An octogenarian head of state has
passed away, a former leader of a major economy who has divided
opinion the world over, loved and hated, who instigated sweeping
reforms and polarised a nation. Judging from recent headlines most
people would expect the above to have been written about Nelson
Mandela but in fact it was announced today that Margaret Thatcher has
died of a stroke aged 87.
Divisive is the polite word the left
leaning press and bloggers will use to describe Thatcher in an
attempt to not speak ill of the dead. She was a leader who divided
public opinion every step of the way. In recent years her request to
have a state funeral became another contentious issue as the nation
was once again divided over their opinion of Margaret Thatcher*.
Throughout her life she sought conflict over consensus and drove deep
permanent divides into the national psyche.
Right that’s the polite divisive bit
out of the way…
Margaret Thatcher eviscerated this
country’s manufacturing industry out of ideological zeal and a
religious devotion to the free market. The resulting economy fallout
devastated small towns that depended on manufacturing industry or
coal mining. Some of these areas took years to recover (Liverpool’s
dock yards is a good example) and some will never recover from their
slide into urban decay after being forgotten about by successive
generations of political leaders.
She passed laws deliberately designed
to curtail the political power of her opponents, namely the trade
union movement. Today’s trade unions are a shadow of their former
selves and lack the influence not only to improve conditions but even
to protect the rights workers already have which are bring eroded. In
the 1980s she was content with making three million people who were
unlikely to vote for her unemployed, something which would have been
considered an economic disaster by previous Tory or Labour
governments.
Thatcher expounded the idea that we
would be better off if we all looked ourselves and the degree to
which this idea has been taken on by the population is one of the
reason we remain such a deeply divided and unequal society. Her
government behaved appallingly to Ireland, attempted to levy taxes
which fell disproportionately on the poor and passed laws forbidden
teachers from telling students that homosexuality is natural. The
swing away from manufacturing and towards financial industries lead
and the aggressively corporate culture her policies encouraged lead
to the financial crash and the banking crisis.
Thatcher’s greatest accomplishment
(apart from becoming a one word political exclamation, an hour she
shares with Tony Blair) is how she fundamentally changed British
politics. Her emphasis of the free market over the state is now a
universally accepted political truth. Thatcher successfully dragged
the entire political spectrum to right, at least on economic issues,
and her influence has been felt as profoundly on the Labour party as
the Tories.
Labour leaders from the 1980s to today
have accepted Thatcherite principals to a degree. In his statement
following her death, Tony Blair commented that “some of the changes
she made in Britain were, in certain respects at least, retained by
the 1997 Labour Government” (full statement can be found here).
The current Labour leader Ed Miliband summed her legacy up most
effectively by writing “she will be remembered as a unique figure.
She reshaped the politics of a whole generation” (same source as
above). I find it hard to imagine Tory party leaders speaking so
highly of recently departed icons of the left. In fact when I think
of the death of Labour party leaders from the 1980s and how the right
responded I think of this disgusting Daily Mail piece.
Thatcher won three electoral victories
and led the country for 12 years. In that time she permanently
redefined the political and economic landscape the Great Britain. By
the time she was ousted by her own party in November 1990, the trade
unions had been diminished, manufacturing industry was one the way
out, financial services and tertiary industries were on the rise,
nationalised industries were privatised and Nash’s enlightened
self-interest was the prevailing view in both the private and public
sector. In short the Britain of the early 1990s was entirely changed
from that of 1979 and no one person has had such a singular impact on
the country as Margaret Thatcher has.
Describing Thatcher as divisive is more
than just a polite way to say that she is very unpopular in certain
circles (or parts of the country) and that a lot people strongly
disagree with her values and policies. Someone’s opinion on
Thatcher cuts to the heart of where you stand in British politics. We
have seen leftist leaders saying that they disagreed with her but
respect who she was, which some would argue reflects how centrist the
leftwing establishment has become in the post-Thatcher years. Her
biggest champions are the leaders of the economic right; her biggest
critics are the darlings of the old left (Ken Livingston described
her as clinically insane in an interview with the New Statesmen
magazine before 2012 London Mayoral elections).
Personally I feel her views on the
merits of self-interest, especially the infamous ‘no such thing as
society’ comment, are the most despicable of political opinions. I
cannot disagree enough with this view and feel that society has been
made a colder, darker and less compassionate place by the ruthless
pursuit of money which her polices endorsed. It is because of the
values she inspired that it is always acceptable to disregard human
well-being when doing business. The worst excesses of private
business from the banking crisis to third world sweat shops are
legitimised by governments who refuse to involve themselves in market
and by individuals who argue for enlightened self-interest. All of
which Thatcher was an icon for.
I began by saying Thatcher was
divisive, as is anything written about her. Most people’s response
to this article will have already been determined before they started
reading as their opinion on Thatcher is fixed deep within their
political ideology. At the time of her death, we remain a deeply
divided nation. Divided by class, region, wealth and how we response
to the death of someone who will continue to cast a very long shadow
over British politics.
