The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by. At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, There was only one state-approved answering machine available. We must reduce the inequality that has seen a super-rich elite, openly contemptuous of the flag and family values Thatcher proclaimed, float free from the rest of us. Adam Smith's invisible hand ended up raising two fingers to her moral project. Yet despite the attempts of some columnists to claim otherwise, Thatcher can't really be seen as "a warrior in the sex war", let alone as "the ultimate women's libber". and In the 2004 eulogy in honor of the late president, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher uses a series of rhetorical devices such as parallelism, repetition, and ethos to convey the message in which Reagan was much more than an excellent president. We are all on our own. In 1982, the English Collective of Prostitutes occupied a church for 12 days in protest against "police illegality and racism in King's Cross" the area to which many sex workers known as "Thatcher's girls" had travelled from high unemployment areas in the Midlands and the north. She failed to replace those jobs with well-paid equivalents. It was thoroughly "wet". This has been a terrible labour, she said. "Margaret Thatcher was not a natural communicator. It is my view that Thatcher authorised the killings at Gibraltar. delivered an outstanding defence of the Government in the Commons. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. Thatcher was a divisive woman who created discord, not harmony. Knocking up a flan for Denis or helping Carol with her algebra or Mark with his gun-running, are jarring distractions from the main narrative; woman as warrior queen. While Labour was now "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich", ambitious feminism wanted to be let in to the boardroom and every corridor of power that and little else is what they mean by changing the world. Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? But there were also cuts for basic-rate taxpayers: the 1988 budget, for example, cut the top rate of tax from 60% to 40% and the standard rate from 27% to 25%. It's interesting, though, that even when comedians try to be political, they can never really land a punch on David Cameron, Nick Clegg or George Osborne. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. In 11 years, Thatcher promoted only one woman to her cabinet, preferring instead to elevate men whom Spitting Image memorably and, in certain instances, accurately, described as "vegetables". At every level of his killing, British agents and agencies had a hand: the leader of the UDA group that carried out the killing was a Special Branch agent, as was the man who confessed to being the gunman, and the man who supplied the gun. There was, for example, the time in the late 1970s when, as Opposition Leader, she almost succeeded in censoring the one half-decent joke in a key campaign speech. But, as the prince in Lampedusa's The Leopard says: "For things to remain the same, everything must change.". One also can't forget what happened to the agency that made Thatcher worldfamous: the Conservative party, of which she seemed such an improbable leader. In January 1976, Thatcher delivered a speech at Kensington Town Hall in London, and spoke about the Iron Curtain the political boundary that separated Europe during World War II. Given the nature of her legacy "survival of the fittest" a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn't surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness? History will judge her, but not a country in Europe was untouched by Thatcher's example. In this moment she inspired only curiosity, a pale phantom, dumbly filling her day. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. "Yes and that was one of the many weird things about her," smirked Alexei Sayle. Ed Miliband, a policy wonk himself, claims to be a conviction politician like Thatcher. A splendid synergy was created, deliberately and with just that in mind on both sides of the Atlantic. There are still some great comics doing political material, with Mark Steel and Mark Thomas flying the flag of alternative comedy, while people such as Josie Long and Chris Coltrane find the funny in activism. She went to a fee-paying school and to Oxford at her father's expense, gliding easily into the upper echelons of student politics. The woman, however, changed. Seeing as women aren't a minor Brit-flick grateful for even a bad review, that truism doesn't quite hold true here. Nicknamed the "Iron Lady," Thatcher served as the prime minister of England from 1979 to 1990. Among them was loyalist Brian Nelson, a former British soldier and member of the Ulster Defence Association. When she returned from Paris many cabinet colleagues showed that In the 80s, she was the primary force behind what was known then as alternative comedy and is now simply called "comedy". She famously changed the law after Bobby Sands was elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. She made one Women aren't always good for other women because the gender of a person matters a lot less than that person's actual beliefs. The machinery of modern political management polls, consulting, focus groups is deployed mainly to discover what will make aparty and politician better liked, or