Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher (maiden name: Roberts), Baroness Thatcher, was born on 13 October, 1925 in Grantham (Lincolnshire) as the daughter of a grocery retailer. She was the first female Prime Minister ever to serve Britain and she won three successive elections for the Conservatives. She was in office from 1979 until 1990. Thatcher holds a degree in chemistry and law. Thatcher has two children and was married to Dennis Thatcher († 2003). She died on 8 April 2013 in London.

Margaret Thatcher started her political career in Dartford (Kent) and fought the constituency for the Conservatives in 1950 which she failed to win in the general election. Under Harold Macmillan Thatcher became MP for Finchley in 1959. During her time as MP, Thatcher took up a few government posts, such as Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. In 1975, Thatcher challenged Edward Heath for the party leadership and wins on the second ballot. After the general election in 1979, Thatcher would be PM until 1991.

The term ‘Thatcherism’ refers to Margaret Thatcher’s time as PM and combines her policies and public appearance as one single form of conducting politics. The following points will illustrate the policies that together make up what is called ‘Thatcherism’.

In 1979, Britain was in difficult socio-economic circumstances because of a declining economy, high inflation, and union strikes. This culminated in the so-called ‘winter of discontent’, which paved the way for Thatcher’s election campaign strategy with which she won the election. Thatcher was determined to stop Britain from its supposed economic and social ‘decline’. During her time, Thatcher was criticised for being neo-liberal, as she successfully reduced the power and influence of labour unions. She thought that labour unions were the source of economic downturn in Britain as they prevented companies or industries from innovating their businesses. Therefore, Thatcher introduced some measures that were intended to make it harder for unions to call out a strike, such as a majority strike system or illegalise go on sympathy strikes. Thatcher also reduced the amount of subsidies paid to businesses as this would mean a distortion of economic developments. In this regard, the former British Keynesian approach to economics was criticised under Thatcher as being too socialist, so that a change in economic policies brought about the closure of many factories. These measures of the ‘supply-side economics’ was mixed with the theory by Milton Friedman which broadly supported an economic approach based on companies rather than on society as a whole, which is also frequently referred to as ‘laissez-faire economics’. This also included less state regulation together with fewer social labour rights for workers. Thatcher also reduced the welfare system in order to encourage people to take on work. Additionally, one of the main economic aims of her time in office was to keep inflation as low as possible, in which she eventually did not succeed. She wished to transform Britain into an enterprise-culture with more privatisation (e.g. British Rail), and tax reduction for the middle class. Thatcher famously claimed that ‘there was no such thing as society’ which meant that her approach was almost totally focused on the individual rather than society.

On the contrary, Thatcher took advantage of the wider society when it came to foreign policy. Thatcher was at the height of her career during the Falklands War, when she promoted a strong and liberal Britain on the international stage. The war was a means of showing how strong Britain still could be with much focus on British grandeur, which from her point of view had to be restored. To Thatcher, Britain was an exceptional country whose civilisation progress had to be re-strengthened through the reversal of Britain’s decline. This notion was also conveyed in her time in office when it came to foreign policy. Thatcher’s form of foreign policy was classified as ‘handbag diplomacy’, and during European negotiations she often refused to cooperate but stressed the fact that British interests were paramount. Her form of diplomacy isolated Britain on the European stage and introduced a stronger form of ‘British Euroscepticism’. Rather than turning to Europe, Thatcher used to stress the importance of the ‘special relationship’ with the United States of America, whose former president Ronald Reagan was a close ally and a personal friend of hers.