Premiership of Margaret Thatcher
Encyclopedia
The Premiership of Margaret Thatcher began on 4 May 1979, with a mandate to reverse the UK's economic decline and to reduce the role of the state in the economy
. Margaret Thatcher
was incensed by one contemporary view within the Civil Service, that its job was to manage the UK's decline from the days of Empire
, and she wanted the country to assert a higher level of influence and leadership in international affairs
. She was a philosophic
soul-mate of Ronald Reagan
, elected in 1980 in the United States
, and to a lesser extent Brian Mulroney
, who was elected in 1984 in Canada
. Thatcher would go on to radically transform Britain more so than any leader of Britain since Clement Attlee
, rejuvenating a stagnant world power but socially dividing much of the population.
displaced high employment
as the primary policy objective.
As a monetarist, Thatcher started out in her economic policy by increasing interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thus lower inflation. She had a preference for indirect taxation over taxes on income, and value added tax
(VAT) was raised sharply to 15%, with a resultant actual short-term rise in inflation. The fiscal and monetary squeeze, combined with the North Sea oil
effect, appreciated the real exchange rate. These moves hit businesses—especially the manufacturing sector—and unemployment
quickly passed two million, doubling the one million unemployed under the previous Labour
government.
Former prime minister Edward Heath
, who was also Thatcher's predecessor as party leader, was one of the fiercist critics of Thatcher's economic policies, although his verbal attacks on her policies were often seen as a sign of his anger at her for ousting him from the party leadership in 1975.
Political commentators harked back to the Heath Government's "U-turn" and speculated that Thatcher would follow suit, but she repudiated this approach at the 1980 Conservative party conference, telling the party: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catch-phrase—the U-turn—I have only one thing to say: you turn if you want to; the Lady's not for turning." That she meant what she said was confirmed in the 1981 budget, when, despite concerns expressed in an open letter from 364 leading economists, taxes were increased in the middle of a recession, leading to newspaper headlines the following morning of "Howe it Hurts", a reference to the Chancellor Geoffrey Howe
.
In 1981, as unemployment soared and the government's popularity plunged, the party chairman, Lord Thorneycroft, and two cabinet ministers, Lord Carrington
and Humphrey Atkins
, confronted the prime minister and suggested she should resign; according to her adviser, Tim Bell
, "Margaret just told them to go away". Thatcher's key ally in the party was home secretary
and later deputy prime minister
William Whitelaw
. His moral authority and support allowed her to resist the internal threat from the Heathite
wets.
After the 1981 Brixton riot, Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit
, responding to a suggestion that rioting was caused by unemployment, observed that the unemployment of the 1930s
was far worse than that of the 1980s
—and that his father's generation never reacted by rioting. 'I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father,' Tebbit said. 'He did not riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he went on looking until he found it.'
Over two million manufacturing jobs were ultimately lost in the recession of 1979-81. This labour-shedding helped firms deal with long-standing X-inefficiency
from over-manning, enabling the British economy to catch up to the productivity levels of other advanced capitalist countries.
The link between the money supply and inflation was proven accurate and by January 1982, the inflation rate had dropped back to 8.6% from earlier highs of 18%. Interest rate
s were then allowed to fall. Unemployment continued to rise, reaching an official figure of 3.6 million—although the criteria for defining who was unemployed were amended allowing some to estimate that unemployment in fact hit 5 million. However, Tebbit later suggested that, due to the high number of people claiming unemployment benefit while working, unemployment never reached three million.
By 1983, manufacturing output had dropped by 30% from 1978. The productivity turnaround from labour-shedding proved to be a one-off, and was not matched by growth in output. The industrial base was so reduced that thereafter the balance of payments in manufactured goods was in deficit. In 1983 Chancellor of the Exchequer
Nigel Lawson
told the House of Lords
Select Committee on Overseas Trade:
in Princes Gate, London
, when for the first time in 70 years the armed forces were authorised to use lethal force on the British mainland. 26 hostages were held by six gunmen for six days in May, until the siege came to a dramatic end with a successful raid by SAS
commandos. Later that day, 'Thatcher went to congratulate the SAS men involved and sat among them watching a re-run of the attack'. The breaking of the siege by the SAS was later celebrated by the public as one of television
's greatest moments.
The appearance of decisiveness—christened the 'resolute approach' by the prime minister herself—became Thatcher's trademark, and a source of her popularity. In the words of one historian: 'The mood reflected Mrs Thatcher's Iron Lady stance, her proclaimed intention of laying the "Suez Syndrome
" to rest and again projecting Britain as a great power. Celebration of the SAS was a key component in the popular militarism of the 1980s, fuelled by the continuing "war" against international terrorism
and by the Falklands conflict
and Gulf War
. The storming of the Iranian Embassy had shown that Britain could meet terror with counter-terror: Mrs Thatcher's black-clad "terminators" would protect us.'
Commenting on the SAS's action, social services secretary
Norman Fowler
agreed: 'Mrs. Thatcher attracted public support because she seemed to be taking action which the public overwhelmingly thought was right but never thought any government would have the nerve to carry out.’
