margaret thatcher speech writer

She remained in power till I was 15. press to rejoice at the capture of South Georgia on 25 April 1982 and John Major, the "detoxification" successor, was fated to implement many of her unattempted reforms. I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. Norman and Margaret hold, and will always hold, a unique place in our esteem and affection. It chose her ina fit of desperation, hats and all though it quite liked the hats. Everyone knows that. The poll-tax rioters. First was the sheer depth of hostility towards the Tories in general. speech in the House of Commons on 5 February 1960 and gave her The result . I am reminded of this every time the debate comes up about whether more female bylines would reduce sexism in the media. That chanted demand of the left has been fully and finally met. Britain ceased to be the sick man of Europe and entered the 1990s with its reputation enhanced. Their reckless private finance of public investment and services went beyond anything she dared dream of. The family silver was squandered on bribing voters rather than modernising the economy. 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. Such items have an Died: 24 February 2023, aged 90 Sir Bernard Ingham was Margaret Thatcher writ large. Such seminars are regular events in Downing Street under the coalition. She was the daughter of a prosperous civic leader who merely began life as a "grocer". The fact is that if both sides removed their ideological blinkers, as Thatcher, remarkably perhaps, managed to do, then her trilogy of speeches in the late 1980s still offer some of the best and . I just now watched the British Gas one again. In a way, they are all Thatcher's children.". Mrs Thatcher told the assembly: "It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.". There is a paradox. She and her successors John Major and Tony Blair presided over a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity. The battle with the miners and leftwing councils lay ahead, as did the trauma of an IRA assassination bid. What you see is a nation ruled for 11 turbulent years by a remarkable woman and which still lives in her image. 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. Since 1990 a selection of statements is listed. 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. Thatcher will be especially remembered for her shameful role during the epic hunger strikes of 1980 and 81. she The truth is less significant than the alteration to it. was an Oxford student home for the university holidays. It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him. 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. Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Heath: they seem, by comparison, evanescent figures. In the three years prior to receiving these weapons the loyalist death squads killed 34 people. Speech: 07:39-28:33 Q & A: 28:34-48:08 (Recording ends abruptly during Q&A) Topics of . Secondly, the balance of power in industrial relations was shifted decisively in favour of employers. The most widely used measure of income differences shows inequality increasing by more than a third during her period in office. Margaret expresses that Reagan's leadership was the key to ending The Cold War and unifying a formerly divided nation. It fell to Blair to do something about the latter, while giving free rein to the former. a new dominance from Brussels". She lavished praise on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, then in its infancy, and laid out the . Great speeches: 'Orwellian nightmare' if Tories fail, claims Margaret Thatcher. 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. Each now seems banal. She wasn't a feminist icon and she wasn't an icon for women. It's how she would have, if pressed, put it herself. For those of us who were dismayed by her brisk distaste for that cosy state-dominated world, it was never enough to dislike her. Understandably, less cohesive societies with more drugs, more crime and lower mobility waste talent, and are not good places to do business. This was the feminine creature who, two years later, was leader of the Conservative party. Yet for all these fissures, even Maoist modernisers and the most reactionary social conservatives share a similar stance over the role of the state. But the left also needs to look beyond the turbulent events in Europe to appreciate the speed of global change and the complications this creates for welfare-laden economies: the dynamos and innovators are increasingly found in Africa, Asia and Latin America rather than France, Germany and Spain. The real comic nemeses of Thatcher were the puppets of Spitting Image. 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. Making sure the verdict wasn't purloined by others. Now it was the turn of the words, and no one, of course, would, against all the odds, do them better than the lady who, 25 years before, once thought the sky was beyond her limit. We still live in the land Margaret built. Accounts vary. What, in retrospect, seems creative and what destructive? declared that she wanted our money back, invited the defended Ronald Cabinet rank in 1970 without appearing on television more than a handful Only today are we facing the cost. She pointed out that she was only 10 years old when she ceased to be prime minister. speech to the House of Lords in June 1993. News of Margaret Thatcher's death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her. 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. 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.". Thatcher's title is Baroness. They had a point, but they had no idea how fascinating she was so powerful, successful, popular, omniscient, irritating and, in our view, wrong. That speech was a rare instance of a politician saying something tangible. Maybe it was the sound of the estuary pronunciation robbing her of her aspirational airs, a prototype of the Bouquet/Bucket joke. 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. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society" and is At countless demonstrations throughout the 80s, it expressed a curious ambivalence a first name intimacy as well as a furious rejection of all she stood for. Her effect was to force a deeper consideration of priorities, sometimes expressed in a variety of dystopias. All Rights Reserved. All rights reserved. Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off. Britain was battered out of the somnolent conservatism, across awide front of economic policies and priorities, that had held back progress and, arguably, prosperity. bowling at the Lord Mayor's Banquet (12 November) and gave Margaret Thatcher's most popular book is The Downing Street Years. Mrs T shared the same reductionism. What was it about Thatcher that inspired a generation of comics to rage at her? I think by far her greatest virtue, in retrospect, is how little she cared if people liked her. talked of "Victorian Values". As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims. John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members. But it did, and the consequences seem impossible to reverse. series of famous statements that marked the end of her premiership, replied Thatcher's infamous failure to recognise the existence of society was a double failure. she warned that she was not She fervently believed the market would soon repair their loss. All of the Tory edicts that bludgeoned our nation, as my generation squirmed through ghoulish puberty, were confusing. rejecting Commission proposals at the Rome European Council with the words in a statement the following morning (22 November), hours before she In her eulogy for the former president, Thatcher uses specific structure, tone and diction, and word choices throughout her writing to . She failed to replace those jobs with well-paid equivalents. The milk snatcher reputation absorbed and lived with. Somesay she revolutionised British politics certainly never again could people say nobody would vote for a woman but it served a reactionary end. She showed that modern prime ministers can still mark out room for individual manoeuvre. 