sector. About the only important entities she left untouched were the National Health Service and British Rail, which was broken up and scattered to the winds by her successor, John Major.
Many of those spouting opinions about how wonderful Thatcher was in dismantling Britain's state economy, while sending some three million people to the unemployment rolls and gutting many communities, fail to mention that she had a new-found source of wealth. The oil fields in the North Sea had just began to produce some of the world's easiest-to-refine oil, offering billions of pounds in revenues. Instead of salting away the money in trust — as the other big North Sea oil producer, Norway, has done — Thatcher used it to finance her privatisation and tax-cutting schemes.
While the problem of inefficient state industries and worker lassitude certainly needed to be addressed, Thatcher's dull-blade, sweeping, broad-brush approach has left the country lacking in several areas. Britain has been transformed from a manufacturing to a service economy owned by foreigners, who control such vital assets such as airports, and seriously lacks public housing. Thatcher sold those council flats and houses at bargain-basement prices, and many who bought them have made handsome profits flipping them. But very few new units were built, and now Britain has homeless people wandering the streets.
Whole communities have been hollowed out with the departure of industry. Derby, a city not far from Thatcher's hometown, was the birthplace of the railway industry. Serious rail manufacturing has moved to Germany and other parts of Europe, and about the only significant industry left in Derby is car manufacturing; Rolls-Royce — one of the few serious British high-tech organisations left — and a Toyota car plant.
A former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, acknowledges that some of what Thatcher tore down needed to be torn down, but adds: "She was a better destroyer than a builder". She did open the windows on the country's economy, but in doing so replaced a sense of community with an ethos of greed and selfishness. Like many self-made people, Thatcher had very little time for the rest of us ordinary folk whose lives are directed by outside forces. And while she cracked the thickest glass ceiling of all, she quickly pulled up the drawbridge. Thatcher never mentored other women and appointed only one to her Cabinet in more than a decade in office.
In the course of her political career, Thatcher accumulated many sobriquets. Her favourite was one she acquired before becoming prime minister. In 1976 she made a speech attacking the Soviet Union, whose leaders she said sought world domination and "put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns". In response, the Soviet Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) dubbed her the "Iron Lady".
Once, when showed a bronze statue of herself, she was reputed to have said, "I would have preferred iron". Perhaps the most apt comment I have heard all week came in this terse letter in one of my local papers: "The Iron Lady is gone. May she rust in peace".
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz2QNBSDr00
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