Taoiseach
, Charles Haughey
, to discuss Northern Ireland
, she announced in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom that "the future of the constitutional affairs of Northern Ireland is a matter for the people of Northern Ireland, this government, this parliament, and no-one else."
In 1981, a number of Provisional Irish Republican Army
(IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army
prisoners in Northern Ireland
's Maze Prison
(known in Northern Ireland as 'Long Kesh', its previous official name) went on hunger strike
to regain the status of political prisoner
s, which had been revoked five years earlier under the preceding Labour government. Bobby Sands
, the first of the strikers, was elected as a Member of Parliament
(MP) for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone
a few weeks before he died.
Thatcher refused to countenance a return to political status for republican prisoners, famously declaring, 'Crime is crime is crime; it is not political.' After nine more men had died, most rights were restored to paramilitary prisoners, but official recognition of their political status was not granted. Thatcher later asserted, 'The outcome was a significant defeat for the IRA.'
Thatcher also continued the policy of 'Ulsterisation
' of the previous Labour government and its Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
, Roy Mason
, believing that the Unionists of Northern Ireland should be at the forefront in combating Irish republicanism
. This meant relieving the burden on the mainstream British army
and elevating the role of the Ulster Defence Regiment
and the Royal Ulster Constabulary
.
invaded the Falkland Islands
and South Georgia, a British overseas territory that Argentina had claimed
since an 1810 dispute on the British settlement. The following day, Thatcher sent a naval task force
to back diplomatic efforts with the threat of the use of force, and if negotiations failed, to recapture the islands and eject the invaders. The conflict escalated from there, evolving into an amphibious and ground combat operation. An opinion poll published prior to the British landing showed 70% support for military action. Argentina surrendered on 14 June and the operation was deemed a success, despite 258 British casualties. Victory brought a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and increased support for the Thatcher government, with Newsweek
declaring "The Empire Strikes Back". One poll suggested that 84% of the electorate approved of the prime minister's handling of the crisis.
, formed by an electoral pact between the Social Democratic Party
and the Liberal Party
. However, this grouping failed to make its intended breakthrough, despite briefly holding an opinion poll lead. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1136223.stm
In the June 1983 general election
, the Conservatives won 42.4% of the vote, the Labour party 27.6% and the Alliance 25.4% of the vote (though the gap between Labour and the Alliance was narrow in terms of votes, the Alliance attained only a fraction of the seats that Labour held).
Although the Conservatives' share of the vote had fallen slightly (1.5%) since 1979, Labour's vote had fallen by far more (9.3%) and in Britain's first past the post system, the Conservatives won a landslide victory
. Under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives now had an overall majority of 144 MPs.
s in response, but these actions eventually collapsed. Gradually, Thatcher's reforms reduced the power and influence of the unions. The changes were chiefly focused upon preventing the recurrence of the large-scale industrial actions of the 1970s, but were also intended to ensure that the consequences for the participants would be severe if any future action was taken. The reforms were also aimed, Thatcher claimed, to democratise the unions, and return power to the members. The most significant measures were to make secondary industrial action
illegal, to force union leadership to first win a ballot of the union membership before calling a strike, and to abolish the closed shop
. Further laws banned workplace ballots and imposed postal ballots.
The National Coal Board
received the largest amount of public subsidies going to any nationalised industry: by 1984 the annual cost to taxpayers of uneconomic pits had reached £1 billion. The year-long confrontation over strikes carried out from April 1984 by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in opposition to proposals to close a large number of unprofitable mines, proved decisive. The government had made preparations to counter a strike by the NUM long in advance by building up coal
stocks, ensuring that cuts in the electricity
supply—the legacy of the industrial disputes of 1972—would not be repeated.
Police
tactics during the strikes came under criticism from civil libertarians
, but the images of crowds of militant miners attempting to prevent other miners from working proved a shock even to some supporters of the strikes. The mounting desperation and poverty
of the striking families led to divisions within the regional NUM branches, and a breakaway union, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers
(UDM), was soon formed. A group of workers, resigned to the impending failure of the actions and worn down by months of protests, began to defy the Union's rulings, starting splinter groups and advising workers that returning to work was the only viable option.
The miners' strike lasted a full year before the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. Conservative governments proceeded to close all but 15 of the country's pits, with the remaining 15 being sold off and privatised in 1994. Private companies have since then acquired licences to open new pits and open-cast sites, with the majority of the original mines destroyed and the land redeveloped.
The defeat of the miners' strike led to a long period of demoralisation in the whole of the trade union movement. Nigel Lawson
, then chancellor of the exchequer
, later recalled:
, but resisted international pressure to impose economic sanctions
on the former colony, where the United Kingdom was the biggest foreign investor and principal trading partner.
At the end of March 1984, four South Africans were arrested in Coventry, remanded in custody, and charged with contravening the UN arms embargo
, which prohibited exports to South Africa of military equipment. Thatcher took a personal interest in the Coventry Four
, and 10 Downing Street
requested daily summaries of the case from the prosecuting authority, HM Customs and Excise. Within a month, the Coventry Four had been freed from jail and allowed to travel to South Africa, on condition that they returned to England for their trial later that year. However in August 1984 South African foreign minister Pik Botha
decided not to allow the Coventry Four to return to stand trial, forfeiting £200,000 bail money put up by the South African embassy in London.
