margaret thatcher speech writer
The news last week that they are instead considering cutting or freezing the minimum wage surely undermines any pretence that the government is acting either coherently or in the public interest. In a break with tradition and protocol, Reagan decided he'd also attend the "return dinner" at the British Embassy the next evening. The Collected Speeches of Margaret Thatcher by. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. In the 2011 biographical drama film "The Iron Lady," Meryl Streep plays the role of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" of British politics who died Monday at the age of 87, is being lionized as the woman who tilted British domestic and economic policy to the right. She became deaf to all warning. Before the real Thatcher's election in 1979 she took lessons with a speech coach at the Royal National Theatre, hoping to make her voice more commanding and less "shrill" in broadcasts. In the Meryl Streep film, The Iron Lady, it's the scenes of domesticity that appear most absurd. 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. Understandably, less cohesive societies with more drugs, more crime and lower mobility waste talent, and are not good places to do business. She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism. The US academic Cass Sunstein was in Britain at the end of last month. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. Donning a starched coiff and padded shoulders out to there, Emmy Award winner Gillian Anderson of The X-Files is . From a peak of 13 million in 1979, trade union membership had declined by 30% by 1990, and is now not much more than half what it was. 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. That, plus (inevitable) de-industrialisation, coupled to her perceived overbearing and patronising manner. As a result, Labour authorities in eight or so British cities have set up fairness commissions to reduce income differences locally. It made her virtually unsackable as education secretary. Scottish and by extension UK politics has been skewed ever since. The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. Neither shift of ownership and power would have happened without a leader prepared to take risks with her life. The battle with the miners and leftwing councils lay ahead, as did the trauma of an IRA assassination bid. Feminists disowned her by insisting that though she was a woman, she was not a sister. John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. Although the "right to buy" and the privatisation of utilities by selling shares to new small investors was often justified as giving rights to "the little people", the reality is that the less well-off fell ever further behind the rich. In her eulogy for the former president, Thatcher uses specific structure, tone and diction, and word choices throughout her writing to . This site follow the same rules (and shares an editor). My mate John and I were wandering there together, he expertly proselytising on the architecture and the history of the place, me pretending to be Rumpole of the Bailey (quietly in my mind), when we spied in the distant garden a hunched and frail figure, in a raincoat, scarf about her head, watering the roses under the breezy supervision of a masticating copper. Mrs T shared the same reductionism. 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. Reagan would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president, the next year. She needed followers, as long as they went in her frequently unpopular directions. Thatcher's unwavering belief in the invisible hand of the market meant that she did not believe it was part of her job description to put anything in its place. Thatcher was born as Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, England. In short, miners believed in society. Nissan's arrival in the north-east showed that Britain was no longer the west's industrial pariah. 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. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. Still plumbing for the essence, we have to examine other bits of residue. A strong, so strong, leader. Following several small strokes she announced, in March 2002, that her career as a speechmaker had ended. But what bound all opposition to Margaret Thatcher's programme was a suspicion that the grocer's daughter was intent on monetising human value, that she had no heart and, famously, cared little for the impulses that bind individuals into a society. If you want anything done, ask a woman.". The 70s was Britain's most equal decade. All Rights Reserved. Rows with Lawson and Geoffrey Howe over a European currency (where she was right) presaged the final shambles of the poll tax. as far as can be known. In her 1982 party conference speech, Margaret Thatcher offered a prediction for the future: "How absurd it will seem in a few years' time that the state ran Pickfords removals and Gleneagles Hotel . From 1987 to 1988, he was a senior policy writer and speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister and remained close to her up to her death.. O'Sullivan served from 2008-2012 as vice-president and executive editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio . 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. What, in retrospect, seems creative and what destructive? Research papers can be complex, so best to give our essay writing service a bit more time on this one. Any such objections would have been invalid. 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. which revealed a good deal as to her political Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. A meeting in Downing Street had left the Pakistan leader besotted with the older woman's wisdom and generosity: '"I tell you, she's such a kind person.". That's history, but what matters to us is her legacy now that her heirs and imitators rule in her wake. first television interview the following day, euphoric Real Analysis Solved Problems, Synthesis Essay Freedom Of Speech, Photography Dissertation Titles, Reflective Essay Writers Service Usa, Sample Of The Resume 4423 . When Heath fell, her promoters ran her as a stalking horse because, as a woman, they thought she could not win. Interview by Benedict King. 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? This regrettable transformation was blessed by a leader who probably did not know it was happening because she didn't care if it happened or not. The resignation was announced Unquestionably, a major component of what Reagan achieved was mirrored in what Baroness Thatcher herself achieved. Her imitators swerve all over the place, with 37 U-turns at the Telegraph's latest count on matters from forests and pasties to buzzard nests and caravans. Then they discovered that they could make money, so they dropped all that. On the other hand, growth has been depressed because weak trade unions can no longer ensure wage increases keep pace with inflation. At Cheltenham the following month she Reagan and Thatcher first met in 1975, as my friend and colleague Peter Hannaford reminded me just today. But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. 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. 