'It's a wonder nobody has taken a gun to that woman.' The "crime" he was accused of was to reclaim the oil revenue from local and foreign thieves, and use it to tackle poverty. And we won back three we lost at by-elections. The papers date from Margaret Thatcher's childhood to the end of her life, and include tens of thousands of photographs, as well as a vast collection of press cuttings, and many audio and video tapes of public and private events. The set text is still Thatcher's declaration quoted in The Audience that "There is no such thing as society". The left misleads us and maybe itself when it says that Thatcher's policies, extended by New Labour and then by the coalition, have failed. She was a radical conservative, known for dismantling nationalized industries and social services, weakening union power.She was also the first incumbent prime minister in the UK removed on a vote of their own party. 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. Second, it's now easier to see the scale of the setback she inflicted on Britain's idea of its own future. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others. Above all, they lack her competence at running the machinery of government. Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games . People should pay her the respect of doing the same after her death. Margaret Thatcher, Signed Speech on Hayek, 2003, Estimate 1,500-2,000 . Each was characterised by her attention to detail. . When Margaret Hilda Thatcher took over as Prime Minister, in May, 1979, I was sixteen. Some places have become heritage parks, remembering an industry now vanished. Throw the Lib Dems into the mix and it becomes highly combustible. successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to Three separate pieces of legislation between 1980 and 1984 attacked the closed shop, toughened up the laws on picketing and imposed secret strike ballots. Thatcher's passing is marked by street parties in Brixton, Belfast, Bristol, Derry, Glasgow and Liverpool, and seething bitterness among the mining families and communities she was allowed (including by scab union and Labour leaders) to destroy. What is really left by Thatcher to history? Sharp definition, hard edges, no effort at fuzzy contours (David Cameron, take note). The poll tax showed the opposite, the weakness of Thatcher's strength. 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. Sent Bobby Sands to an Irish hero's grave without a blink. Bernard Ingham, journalist and civil servant. Her centralism, unequalled in Europe, descended under Blair into a morass of targetry, inefficiency and endless reorganisation. morning, Available for everyone, funded by readers. Unable to win the leadership ballot outright, she stood on the steps of It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. When she took over in 1979, the bottom of that device would have carried the legend, "Property of the GPO." 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. Nations need to know the big picture of where they belong and, coinciding with the Thatcher appearance at the top, clarity had apparently broken through the clouds of historic ambivalence. For the most part, it has not been undone. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. This was hardly the first or even the worst example of a dig at Thatcher tinged so needlessly with sexism. It accounted for a large part of the mark Thatcher left on Britain. In his usual slightly dishevelled style, he went to Downing Street to discuss his pioneering concepts of behavioural economics and attempts to implement them under Barack Obama. That's because, 23 years after she was ejected from Downing Street by her own party in a move whose psychic wounds linger on, the country we live in remains Thatcher's Britain. The time was 1973. The Cameron and Osborne circle are crude copies carried away with the dangerous idea that conviction is all it takes to run a country. 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. Margaret Thatcher formally tendered her resignation to the Queen early this morning after leaving Downing Street for the last time. announced that White Between 1945-90 every statement made by Margaret Thatcher is listed, as far as can be known. Demonising unions and stripping the great mass of private-sector workers of a voice and power in the workplace is still the root of the great living standards crisis that saw the share of wealth going to wages slide long before Lehman Brothers failed. Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in the 1984 Birthday honours for "services to the study of Economics". In short, miners believed in society. an interviewer "there is no such thing as society", "We have not I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud. The appointment was a 20-minute audience with the . The virtual state funeral will rehearse again our extravagant fixations. But there are less obvious manifestations of the same habit. An unclubbable outsider, she allied herself to another outsider, Keith Joseph, and his free-market set. As a result, Labour authorities in eight or so British cities have set up fairness commissions to reduce income differences locally. Women aren't always good for other women because the gender of a person matters a lot less than that person's actual beliefs. Unquestionably, a major component of what Reagan achieved was mirrored in what Baroness Thatcher herself achieved. We Americans will not see you again in our time, but we will never forget you. In 1968 she gave a lecture asking What's 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. The cautious tactician was suppressed. 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Thatcher's use of rhetorical devices supports her eulogy because the concept of Reagan being more. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. The relative wealth of the UK 1% had been falling steadily for 50 years when Thatcher took power in 1979; since then it has climbed steeply and is almost back to 1918 levels. Margaret Thatcher's 1980 speech was written by playwright Ronnie Miller, and Julia recalls that the night before delivering the speech she had a huge row with him about the content. Three aspects of it never completely leave my head. steps of Downing Street on 4 May 1979, she We were not unique in such a response but she failed to appreciate that Scots are balanced, canny folk insofar as we have a well-developed chip on each shoulder. they did not want her to go on (21 November) and that night she made the In 1980, I made several fast round trips to London, Paris and Bonn, and, on each occasion, had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Thatcher. Ultimately, despite the despondent times of the Cold War and the waning confidence of the citizens, Margaret Thatcher delivered her eulogy speech in belief of President Ronald Reagan and used the rhetorical appeals of pathos, imagery, metaphor, and ethos to accomplish his presidency as successful. Lady Thatcher, you honor us by coming to the site of Sir Winston's pivotal speech, an event Westminster College has immortalized with the beautiful Winston Churchill Memorial.

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