In April 1984, Thatcher sent senior British diplomat, Sir John Leahy, to negotiate the release of 16 Britons who had been taken hostage by the Angola
n rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi
. At the time, Savimbi's UNITA
guerrilla movement was financed and supported militarily by the apartheid regime of South Africa
. On April 26, 1984 Leahy succeeded in securing the release of the British hostages at the UNITA base in Jamba, Angola
.
In June 1984 Thatcher received a visit from P. W. Botha, the first South African premier to come to Britain since his nation had left the Commonwealth
in 1961. The leader of the opposition
condemned the visit as a 'diplomatic coup' for the South African government, and Labour MEP
Barbara Castle
rallied European Socialists in an unsuccessful attempt to stop it. In talks at Chequers
Thatcher told Botha the policy of racial separation was 'unacceptable'. She urged him to free jailed black leader Nelson Mandela
; to halt the harassment of black dissidents; to stop the bombing of African National Congress
(ANC) guerrilla bases in front-line states; and to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and withdraw from Namibia
.
Thatcher defended Botha's visit as an encouragement to reform, but he ignored her concern over Mandela's continued detainment, and although a new constitution brought coloured people of mixed race and India
ns into a tricameral assembly, 22 million blacks continued to be excluded from the representation. After the outbreak of violence in September 1984, Thatcher granted temporary sanctuary to six African anti-apartheid leaders in the British consulate in Durban
.
In July 1985 Thatcher, citing the support of Helen Suzman
, a South African anti-apartheid MP, reaffirmed her belief that economic sanctions against Pretoria
would be immoral because they would make thousands of black workers unemployed; instead she characterised industry as the instrument that was breaking down apartheid. She also believed sanctions would disproportionately injure Britain and neighbouring African countries, and argued that political and military measures were more effective.
Thatcher's opposition to economic sanctions was challenged by visiting anti-apartheid activists, including South African bishop Desmond Tutu
, whom she met in London, and Oliver Tambo
, exiled leader of the outlawed ANC guerrilla movement, whose links to the Soviet bloc she viewed with suspicion, and whom she declined to see because he espoused violence and refused to condemn guerrilla attacks and mob killings of black policemen, local officials and their families.
At a Commonwealth summit in Nassau
in October 1985 Thatcher agreed to impose limited sanctions and to set up a contact group to promote a dialogue with Pretoria, after she was warned by Third World
leaders, including India
n prime minister Rajiv Gandhi
and Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, that her opposition threatened to break up the 49-nation organisation. In return, calls for a total embargo were abandoned, and the existing restrictions adopted by member states against South Africa were lifted. ANC president Tambo expressed disappointment at this major compromise.
during the Conservative Party Conference when her hotel room was bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
. Five people died in the attack, including Roberta Wakeham, wife of the government's Chief Whip
John Wakeham, and the Conservative MP
Sir Anthony Berry
. A prominent member of the Cabinet, Norman Tebbit
, was injured, and his wife Margaret was left paralysed. Thatcher herself would have been injured if not for the fact that she was delayed from using the bathroom (which suffered more damage than the room she was in at the time the IRA bomb detonated). Thatcher insisted that the conference open on time the next day and made her speech as planned in defiance of the bombers, a gesture which won widespread approval across the political spectrum.
with Irish Taoiseach
Garret FitzGerald
, the first time a British government gave the Republic of Ireland a say (albeit advisory) in the governance of Northern Ireland. The agreement was greeted with fury by Northern Irish unionists. The Ulster Unionists
and Democratic Unionists
made an electoral pact and on 23 January 1986, staged an ad-hoc referendum by resigning their seats and contesting the subsequent by-elections, losing only one, to the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP). However, unlike the Sunningdale Agreement
of 1974, they found they could not bring the agreement down by a general strike. This was another effect of the changed balance of power in industrial relations.
Thatcher's political and economic philosophy emphasised reduced state intervention, free market
s, and entrepreneur
ialism. Since gaining power, she had experimented in selling off a small nationalised
company, the National Freight Company, to its workers, with a surprisingly positive response. After the 1983 election, the Government became bolder and, starting with British Telecom, sold off most of the large utilities which had been in public ownership since the late 1940s. Many people took advantage of share
offers, although many sold their shares immediately for a quick profit and therefore the proportion of shares held by individuals rather than institutions did not increase. The policy of privatisation
, while anathema to many on the left, has become synonymous with Thatcherism
and was also followed by Tony Blair
's government. Wider share-ownership and council house sales became known as "popular capitalism" to its supporters (a term coined by John Redwood
). One critic on the left described privatisation as 'the biggest electoral bribe in history'.
, Thatcher supported United States President Ronald Reagan
's policies of deterrence
against the Soviets. This contrasted with the policy of détente
which the West had pursued during the 1970s, and caused friction with allies who still adhered to the idea of détente. U.S.
forces were permitted by Thatcher to station nuclear cruise missile
s at British bases, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
. However, she later was the first Western leader to respond warmly to the rise of the future reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
, declaring that she liked him and describing him as "a man we can do business with" after a meeting in 1984, three months before he came to power. This was a start of a move by the West back to a new détente with the USSR under Gorbachev's leadership, which coincided with the final erosion of Soviet power prior to its eventual collapse in 1991. Thatcher outlasted the Cold War, which ended in 1989, and those who share her views on it credit her with a part in the West's victory, by both the deterrence and détente postures.