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. On the contrary, consumerism and materialism have been the norm ever since, rising inequality the consistent trend as the rich soar ever further away from the rest. If they have no bread, let them eat from food banks that's Thatcherism, the legacy we are still to bury before it buries us. Thirdly, industrial policy was all but abandoned. 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. Government policy during the 1980s was little more than a war policy, aimed at defeating or isolating republicanism. Margaret Thatcher's government defended structured political and religious discrimination and political vetting in the north, legislated for political censorship and institutionalised, to a greater extent than ever before, collusion between British state forces and unionist death squads. Heath took us into Europe, and a referendum in spring 1975 confirmed national approval for the move. 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. to his resignation letter on 1 November, defended herself against rough she Thatcher's title is Baroness. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she In retrospect, in much dissenting commentary there was often a taint of unexamined sexism. A growing body of research now shows that the quality of social relations is among the most powerful influences on the happiness, health and wellbeing of populations in the rich countries. Reagan was received coolly, and the discussion was highly superficial, if only because the British side clearly did not care to engage on substance: meet for a serious discussion with a movie actor and a "Grade B" actor at that? But growth rates in the decades since her period in office have been lower than during those that preceded her; nor does the balance of research evidence suggest that greater inequality acts as a spur to growth. But for others, the change in landscape is all too real. Thatcher came to power when the economy was approaching a moment of truth after three decades of poor performance relative to other western countries. She would appear in public to drape a hankie over a model BA plane tailfin because she disliked the unpatriotic logo with which they'd replaced the union flag (maybe don't privatise BA then), or to shuffle about some country pile arm in arm with a doddery Pinochet and tell us all what a fine fellow he was. 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. The late Benazir Bhutto later gave me much the same account. In November 1978, Hannaford and I organized a European fact-finding tour for Reagan, and the first stop was London. I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud. The family silver was squandered on bribing voters rather than modernising the economy. Sent Bobby Sands to an Irish hero's grave without a blink. (They also reveal how she loved to surround herself with yes men who were always men.) 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. Thatcher was a divisive woman who created discord, not harmony. To project the ideas of strength and . drew an important moral from the Falklands war: "We have ceased to A big decline in traditional industries took place across Europe and the US in the 80s and 90s. Ronald Reagan, the former 40th president of the United States died on June 5th of 2004. It was thoroughly "wet". Thatcher's infamous failure to recognise the existence of society was a double failure. This was the feminine creature who, two years later, was leader of the Conservative party. deeply felt eulogy, filmed in advance and relayed by video link to screens in the National Cathedral in Washington. Ingham's rough redraft of my speech with very little success. Selling public housing to the tenants who occupied it was another, on top of the denationalisation of industries and utilities once thought to be ineluctably and for ever in the hands of the state. in his defence during the IranContra affair, told April 8, 2013. Margaret Thatcher might seem to some like an unlikely pioneer of the need for climate action but, in the late 1980s, she made a series of remarkable speeches and interventions on the subject and . speech in July 1945, delivered in a town close to Grantham while she Bob Slayer, one of the genuine alternative comedians on the scene, likes to note the irony of what's become of comedy. From the invention of the term "sado-monetarism" through to the way her powerful ministers seemed to swoon before her, and the constant negative reiteration by her critics of her femininity, or lack of it, she exerted a glacial hold over the (male) nation's masochistic imagination. CD icon next to them in the second column of the results list. . There was only one state-approved answering machine available. The latest pit to close, Maltby in Yorkshire, still has a death and general purpose fund to help fellow miners and their families in times of hardship. But Thatcher was a naturally, perhaps incurably, divisive figure. She famously changed the law after Bobby Sands was elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. John asked a nearby chippy loading his white van. Chvez is gone, but the voters are likely to re-elect Chavismo on 14 April. Underestimating Ronald Reagan was an error committed by many of his critics and opponents; Reagan never minded a bit, thinking that being underestimated yielded him a significant advantage. On the same edition of Channel 4 News, Louise Mensch named only three successful female politicians as part of her defence ofThatcher and only one of those was a Conservative. What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. Thatcher's use of rhetorical devices supports her eulogy because the concept of Reagan being more. One leading Tory thinker said current academic concepts such as evolutionary psychology and behavioural economics were fundamentally rightwing; another said disruptive digital technology liberated individuals against powerful behemoths which may be true, but some of the most striking online advances harness the collective spirit. Out! A special licence was granted exclusively to the Radio Times. to secure international action to repair the damaged ozone layer. The Thatcher government believed that the criminalisation of the republican prisoners would break the republican struggle. 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. Margaret Thatcher, Signed Speech on Hayek, 2003, Estimate 1,500-2,000 . The speakers form a rollcall of the globe's most interesting thinkers: Amartya Sen, the Nobel-winning Indian economist; Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli psychologist and another Nobel winner; and Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, who focused on land rights for the poor. First was the sheer depth of hostility towards the Tories in general. 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". Secondly, the balance of power in industrial relations was shifted decisively in favour of employers. 