worse, disliked. As she said in her memoirs: "There was no one else." This is accomplished by this baseless moral precept that it is gauche or worse to balance the gushing praise for them upon death with valid criticisms. It's telling that Tony Blair's domestic legacy amounts to two responses to Thatcherism: forcing Labour to accept it and then compensating for the damage the Tories had wreaked through sustained underinvestment in the public realm. Draining down those 11 years to their memorable essence, what does one light upon? The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. She was an ardent pro-European, and her 1979 manifesto made no mention of radical union reform or privatisation. She needed followers, as long as they went in her frequently unpopular directions. Whathappened at the hands of this woman's indifference to sentiment andgood sense in the early 1980s brought unnecessary calamity to the lives of several million people who losttheir jobs. As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. You knew exactly what Maggie stood for. The first three speeches were by Winston Churchill. Would we like her back? From her start in politics, Thatcher often attracted sexist critiques for the way she spoke, with many it dubbing her voice "shrill" and "patronizing." Television critic Clive James even compared . I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told The dockers. We had an all-out blistering row that delighted the organisers. Ithink on balance, it was for the better, and so, plainly did Thatcher's chief successor, Tony Blair. But on their catastrophic economic policy, it's full-speed ahead into the concrete wall. Your local electricity "board" could be a very unfriendly place. 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. But other villages have never recovered, their heart and purpose ripped out. The government's welfare bill has been swollen by tax credits and housing benefit caused by the labour market reforms and council house sales of the 1980s. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. Miners had always known that eventually any of the colleries would close and were always prepared to accept that as a fact of life and find employment somewhere else within the industry, but Thatcher's attack was wholesale. The challenge for the left is to fashion new and genuinely progressive policies in an age of austerity, when more money is not the answer to any question. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. Just look around. Large parts of society never recovered, while Germany and other countries managed the transition without such brutality. This is the area where we need to make progress not just in restoring strong local government, but in understanding that democracy means more than a Westminster vote. Opponents and supporters of Margaret Thatcher will never agree about the value of her legacy, but as for her importance, her hypnotic hold on us, they are bound to find common ground. The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. She led Britain further into Europe, while talking us further out. She adopts an endearing and sentimental tone using ethos, repetition, and . M argaret Thatcher does an awful lot of crying in The Crown. There is a paradox. The preface to the Reagan, for one, recognized the importance of Margaret Thatcher's presence as British prime minister, but would caution any discussionpartnerthat Pope John Paul played an equally important role. Farewelling Baroness Margaret Thatcher in a proper fashion is a difficult task: she left such a deep imprint upon the world that assessing its importance demands volumes analyzing her beliefs and paying proper tribute. Margaret Thatcher's speech writer will miss funeral but 'shed a tear' When the mourners gather for Baroness Thatcher's funeral tomorrow, one important figure from her political past will be . Three separate pieces of legislation between 1980 and 1984 attacked the closed shop, toughened up the laws on picketing and imposed secret strike ballots. Where once we stood within a recognisable postwar social democratic European tradition, after Thatcher the country had rowed halfway across the Atlantic, psychologically imbued with US neoliberal individualism. She was right, he was wrong. The state retained control of some nationalised industries the railways, for example but BT, British Airways, British Steel, British Gas and the British Airports Authority were among the big companies sold off. She gave Nigel Lawson at the Treasury his head and was genuinely alarmed when he cut income tax to 40%. Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. But every prime minister since has bowed to her legacy, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown eager to be snapped with her on their doorstep. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. In front of his journalist colleagues he was told to stand right in front of her so that she could hit him lightly with her order papers. On the crucial morning in November 1990, her colleagues marched individually into her room and each told her to go. rejecting Commission proposals at the Rome European Council with the words The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. People would denounce them unequivocally, often in graphic terms. But unlike Thatcher, president Hugo Chvez of Venezuela, the "president of the poor", fought for a caring economy and against the rule of the market. speech in the House of Commons, her They were puzzled by the Scots' antipathy, given the Falklands war and the strong militaristic history of the Highlands and elsewhere. 