The West won the Cold War 'without firing a shot', Thatcher said, because the Soviet Union
would not risk confrontation with its armed forces.
voted to refuse Thatcher an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for higher education. This award had previously been given to all prime ministers since the Second World War. Although the government's counter-claim of increased expenditure was also challenged, the decision of the Oxford dons was widely condemned as 'petty and vindictive'. The Chancellor of the university, Lord Stockton
, noted that the decision represented a break with tradition, and predicted that the snub would rebound on the university.
In December 1985 Thatcher was criticised from another former Tory
bastion when the Church of England
report Faith in the City
blamed decay of the inner cities on the government's financial stringency and called for a redistribution of wealth. However the government had already introduced special employment and training measures, and ministers dismissed the report as 'muddle-headed' and uncosted. The breach with the Church and its liberal bishops remained unhealed until William Hague
called for renewed co-operation in 1998.
Soon after, Thatcher suffered her government's only defeat in the House of Commons, with the failure of the Shops Bill 1986
. The bill, which would have legalised Sunday shopping
, was defeated by a Christian right
backbench rebellion, with 72 Conservatives voting against the government bill. As well as Thatcher's only defeat, it was the last occasion on which a government bill fell at second reading. The defeat was immediately overshadowed by the US intervention in Libya.
and that America was a major ally against a possible Soviet attack in Western Europe, she felt obliged to allow U.S. aircraft to use bases situated in Britain. Later that year in America, President Reagan persuaded Congress to approve of an extradition treaty which closed a legal loophole by which IRA members/Volunteers
escaped extradition by claiming their murders were "political". This had been previously opposed by Irish-Americans for years but was passed after Reagan used Thatcher's support in the Libyan raid as a reason to pass it.
, a vital defence contractor, to refuse to link with the Italian firm Agusta
in order for it to link with the management's preferred option, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of the United States. Defence Secretary
Michael Heseltine
, who had pushed the Agusta deal, resigned in protest after this, and remained an influential critic and potential leadership challenger. He would eventually prove instrumental in Thatcher's fall in 1990.
(GLC) and six top-tier Metropolitan County Councils
(MCCs): Greater Manchester
, Merseyside (including Liverpool
), South Yorkshire
(including Sheffield
), Tyne and Wear
(including Newcastle
and Sunderland), West Midlands
(including Birmingham
and Coventry
), and West Yorkshire
(including Leeds
).
The GLC was the biggest council in Europe
; under the leadership of the Labour
socialist radical Ken Livingstone
it had doubled its spending in three years, and Thatcher insisted on its abolition as an efficiency measure, transferring most duties to the boroughs, with veto power over major building, engineering and maintenance projects being given to the environment secretary
. The government also argued that the transfer of power to local councils would increase electoral accountability.
Critics contended that 'the excesses of a few "loony left" councils helped Mrs Thatcher to launch a party-political assault', as all the eliminated councils were controlled by the Labour party, favoured higher local government taxes and public spending, and were vocal centres of opposition to her government. The GLC also warned that the break-up of the county councils would lead to the creation of 'endless joint committees and over 60 quangos'.
Several of the councils including the GLC had however rendered themselves vulnerable by committing scarce public funds to controversial causes such as Babies Against the Bomb, the Antiracist Year, and lesbian mothers seeking custody of their children; the Save the GLC campaign itself was estimated to have cost ratepayers £10 million, climaxing in a final defiant week of festivities that cost ratepayers £500,000.
with Deng Xiaoping
on 19 December, which committed the People's Republic of China
to award Hong Kong
the status of a "Special Administrative Region". Under the terms of the One Country, Two Systems
agreement, China was obliged to leave Hong Kong's economic status unchanged after the handover on 1 July 1997 for a period of fifty years – until 2047.
(EEC) than it received in spending. She famously declared at the summit: "We are not asking the Community or anyone else for money. We are simply asking to have our own money back". Her arguments were successful and at the June 1984 Fontainbleau Summit, the EEC agreed on an annual rebate for the United Kingdom, amounting to 66% of the difference between Britain's EU contributions and receipts. This still remains in effect, although Tony Blair
later agreed to significantly reduce the size of the rebate. It periodically causes political controversy among the members of the European Union
.
, Chancellor of the Exchequer, identified inflation as 'the judge and jury of a government's record', but while the country also improved its OECD inflation ranking from fifteenth in 1979 to tenth in the so-called 'Lawson boom
' year of 1987, when inflation had fallen to 4.2%, in the decade as a whole the country still had the second highest inflation rate of the G7
countries.
Unemployment had peaked at nearly 3,300,000 in 1984,but had fallen below 3,000,000 by June 1987,in early 1989 it fellow below 2,000,000 and by December 1989 it stood at just over 1,600,000.