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". So look around this kingdom of ours, at a devolved Scotland contemplating independence a state of affairs that owes much to Thatcher's antagonistic relationship with that country. Perhaps it is more simple for all the iniquities of capitalism, the tide of history favours the right. Viewed from today, that past Britain is indeed a foreign country. She led Britain further into Europe, while talking us further out. opportunities. The truth lies somewhere between these extremes. 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. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. But former speechwriter Trevor Reeves can no longer . Thatcher is remembered for her achievements, but more for a presence, which was wrapped up with being a woman. 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. Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, as far as can be known. Margaret Flowers is a leading activist, doctor, teacher, and co-founder of PopularResistance.org, a website that aims to inform and inspire grassroots movements around the world. Selling off the family silver Harold Macmillan and later Labour called it, as Margaret Thatcher set about reversing the 1945 nationalisations that had put oil, gas, coal, electricity and an airline as well as a house removal company in public hands. Everyone knows where they were when they heard. Such items have an How could anyone who was so resolutely Margaret Thatcher be anything else? A longer version of this article appears on Gerry Adams' blog, Margaret Thatcher was good at destruction. This has been a terrible labour, she said. Out!" Many are children of the Thatcher age. Shoot-to-kill actions by British forces also significantly increased. Without it, she would have been nothing. The proportion of children living in relative poverty more than doubled during the 80s, and the damage has never been undone. Privatisation did not feature in the Conservative election campaign, while the tougher approach to trade union reform had only really become evident since the winter of discontent, and even then was a gradual process. But it was overlaid by the supposedly masculine virtues, sometimes more manly than the men could ever assemble. her intention to allow her name to go forward to the second ballot (20 ROBIN HARRIS worked for the Conservative Party from 1978, and increasingly closely with Margaret Thatcher herself from 1985, writing her speeches and advising on policy. The first three speeches were by Winston Churchill. Mrs Thatcher was on the way up in British political life. Until her final poll-tax hubris, she knew when swerving was the better part of valour and despite that famous one-liner, she was sometimes for turning. Not even the Falklands war would push it off the tracks or damage it in any way. Absurd or not, it does indeed seem alien not least to those born in the 1980s, the generation we shall always call Thatcher's children. But she personified the change from meaning to meaninglessness in so many settlements and lives, and for this reason she is hard to forgive. There is now, however, an opportunity to commit to a new politics that learns lessons from her ambition yet undoes the damage and focuses on reconstruction. And when I and several other Sinn Fin leaders were elected to the Assembly in 1982 we were barred from entry to Britain. Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. MT gave her first 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. By John Cassidy. If the Falklands war was the making of Thatcher, then the poll tax was her achilles heel not least in Scotland. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). We are all on our own. In the early 1980s, the Republican party joined with other moderate and conservative parties in the world to form the International Democrat Union. Council house sales and advertising campaigns that encouraged the public to buy shares in privatised companies were meant to broaden the appeal of capitalism. This report of the Conservative party conference ran in the Guardian on Saturday October 11 1980, Edited and full versions of Margaret Thatcher's 'The lady's not for turning' speech, delivered at the Conservative party conference in Brighton on 10 October 1980, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every 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. Like John Major in her wake, Thatcher was convinced that she understood the Scots yet couldn't understand why we remained so stubbornly resistant towards the notion of understanding her. The three of us watched as the gentle horticultural ritual was feebly enacted, then regarded the Iron Lady being helped into the back of a car and trundling off. Later that year she introduced the broadcasting ban on Sinn Fin, which prevented viewers and listeners hearing my voice. This was my mother speaking at some point in the middle 1980s. Her unforgettable presence, but also her policy achievements. "Respecting the grief" of Thatcher's family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person's life and political acts. 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. 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. She refused to reform social security, or even curb its abuse. Many hated her. When the late Christopher Hitchens was a political reporter for the New Statesman, he corrected the prime minister on a point of fact, and she was quick to correct Hitchens in turn. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. At an international conference in Lisbon in the late 80s, the British faction, among whom were Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Malcolm Bradbury and myself, referred back to Thatcher constantly in our presentations. To claim that any woman's success is a boon for feminism is like saying all publicity is good publicity. On her return to London, she sent me a warm and complimentary letter, a prize in my personal archives. The Cameron and Osborne circle are crude copies carried away with the dangerous idea that conviction is all it takes to run a country. "No, no, no". The word "free" is used to help the audience Margaret Thatcher's most important long-term legacy is likely to be the huge rise in inequality that she caused. The real comic nemeses of Thatcher were the puppets of Spitting Image. Maybe it was the sound of the estuary pronunciation robbing her of her aspirational airs, a prototype of the Bouquet/Bucket joke. This is what we mean by the Thatcher revolution, imposing on Britain, for better or for worse, some of the liberalisation that the major continental economies know,20 years later, they still need. Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". For those miners and their families to be referred to as the "enemy within" by Thatcher was something they would never forgive and, if there is rejoicing at her death in those communities she set out to destroy, it can only be understood against this background. Without the Falklands/Malvinas war, which exploited nationalism (as Argentinian dictator Galtieri did) and which Labour would not oppose, she would never have been re-elected in 1983. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. Two especially forceful and committed leaders on the world stage at the same time: this was critical and key to ending the cold war, permitting the reunification of Germany, the consolidation of the EU and drawing our two nations together in a historic cooperation.