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. The pomp and circumstance that will crown her funeral was proffered by Brown, to some shudders from his own side. This is one small sign of how the left seems paralysed by a lack of intellectual curiosity and confidence. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in the 1984 Birthday honours for "services to the study of Economics". By delivering a crisp, emphatic victory Thatcher showed the world, and more important herself, what a talent for solitary command could achieve. The passing of Chvez is mourned by the many millions who loved him in Latin America and everywhere. Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. 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. to secure international action to repair the damaged ozone layer. A senior civil servant said, "It worked because we all knew exactly what she wanted.". Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". She was, of course, the first and so far only female British prime minister, Jon Snow reiterated on Monday night, insinuating that this achievement should in general be celebrated, never mind the specifics of her leadership. But it was the killing of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane in February 1989 that reveals the depth of the Thatcher government's state collusion policy. CD icon next to them in the second column of the results list. Weakening the power of trade unions was not only essential to her project, but several studies suggest that their continued weakness may be an important part of the reason why inequality has not declined in the intervening decades. We watched as her high heels went click-click-click across the stones of the Acropolis and the cement floors of Tito's steel mills. Edited text: This speech was delivered to the Conservative party conference in Brighton on October 10 1980. she It may be wrong to imagine that she intended to de-industrialise Britain, but the policies followed by her government had that effect. The time was 1973. For the most part, there's no material there. Out! On the day Thatcher died, the Daily Mail ran a piece claiming that Coco Chanel "was a feminist before the word existed". On the other hand, growth has been depressed because weak trade unions can no longer ensure wage increases keep pace with inflation. 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. Leaving aside the detail that the word "feminist" came into existence in 1895, comfortably in Chanel's lifetime, the woman who valued femininity above all other qualities in a woman and was heavily involved with the Nazis, including a wartime relationship with German officer Hans Gunther von Dincklage, could not, in any circumstances, be described as a feminist. It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. Thatcher's opposition to a positive role for the state in industrial policy caused her grief even during her time in office, but a cross-party consensus newly shaped by Michael Heseltine's report has given him the last word. Seizing her chariot's reins to drive it on recklessly, they lack her brains, experience and political skill. But if today's Guardian readers time-travelled to the late 70s they might be irritated to discover that tomorrow's TV listings were a state secret not shared with daily newspapers. of the 1600 libraries around the world which hold the CD-ROM. In towns and valleys poleaxed by the Iron Lady, there may be glasses raised at her passing. The Cameron generation wrongly see in the 1980s a revolution to emulate, starting with an economic crisis just like hers, as a chance to reshape everything. She was "outraged" when the programmes went ahead. Perhaps this is unsurprising: four years ago Ed Miliband sneered at "nudge" economics as something "very fashionable in the Guardian for a few months before the financial crisis". Her effect was to force a deeper consideration of priorities, sometimes expressed in a variety of dystopias. This site follow the same rules (and shares an editor). Philip Larkin visited Downing Street where the prime minister quoted approvingly one of his lines to him "Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives." Some places have become heritage parks, remembering an industry now vanished. I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. Superlatives can be agreed: a remarkable first woman PM; the first winner of three elections in a row; brave; tough; relentless; clever; sleeplessly driven by a self-confident conviction that overawed her enemies. The jobs that went during the 80s tended to be good, skilled jobs, delivering decent incomes and some security. Margaret Thatcher's most important long-term legacy is likely to be the huge rise in inequality that she caused. 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. How dare her apologists and beneficiaries of her legacy refer to trade unions like the NUM as "corrupt" in the face of their bonuses and tax cuts! Luckily, a longer paper means you get a bigger discount! In her eulogy for the former president, Thatcher uses specific structure, tone and diction, and word choices throughout her writing to .