The United Kingdom's growth rate was more impressive, ranking first in the OECD-16 in 1987, a statistical achievement that the Thatcher government exploited to the full in the general election campaign of that year. However, the balance of payments record had deteriorated, faring even worse than those of non-oil-exporting countries, and there was a decline in the country's relative standing in terms of unemployment. The resulting welfare payments meant that, even though the Thatcher government in 1979 had taken the view that 'public expenditure is at the heart of Britain's present economic difficulties', it was not until the boom year of 1987 that the expenditure ratio fell below the 1979 level, and for most of the 1980s the average tax take was actually higher than in 1979.
with a 102 seat majority, riding the Lawson boom against a weak Labour opposition advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament
, Margaret Thatcher became the longest continuously serving British prime minister since Lord Liverpool (1812 to 1827), and the first to win three successive elections since Lord Palmerston
in 1865
. Most national newspapers supported her—with the exception of The Daily Mirror
, The Guardian
and The Independent
—and were rewarded with regular press briefings by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham
. She was informally dubbed 'Maggie' by the tabloids, and political protesters were given to chanting the slogan 'Maggie Out
!' Despite her third straight victory she remained a polarising figure, her unpopularity on the left is evident from the lyrics of several contemporary pop-music songs.
, overreacted to a market fall with his reflationary 1988 budget, stoking inflation and precipitating a slide in the government's fortunes. By the time of Thatcher's resignation in 1990, inflation had again hit 10%, the same level she had found it in 1979.
Overall, the Thatcher government's economic record is disputed. In relative terms, it could be held there was a modest revival of British fortunes. Real gross domestic product
had grown by 26.8% over 1979-89 in the United Kingdom as against 24.3% for the EC-12 average. Measured by total factor productivity, labour, and capital, British productivity growth between 1979 and 1993 compared favourably with the OECD average.
However under Thatcherite management the macro-economy was unstable, even by the standards of the Keynesian era of stop-go. The amplitude of fluctuations in gross domestic product
and real gross private non-residential fixed capital formation was greater in the United Kingdom than for the OECD.
In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions, but there proved to be no simple trade-off between equality and efficiency. The receipts ratio did not fall below the 1979 level until 1992. The expenditure ratio rose again after Thatcher's resignation in 1990, even climbing for a time above the 1979 figure. The cause was the heavy budget charge of the recessions of 1979-81 and 1990–92 and the extra funding required to meet the higher level of unemployment.
' was added as an amendment to what became the Local Government Act 1988
. This legislation was repealed by Tony Blair's Labour administration between 2000 and 2003.
model from the United States
.
, ozone depletion
and acid rain
. In 1990, she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research. In her book Statecraft (2002), she described her later regret in supporting the concept of human-induced global warming, outlining the negative effects she perceived it had upon the policy-making process. "Whatever international action we agree upon to deal with environmental problems, we must enable our economies to grow and develop, because without growth you cannot generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment" .
for a federal structure and increasing centralisation of decision-making. Although she had supported British membership, Thatcher believed that the role of the EC should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that new EC regulations would reverse the changes she was making in the UK: "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels". She was specifically against Economic and Monetary Union
, through which a single currency would replace national currencies, and for which the EC was making preparations, now known as the euro
and in force as legal tender since 2002 in twelve European countries. Britain has so far remained outside the so-called eurozone
. The speech caused an outcry from other European leaders, and exposed for the first time the deep split that was emerging over European policy inside her Conservative Party.
Thatcher's popularity once again declined, in 1989, as the economy suffered from high interest rates imposed to temper a potentially unsustainable boom
. She blamed her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson
, who had been following an economic policy which was a preparation for monetary union; in an interview for the Financial Times, in November 1987, Thatcher claimed not to have been told of this and did not approve.
At a meeting before the Madrid
European Community summit in June 1989, Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree to the circumstances under which she would join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a preparation for monetary union and the abolishment of the Pound Sterling
. At the meeting, they both claimed they would resign if their demands were not met. Thatcher responded by demoting Howe and by listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters
on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October, feeling that Thatcher had undermined him.
. As Meyer was a virtually unknown backbench
MP, he was viewed as a "stalking horse
" candidate for more prominent members of the party. Thatcher easily defeated Meyer's challenge, but there were sixty ballot papers either cast for Meyer or abstaining, a surprisingly large number for a sitting Prime Minister. Her supporters in the Party, however, viewed the results as a success, claiming that after ten years as Prime Minister and with approximately 370 Conservative MPs voting, the opposition was surprisingly small.
, and the most forthright opponent of economic sanctions against the country, which was ruled by a white minority government. Her stand had divided the Commonwealth
48-1 at three conferences since 1985, but had brought her influence in South Africa's white community. Rejecting the U.S. policy of disinvestment as a mistake, she argued a prosperous society would be more receptive to change.
In October 1988 Thatcher said she would be unlikely to visit South Africa unless black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela
was released from prison, and in March 1989 she stressed the need to release him in order for multi-party talks to take place, urging that the African National Congress
's promise to suspend violence should be enough to permit his release, and that the 'renunciation of violence' should not be an absolute condition for negotiations for a settlement. At the end of March 1989, Thatcher’s six-day, 10,000-mile tour through southern Africa
—a follow-up to her 'look and learn' exercise in Kenya
and Nigeria
in 1988—did not include South Africa because Mandela had not yet been released.