*Contrary to her request she is
receiving a ceremonial funeral with military honours, the level below
a state funeral)
I think the left in general do not give her enough credit. I firmly believe that she brought Britain in to the 21st century a decade earlier than most of our European counterparts. She did this because she confronted vested interest, and for that she deserves considerable credit. Admittedly she did this almost exclusively amongst the traditional left than she did the right. But to be fair to her, Europe had shifted so far left since the end of the war that it was probably a good thing (seen through post war consensus, conservatives agreeing not to reverse nationalisation, the NHS, free education etc). Im not saying any of these things were bad, but they were indicative of the power that was growing on the left. And as the Left gained more political power, their backers, the unions, grew in power too. Because they bankrolled the Labour party, they could effectively dictate to the government what their particular economic policy should be. You could argue that this re addressed the balance, because big business has been doing that for a lot longer. I would disagree though because our economic model (capitalism) was not set up to function with this relationship set up in this way. An equal relationship between workers and bosses isn’t really fair in the capitalism of the late 60s and 70s (I would argue it isn’t fair today, excepting perhaps working co operatives). Workers didn’t own their companies, or the capital that they held within them. If you have a large company, are losing money hand over fist, your industry is in decline, you will want to shut down that operation and transfer your capital elsewhere where you can make money. There is nothing wrong in this in my view (and certainly not in a capitalist system). The unions, of course, had different ideas.
ReplyDeleteBecause of their political power (which was undemocratic), they could force many companies to do what they wanted through collective bargaining. The main thing in the 60s was that collective bargaining meant co operation across a number of different industries (rail, steel and coal). Unions could effectively bring the country to a stand still. Why would they do this? The vested interest of their members AND union. More money for them, more power, whilst defending the jobs of their members, despite business sense suggesting that the industry was in decline and perhaps capital would be better spent elsewhere. The point we were at in the 70s is that the government were basically paying massive subsidies to unprofitable companies. Any hint of reform and it was bludgeoned to death by the unions. Often without a proper ballot of members taking place, and copy cat or sympathy strikes called for by other unions. This power was only about the vested interest of the union and some (I would say small) part of their membership. They had no concern for the rest of society. They were self serving. And worse, they were self serving undemocratically. The anger this can generate is obvious to see. We always bleat and moan about paying subsidies for French farmers on the CAP (and quite rightly too). Yet there is far more justification for paying that than there was for paying many of the nationalised industries...
Then we have Thatcher, who as we well know, smashed the power of the unions. How did she do this? By forcing them to become democratic and adhere to certain rules. I don’t think this is a particularly terrible thing. Unfortunately the matter was compounded slightly by Arthur Scargill. Who did as much as Thatcher did to damage workers rights because he operated in a completely unacceptable way. Thatcher, like all good politicians, took her opportunity well, and probably got more than what she could have got previously, were it not for the actions of Scargill (fortunately the EU mitigated most of this in Maastricht, signed up to by Blair just over a decade later). I also think Scargill damaged the opportunity to do a deal with thatcher which said ‘ok, you can close the pits, but we want “X” in return to help ease the social cost’. The militancy of the unions was as much to blame for what happened as anything Thatcher did, but with one crucial difference. Thatcher was right, and they were wrong. They might have been right about the social costs etc, but the crucial point: should the state subsidise unprofitable industries? Was a resounding victory for Thatcher.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn’t really touch on some of the other good things that she did. I think that her liberalisation of the financial rules for the city were actually a boon, and allowed many normal people (especially in Essex, where she is a bit of an icon), to get a job in finance and become wealthy in the process. I work in the city and know many people who had very poor back grounds, but because of the rules she relaxed and changed, they were able to get a job, get on, and do well if they had the mental faculties.
Also allowing people to buy their own council houses was a massive plus point. She turned vast swathes of the working classes into middle class home owners in the space of 10 years. She also sold shares in many of the companies, which allowed the middle classes to do very well through share purchase options. This is still something we can all participate in today.
To address some of the criticisms of her relating to the above: I flatly reject that the current financial crisis is her fault. 6 governments have been in power since then. Politicians are not demi gods. They cant see or predict 20 years in to the future and it is completely unreasonable to expect so.
Also some criticise the selling of council houses because she never allowed councils to build more. This I also flatly reject. Similar to the reasons above. But I would add that successive governments have done nothing about the explosion in private landlords owning multiple homes, which is a far bigger problem. Also I would suggest that European immigration is an added pressure, and also far more recent. Added to which no government has really made any sort of effort to build homes since Thatcher. Assuming everything else stayed the same but people were not able to buy their council homes, we would be in exactly the same position we are today, except that the council would own all of the properties not private individuals.
I am not a massive Thatcher advocate, and I do recognise areas where she fell short (and failed). But I agree with Cameron that she is the most important peace time prime minister of the 20th century. Elements of the left hate her so much because she won. She stopped their political advance forward and forced it backwards. She also ushered in an era of conservative dominance that lasted for nearly 20 years, which is a remarkable achievement (rightly or wrongly), and brought about a fundamental change in policy of the Labour party. Her legacy persists in death, as we can all see. But I think history will be kind to her. Once people look at this period in 50-100 years time, I have no doubt the reflections will be favourable.