margaret thatcher speech writer margaret thatcher speech writer

series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, replied At the October 1980 Conservative Conference, in the midst of economic recession, an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is Meeting Gorbachev for the first time in December 1984 she declared: "We The Texan who stole the show at Margaret Thatcher's funeral And in 1983, for the first time, children born in Britain to non-British parents were denied automatic citizenship, fostering further racism and discrimination in immigration policy. Yet I wrote columns of pretty unremitting hostility to most of what she did. Ronald Reagan, the former 40th president of the United States died on June 5th of 2004. Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. It came to a head over her most egregious policy failure, Europe. The Margaret Thatcher speech that was buried by the Brighton bomb There were sporadic resurrections. 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. She certainly was divisive, bisecting the country politically and geographically: hard-hit regions in the north of England, Wales and Scotland may be notably less civil in their farewells. Thatcher's use of rhetorical devices supports her eulogy because the concept of Reagan being more. Margaret Thatcher - UN General Assembly Climate Change Speech (1989) 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. That said, by the mid-1980s it was clear that the Conservative government's economic policy was based on a handful of core principles. Sue Gray has shown the dangers of thinking officials are more ethical It fell to Blair to do something about the latter, while giving free rein to the former. 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. But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. still being scolded for the remark.You can read here exactly what she said, Understandably, less cohesive societies with more drugs, more crime and lower mobility waste talent, and are not good places to do business. In January 1976 she gave the 4.44 avg rating 39 ratings 2 editions. John O'Sullivan, CBE (born 25 April 1942) is a British conservative political commentator and journalist. After leaving office, MT widened and deepened her criticism of the European Margaret Thatcher's legacy: roundup of the best writing 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. But the sense of community evaporated. The British inflation was in 1975 up at 24, 11% [] and with the union's constant claim for higher salaries, nobody expected it to drop to a normal level. Yet a leader that a wide cross-section of Scots had come to despise. Her policy decisions entrenched sectarian divisions, handed draconian military powers over to the securocrats, and subverted basic human rights. They had a point, but they had no idea how fascinating she was so powerful, successful, popular, omniscient, irritating and, in our view, wrong. A splendid synergy was created, deliberately and with just that in mind on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet her understanding of Britain was alarmingly crude. When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. 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. can do business together". Thatcher is remembered for her achievements, but more for a presence, which was wrapped up with being a woman. Research papers can be complex, so best to give our essay writing service a bit more time on this one. Beleagured Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher makes pun during the 1981 Conservative Party conference speech: "the lady's not for turning" she says to her crit. Such seminars are regular events in Downing Street under the coalition. Are there, even, things we look back on with regret for their passing? Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. Margaret Thatcher, Signed Speech on Hayek, 2003, Estimate 1,500-2,000 . John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people's pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Back when we called her Maggie, when it seemed she would have her wish and "go on and on" in ruling the country, her opponents would lament some new step towards social ruin with the withering, two-word verdict: "Thatcher's Britain.". Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. On one visit, our campaign chairman, William J Casey, later director of the CIA, came along, and we had a fruitful meeting at 10 Downing Street. It'd be disingenuous to omit that there were a fair number of ding-dong-style celebratory messages amidst the pensive reflections on the end of an era. Contrary to an increasingly common belief, "a woman who is successful" is not synonymous with "a feminist". Chvez is gone, but the voters are likely to re-elect Chavismo on 14 April. Reagan was especially interested in Mrs Thatcher's domestic policy initiatives, and it was quickly established that the foreign policy views ran along parallel lines. When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. Statistics now confirm what many people have always recognised: that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. If it ended in disaster, the seeds were only partly hers. "We have not To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. Moreover, it's hard not to see the roots of the 2008 crash in the unshackling of the City two decades earlier. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. Margaret Thatcher was not known for her sense of humour. We still live in the land Margaret built. John O'Sullivan (columnist) - Wikipedia November). Action. A strong pound crippled exports and emptied factories. At the time, Thatcher was the education secretary her first major political role. Of all the things to criticise Thatcher for, calling her out for being a woman seems like something of a wasted bullet. Margaret Thatcher: 'This is no time to go wobbly' and other memorable It was not interested in a resolution. In 1976 it still did not help and in the same year they had to take a loan in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [] . She was "outraged" when the programmes went ahead. In the current wall-to-wall media welter, I caught the current leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davison MSP, being asked if Thatcher was an electoral asset for her. Climate, freedom and denial: What "Green Thatcherism" teaches us today The Yale Book of Quotations also states, "Thatcher is said to have used this in a 1965 speech.". And he would credit the contribution of Helmut Kohl, who rose to power in Germany in part because of the influence of Thatcher and Reagan. Her bouffant and handbag and nasal voice were comedy gold, but she was also earnest, principled and said exactly what she meant. I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. They're happy to share big windfall bonuses with their cronies, they'll stick up for deposed dictator chums when they're down on their luck, they'll find opportunities in business for people they care about. studying Thatcher's speeches . Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. True, Labour, James Callaghan and the unions played their part by blocking Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife attempt to create German or Nordic co-operation between unions and industry that might have rescued unions from Thatcher's crushing. At the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow, the pantomime featured the Wicked Witch of the South; everyone knew her real identity. None present eyed her meanly or spoke with vitriol and it wasn't until an hour later that I dreamt up an Ealing comedy-style caper in which two inept crooks kidnap Thatcher from the garden but are unable to cope with the demands of dealing with her, and finally give her back. They were puzzled by the Scots' antipathy, given the Falklands war and the strong militaristic history of the Highlands and elsewhere. What's more, it was moulded to the wall as one commentator recalled and you had no right to change it, not without becoming entangled in a state-managed bureaucracy. decision to resign. Governments can rarely claim to have stimulated the arts but Thatcher, always rather impatient with the examined life, drew writers on to new ground. It destroyed the public's power to determine via parliament the services and prices of gas, electricity, telephone. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. By John Cassidy. The author Nassim Taleb traded equations on a whiteboard with Gus O'Donnell, then head of the civil service, as they debated econometrics; at another, I watched entranced as Lord Heseltine argued urban policies with Harvard's Ed Glaeser. 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. When all the public amenities were flogged, the adverts made it seem to my childish eyes fun and positive, jaunty slogans and affable British stereotypes jostling about in villages, selling people companies that they'd already paid for through tax. It is not true that Thatcher didn't care about the media. All can agree that Margaret Thatcher changed the heart of British politics more than any politician since Clement Attlee. Arthur Scargill and the miners represented the only opposition to the prime minister and her destructive and divisive values and, after the strike, the way was open for the most aggressive neoliberal policies. She became harder than hard. Reversing Britain's long-term economic decline. And that made it easy to mock her. Exactly the same is true of Thatcher. In January 1983 she Government policy during the 1980s was little more than a war policy, aimed at defeating or isolating republicanism. March 7, 1991 - Receives the US Medal of Freedom from President George Bush. a new dominance from Brussels". They lived in close-knit communities built around and based on employment at the local colliery. All Rights Reserved. The financial crash of 2008 was a direct result of the policies Thatcher championed. Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Congress. Maggie! And for the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher years were among some of the worst of the conflict. And then, perversely, would come the throwaway, sign-off remark to the effect of: "At least you know where you stand with Maggie she hates us and we hate her.". After the Dublin European Council in November 1979 she began a long battle What is really left by Thatcher to history? Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. Rishi Sunak: 'Our country needs the . in his defence during the IranContra affair later that year.. Elected for a third term in June 1987, she told 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. To the extent that there was an industrial strategy, it was to sell Britain as a destination for Japanese car companies and to shift the focus of the economy away from manufacturing towards financial services. She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. When Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned in consequence, she replied successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to 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. At times the Conservative party is so anarchic as to appear almost ungovernable, like a plethora of pressure groups pushing pet causes rather than a united group ruthlessly focusing on political success. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . to his resignation letter on 1 November, defended herself against rough Though she recognised the dangers of global warming, Thatcher's industrial and economic policies prioritised economic growth. If a leader's record is to be measured by the willingness of the other side to decide itcannot turn back the clock, then Thatcher bulks big in history. No children excluded from school activities because mothers couldn't pay. 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. Margaret Thatcher's environmental record: She was a climate hawk. The first three speeches were by Winston Churchill. Everything has its season. Well, everything really, even her name. It chose her ina fit of desperation, hats and all though it quite liked the hats. Where she privatised state-owned industries, they go much further, seeking to dismantle the state itself. To her detractors, Thatcher is the prime minister who wiped out more than 15% of Britain's industrial base with her dogmatic monetarism, squandered the once-in-a-lifetime windfall of North Sea oil on unemployment pay and tax cuts, and made the UK the unbalanced, unequal country it is today. There are many reasons for this. Perhaps we suspected that reality had created a character beyond our creative reach. Had pollsters and the 24/7 media forced leaders to follow opinion, not lead it? Visit a station and notice the plethora of competing train companies, replacing the single British Rail that operated in the pre-Thatcher days the fruit of a rail privatisation that was not hers, but was made possible only by the serial privatisations she had pioneered and made normal. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning? 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. Instead state assets and a huge income stream from North sea oil were used to fund a populist programme of tax cuts, privatisation and council housesales. In the prime Thatcher years they required a severity of will to carry through that would now, if called on, bewrapped in so many cycles of deluding spin as to persuade us it hadn't really happened. She attacked the Treaty of Maastricht in a The price we all continue to pay for Thatcherite policies is to live in a less cohesive and more antisocial society, in which community life is weaker, people feel less able to trust each other and fewer of those in government have the experience and compassion to represent or understand the vast majority. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. One Sunday recently while staying in London, I took a stroll in the gardens of Temple, the insular clod of quads and offices between the Strand and the Embankment. Literature had nothing to do with politics, the Italian writers said. She was unashamed about this, loathing localism and rejecting calls to diminish the "strong state". She pointed out that she was only 10 years old when she ceased to be prime minister. She, for one, never underestimated her friend from California, then a state of some 24 million. Larkin's evoked the treacherous mind (of an adversary, of a cabinet colleague) helplessly exposed to her steely regard. In a eulogy by the former prime minister of Great Britain, Margret Thatcher honors the legacy of Ronald Reagan, the late president. Too timid, too in thrall, the 13-year Labour government rarely dared challenge the attitudes she planted in the national psyche. Three separate pieces of legislation between 1980 and 1984 attacked the closed shop, toughened up the laws on picketing and imposed secret strike ballots. In the early 1980s, the Republican party joined with other moderate and conservative parties in the world to form the International Democrat Union. 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. The first time I met Margaret Thatcher, I swear she was wearing gloves. What was it about Thatcher that inspired a generation of comics to rage at her? Thatcher understood the connection between the social wage and workers' wages better than most unions. Rows with Lawson and Geoffrey Howe over a European currency (where she was right) presaged the final shambles of the poll tax. I will be the heir to Margaret Thatcher. Above all, they lack her competence at running the machinery of government. 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. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. For those of us who were dismayed by her brisk distaste for that cosy state-dominated world, it was never enough to dislike her. It came very hard, getting the words and paragraphs in the right order, a task for which, she eventually admitted, she had hired some help. Its impact on the streets of the north is evident in the statistics of death. In 2009, Boris Johnson lamented that Thatcher had become "a boo-word in British politics, a shorthand for selfishness and me-first-ism, and devil-take-the-hindmost and grinding the faces of the poor.". Margaret expresses that Reagan's leadership was the key to ending The Cold War and unifying a formerly divided nation. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. You would need to wait six weeks for an engineer. 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. She hated what she called "that French phrase laissez faire". It made minor savings at best and was, as the . Seeing as women aren't a minor Brit-flick grateful for even a bad review, that truism doesn't quite hold true here. Why don't you get a proper job, she once sneered at me. see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising The Lady forced the opposition party to accommodate itself to the new, Thatcherite settlement in which the market would rule unless stated otherwise. Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. MT prayed on the Some places have become heritage parks, remembering an industry now vanished. Prime Minister Thatcher inherited a settled state of British Europeanness, in which Brussels and the [European] Community began to influence, and often determine, the British way of doing things. 'The Crown' Season 4: Did Margaret Thatcher Really Sound - Decider The welfare state, with its unemployment and housing benefits and free healthcare, actually protected wages: employers could not force workers to accept low pay or unpaid overtime because of the job's healthcare provision, as they do in the US. April 25, 2020. No one noticed, but she was Blair's first guest at Downing Street in 1997. The last time the UK ran a trade surplus was the year of the Falklands war. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told 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. She wasn't a feminist icon and she wasn't an icon for women. A decade later they were wiped out in terms of Scotland-based Westminster constituency representation. Thatcher did not believe in "picking winners"; instead she preferred to rely on market forces to ensure the survival of the fittest. To have achieved all this alone would have made Margaret Thatcher a towering, transformational figure, one who altered the physical fabric of the nation. She was evicted from Downing Street with all the ruthlessness, treachery and warped humanity of what passes for high politics. What did Margaret Thatcher have to say about climate change? 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. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history. first television interview the following day, euphoric It was a watershed moment in Irish politics. She was a prime minister who happened to be a woman. Her gender led her into government and the shadow cabinet, despite Edward Heath's aversion to her. Oxford CD-ROM explains how the statements were assembled and edited There was always an element of the erotic in the national obsession with her. Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Eulogy By Margaret Thatcher He'd been a bully, she said, whereas Mrs T was warm and understanding. Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. National Press Club Luncheon Speakers: Margaret Thatcher (Recorded Promises. I will know that we have finally broken from the kind of capitalism that she championed and which died in 2008 when we see workers elected on to company boards. She will be for ever unforgiven by those who now see worse being done in her name to another generation. Thatcher has said that negotiation, and not strong economic sanctions, is the way to persuade South Africa's white-minority government to dismantle apartheid. Handbag. Meryl Streep's depiction of a shuffling figure, stricken and isolated by the death of her husband, Denis, may have softened memories, or formed them in the minds of a younger generation. Look at the cars on the road, none made by the old, nationally-owned British Leyland and only few by the British marques that once dominated but which went the way of much of British industry unable to survive the chill wind of "market forces", another phrase which filled the air back then. The south of England and the City of London were the future; the revenues from North Sea oil would pay for the unemployed in the old zones of manufacturing industry. Every quality had its obverse, but she had a myth-making charisma to capture the world's imagination. A distinction is often made between two traditions of British Conservative thought: the paternalist "one nation/middle way" tradition, and the more libertarian one that is associated with Margaret Thatcher. There are more than 8,000. Only today are we facing the cost. It was thoroughly "wet". The credit boom both here and in the USA may have gone against her Grantham roots but was an equally inevitable result of deregulation and the temptation of easy loans for people hungry to improve living standards. She defended Ronald The former reporter, who was 90, died with his family around him yesterday lunchtime, a statement said. Reagan had sought to meet with then Prime Minister James Callaghan, but the request was rejected, and bucked to then Foreign Minister David Owen. It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. Draining down those 11 years to their memorable essence, what does one light upon? The government's job was to keep inflation low, not to boost growth through demand management. 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. Among them was loyalist Brian Nelson, a former British soldier and member of the Ulster Defence Association. A friend of South African apartheid and mass murderers from Kissinger and Pinochet to the Khmer Rouge after they had killed two million Cambodians she was a zealous saleswoman for the arms industry. So what caused this great divide, with one side a fountain of fresh ideas and the other struggling for new inspiration? Faced down trade union leaders after her early years apprentice years, when Jim Callaghan's Britain was falling apart in which the commonest fear was that the little lady would not be able to deal with them across the table. . She and her successors John Major and Tony Blair presided over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity. departing Downing Street on 28 November. That 1983 general election contained the telltale seeds of eventual Scottish Tory self-destruction. Quotation being the warmest form of praise, Larkin was naturally touched. Cameron's crew crudely imagine she intended it. Maggie was a fully formed comedy character before comedians had even gotten to her. Rhetorical Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Speech | ipl.org But she also provided great material. British Labour MP Tom Watson decreed: "I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today." 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. A Labour veteran blamed another legacy of Thatcher: the need for iron discipline after the media onslaught that engulfed her opponents. at The Hague in May 1992. I am reminded of this every time the debate comes up about whether more female bylines would reduce sexism in the media. Margaret Thatcher Essay: Health Category. Typically, this distinction is mapped onto the ideas that Conservatives hold about equality. International studies of OECD countries suggest a close relationship between the decline in trade union membership and the rise in inequality. For Thatcher it all ended months later in November 1990 when she was forced to resign. Steely, certainly. By the 1983 election she had sold off only Britoil and some council houses. Out! But at its crudest, the Thatcher ethos translated into the get-rich-quick, greed-is-good spirit of the 1980s, satirised by Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney creation. We have his example. Police charges against picketing union printers in Wapping enabled the Murdoch empire to flourish, ensuring their power and hers. On the other hand, growth has been depressed because weak trade unions can no longer ensure wage increases keep pace with inflation. While she spoke of his example as a beacon, she knew very well that she was an important component of what is often attributed solely to him, and in the first instance "winning" the cold war. She added layers of her own to this intimacy, directing the creation of a single European market that surrendered important national powers to the collective. Bruges speech - Wikipedia It still does. 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. The task of representing the White House usually was the role of the vice-president, but in this special case, the Reagans and the Bushes both attended. When I think of this memorial, I think of the words of Rupert Brooke, "that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.". Following in the footsteps of Santa Claus, Steve Hynd quickly compiled a list of all the naughty boys and girls "on the left" who dared to express criticisms of the dearly departed Prime Minister, warning that he "will continue to add to this list throughout the day". At a party leaders' meeting in Washington, DC in 1985, Prime Minister Thatcher spent all day in the House of Commons, then boarded Concorde and flew to Washington to participate until late into the evening; she took such policy co-operation very seriously.