Thatcher met reformist South African president-in-waiting F.W. de Klerk in London
in June 1989, and stressed that Mandela must be freed and reforms put in place before she would visit the country. In July 1989 she called for the release not only of Mandela, but also Walter Sisulu
and Oscar Mpetha, before all-group talks could continue.
Thatcher therefore welcomed de Klerk's decision in February 1990 to release Mandela and lift the ban on the ANC, and said the change vindicated her positive policy: 'We believe in carrots as well as sticks.' However Thatcher had also set the freeing of Mandela as a condition of friendship with the white government.
Thatcher said the European Community's voluntary ban on new investment should be lifted when Mandela was released. However her call to the world to reward reforms was countered by Mandela himself, who while still in jail argued sanctions must be maintained until the end of white rule, and criticised her decision to lift a ban on new investment unilaterally. Mandela declared:
However Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd
was adamant: 'We needed to make a practical response to a man, President F.W. de Klerk, who has taken his political life into his hands.' Nevertheless as a gesture of goodwill Thatcher agreed to begin aid to the ANC, which until its suspension of violence she had criticised as 'a typical terrorist organisation', her disapproval reinforced by her anti-socialism.
Mandela spoke of his respect for Thatcher, even expressing disappointment that she would not be 'the very first person I would see' on release from prison. However Thatcher’s opposition to sanctions left her isolated within the Commonwealth and the European Community, and Mandela did not take up an early offer to meet her, opposing her proposed visit to his country as premature. Mandela rejected all concessions to the South African government, which he accused of seeking the easing of sanctions before it had offered 'profound and irreversible change'.
Mandela delayed meeting Thatcher until he had gathered support for sanctions from other world leaders in the course of a four-week, 14-nation tour of Europe
and the United States
. While Thatcher and Mandela agreed about the importance of getting rid of apartheid, their first meeting failed to resolve differences over her unilateral lifting of sanctions and his refusal to renounce armed struggle until existing conditions in South Africa changed. In their economic discussions, Mandela initially favoured nationalisation as a preferred method for redistributing wealth between blacks and whites, but with British investment in South Africa in 1989 accounting for half of the total, and with bilateral trade worth just over $3.2 billion, Thatcher successfully urged him to adopt free market
solutions, arguing they would be needed to maintain the kind of growth
that would sustain a liberal democratic
order.
on the wealthiest section of the population, and outlined a fundamental solution as her flagship policy in the Conservative manifesto for the 1987 election. Local government
rates
were replaced by the community charge—popularly known as the 'poll tax'—which levied a flat rate on all adult residents, with rebates for low earners, but a minimum payment of 20%.
The government defended the poll tax, firstly, on the principle of marginality, that all voters should feel the pain of local taxation, and, secondly, on the benefit principle, that burdens should be proportional to benefits received. Ministers disregarded political research which showed potential massive losses for marginal Conservative
-voting households. The Independent on Sunday suggested:
The poll tax was introduced in Scotland
in 1989 and in England and Wales
in 1990. This highly visible redistribution proved to be one of the most contentious policies of Thatcher's premiership. Additional problems emerged when many of the tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predicted. Opponents organised to resist bailiff
s and disrupt court
hearings of community charge debt
ors. One Labour MP
, Terry Fields
, was jailed for 60 days for refusing to pay.
An indication of the unpopularity of the policy was given by a Gallup poll in March 1990 that put Labour 18.5 points ahead. As the crisis deepened and the prime minister stood her ground, opponents claimed that up to 18 million people were refusing to pay. Enforcement measures became increasingly draconian. Unrest mounted and culminated in a number of riots
. The most serious of these happened on 31 March 1990, during a protest at Trafalgar Square
, London
. More than 100,000 protesters attended and more than 400 people were arrested.
Tony Travers
of the London School of Economics
comments on the policy debacle:
Constitutional commentators concluded from the tax fiasco that 'the British state has become dangerously centralized, to an extent that important policy developments can now no longer be properly debated.' The unpopularity of the poll tax came to be seen as an important factor in Thatcher's downfall, by convincing many Conservative backbenchers to vote against her when she was later challenged for the leadership by Michael Heseltine
.
After the prime minister's resignation, former chancellor Nigel Lawson
labelled the poll tax as 'the one great blunder of the Thatcher years', and the succeeding Major
government replaced it in 1993 with a council tax
, a banded property tax. Former trade and industry secretary Nicholas Ridley
agreed that Thatcher had suffered a massive defeat over the poll tax, but he argued that Major's repeal 'vindicated the rioters and those who had refused to pay. Lawlessness seemed to have paid off.'
to drive Saddam Hussein
's army out of Kuwait
. Thatcher's memoirs summarise her advice to US President George H. W. Bush
during a telephone conversation with the words, "this was no time to go wobbly!"
to reduce interest rates by 1%. Major persuaded her that the only way to maintain monetary stability was to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism at the same time, despite not meeting the 'Madrid conditions'. The Conservative Party conference that year saw a large degree of unity; few who attended could have imagined that Thatcher had only a matter of weeks left in office.
, one of the most dramatic episodes in British political history. The idea of a long-serving prime minister — undefeated at the polls — being ousted by an internal party ballot might at first sight seem bizarre. However, by 1990, opposition to Thatcher's policies on local government taxation, her Government's perceived mishandling of the economy (in particular the high interest rates of 15% that eroded her support among home owners and business people), and the divisions opening in the Conservative Party over European integration
made her seem increasingly politically vulnerable and her party increasingly divided. A Gallup poll in October 1990 showed that while Thatcher remained personally respected there was overwhelming opposition towards her final initiatives — 83% disapproved of the government's management of the National Health Service
, 83% were against water privatisation, and 64% were against the Community Charge
, while various polls suggested the party was trailing Labour
by between 6 and 11 points. Moreover the prime minister's distaste for consensus politics and willingness to override colleagues' opinions, including that of Cabinet, emboldened the backlash against her when it did occur.
On 1 November 1990, Sir Geoffrey Howe, one of Thatcher's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Thatcher's European policy. In his resignation speech in the House of Commons
two weeks later, he suggested that the time had come for "others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties" with which he stated that he had wrestled for perhaps too long. Her former cabinet colleague Michael Heseltine subsequently challenged her for the leadership of the party, and attracted sufficient support in the first round of voting to prolong the contest to a second ballot. Though she initially stated that she intended to contest the second ballot, Thatcher decided, after consulting with her Cabinet colleagues, to withdraw from the contest. On 22 November, at just after 9.30 a.m., she announced to the Cabinet that she would not be a candidate in the second ballot. Shortly afterwards, her staff made public what was, in effect, her resignation statement:
Neil Kinnock
, Leader of the Opposition, proposed a motion of no confidence in the government, and Margaret Thatcher seized the opportunity this presented on the day of her resignation to deliver one of her most memorable performances:
She supported John Major
as her successor and he duly won the leadership contest, although in the years to come her approval of Major would fall away. After her resignation a MORI
poll found that 52% agreed with the proposition
that "On balance she had been good for the country", while 48% disagreed thinking she had been bad. In 1991, she was given a long and unprecedented standing ovation at the party's annual conference, although she politely rejected calls from delegates for her to make a speech. She 'all but shunned' the House of Commons after losing power, and gave no clue as to her future plans, speaking only occasionally. Her continued presence was thought to be a destabilising influence on the Conservative government. She retired from the House at the 1992 election
, at the age of 66 years.
Political economist Roger Middleton summed up the economic record of the Thatcher era in the following terms:
Ironically, as The Economist acknowledged, albeit prematurely, at the close of her premiership:
Small government
A Small government is one which minimizes its own activities. It is a concept important to classical liberalism and libertarianism.-In Hong Kong:...
. Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
was incensed by one contemporary view within the Civil Service, that its job was to manage the UK's decline from the days of Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, and she wanted the country to assert a higher level of influence and leadership in international affairs
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
. She was a philosophic
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
soul-mate of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, elected in 1980 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and to a lesser extent Brian Mulroney
Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...
, who was elected in 1984 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Thatcher would go on to radically transform Britain more so than any leader of Britain since Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
, rejuvenating a stagnant world power but socially dividing much of the population.
Deflationary strategy
Under the Thatcher government the taming of inflationInflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
displaced high employment
Employment
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...
as the primary policy objective.
As a monetarist, Thatcher started out in her economic policy by increasing interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply and thus lower inflation. She had a preference for indirect taxation over taxes on income, and value added tax
Value added tax
A value added tax or value-added tax is a form of consumption tax. From the perspective of the buyer, it is a tax on the purchase price. From that of the seller, it is a tax only on the "value added" to a product, material or service, from an accounting point of view, by this stage of its...
(VAT) was raised sharply to 15%, with a resultant actual short-term rise in inflation. The fiscal and monetary squeeze, combined with the North Sea oil
North Sea oil
North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid oil and natural gas, produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea.In the oil industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the area known as "West of Shetland", "the Atlantic Frontier" or "the...
effect, appreciated the real exchange rate. These moves hit businesses—especially the manufacturing sector—and unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
quickly passed two million, doubling the one million unemployed under the previous Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
government.
Former prime minister Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
, who was also Thatcher's predecessor as party leader, was one of the fiercist critics of Thatcher's economic policies, although his verbal attacks on her policies were often seen as a sign of his anger at her for ousting him from the party leadership in 1975.
Political commentators harked back to the Heath Government's "U-turn" and speculated that Thatcher would follow suit, but she repudiated this approach at the 1980 Conservative party conference, telling the party: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catch-phrase—the U-turn—I have only one thing to say: you turn if you want to; the Lady's not for turning." That she meant what she said was confirmed in the 1981 budget, when, despite concerns expressed in an open letter from 364 leading economists, taxes were increased in the middle of a recession, leading to newspaper headlines the following morning of "Howe it Hurts", a reference to the Chancellor Geoffrey Howe
Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, CH, QC, PC is a former British Conservative politician. He was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, and finally Leader of the House of Commons...
.
In 1981, as unemployment soared and the government's popularity plunged, the party chairman, Lord Thorneycroft, and two cabinet ministers, Lord Carrington
Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington
Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, is a British Conservative politician. He served as British Foreign Secretary between 1979 and 1982 and as the sixth Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. He is the last surviving member of the Cabinets of both Harold Macmillan and Sir...
and Humphrey Atkins
Humphrey Atkins
Humphrey Edward Gregory Atkins, Baron Colnbrook KCMG PC was a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1979-82....
, confronted the prime minister and suggested she should resign; according to her adviser, Tim Bell
Timothy Bell, Baron Bell
Timothy John Leigh Bell, Baron Bell is a British advertising and public relations executive, best known for his advisory role in Margaret Thatcher's three successful general election campaigns.-Early career:...
, "Margaret just told them to go away". Thatcher's key ally in the party was home secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
and later deputy prime minister
Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some counties, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, but is significantly different, though both...
William Whitelaw
William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw
William Stephen Ian Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw, KT, CH, MC, PC, DL , often known as Willie Whitelaw, was a British Conservative Party politician who served in a wide number of Cabinet positions, most notably as Home Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Whitelaw was born in Nairn, in...
. His moral authority and support allowed her to resist the internal threat from the Heathite
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
wets.
After the 1981 Brixton riot, Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit
Norman Tebbit
Norman Beresford Tebbit, Baron Tebbit, CH, PC , is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet from 1981 to 1987 as Secretary of State for Employment...
, responding to a suggestion that rioting was caused by unemployment, observed that the unemployment of the 1930s
1930s
File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
was far worse than that of the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
—and that his father's generation never reacted by rioting. 'I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father,' Tebbit said. 'He did not riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he went on looking until he found it.'
Over two million manufacturing jobs were ultimately lost in the recession of 1979-81. This labour-shedding helped firms deal with long-standing X-inefficiency
X-inefficiency
X-inefficiency is the difference between efficient behavior of firms assumed or implied by economic theory and their observed behavior in practice. It occurs when technical-efficiency is not being achieved due to a lack of competitive pressure...
from over-manning, enabling the British economy to catch up to the productivity levels of other advanced capitalist countries.
The link between the money supply and inflation was proven accurate and by January 1982, the inflation rate had dropped back to 8.6% from earlier highs of 18%. Interest rate
Interest rate
An interest rate is the rate at which interest is paid by a borrower for the use of money that they borrow from a lender. For example, a small company borrows capital from a bank to buy new assets for their business, and in return the lender receives interest at a predetermined interest rate for...
s were then allowed to fall. Unemployment continued to rise, reaching an official figure of 3.6 million—although the criteria for defining who was unemployed were amended allowing some to estimate that unemployment in fact hit 5 million. However, Tebbit later suggested that, due to the high number of people claiming unemployment benefit while working, unemployment never reached three million.
By 1983, manufacturing output had dropped by 30% from 1978. The productivity turnaround from labour-shedding proved to be a one-off, and was not matched by growth in output. The industrial base was so reduced that thereafter the balance of payments in manufactured goods was in deficit. In 1983 Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
told the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
Select Committee on Overseas Trade:
Iranian embassy siege
Thatcher's determination to face down political violence was first demonstrated during the 1980 siege of the Iranian embassyIranian Embassy Siege
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, London. The gunmen took 26 people hostage—mostly embassy staff, but several visitors and a police officer, who had been guarding the embassy, were also...
in Princes Gate, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, when for the first time in 70 years the armed forces were authorised to use lethal force on the British mainland. 26 hostages were held by six gunmen for six days in May, until the siege came to a dramatic end with a successful raid by SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
commandos. Later that day, 'Thatcher went to congratulate the SAS men involved and sat among them watching a re-run of the attack'. The breaking of the siege by the SAS was later celebrated by the public as one of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
's greatest moments.
The appearance of decisiveness—christened the 'resolute approach' by the prime minister herself—became Thatcher's trademark, and a source of her popularity. In the words of one historian: 'The mood reflected Mrs Thatcher's Iron Lady stance, her proclaimed intention of laying the "Suez Syndrome
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
" to rest and again projecting Britain as a great power. Celebration of the SAS was a key component in the popular militarism of the 1980s, fuelled by the continuing "war" against international terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and by the Falklands conflict
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
and Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
. The storming of the Iranian Embassy had shown that Britain could meet terror with counter-terror: Mrs Thatcher's black-clad "terminators" would protect us.'
Commenting on the SAS's action, social services secretary
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is a post in the British Cabinet, responsible for the Department for Work and Pensions. It was created on 8 June 2001 by the merger of the Employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security.The Ministry...
Norman Fowler
Norman Fowler
Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler, PC is a British Conservative politician who was from 1981 to 1990 a member of Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet.-Early life:...
agreed: 'Mrs. Thatcher attracted public support because she seemed to be taking action which the public overwhelmingly thought was right but never thought any government would have the nerve to carry out.’
Northern Ireland
In May 1980, one day before Thatcher was due to meet the IrishRepublic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
, Charles Haughey
Charles Haughey
Charles James "Charlie" Haughey was Taoiseach of Ireland, serving three terms in office . He was also the fourth leader of Fianna Fáil...
, to discuss Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, she announced in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom that "the future of the constitutional affairs of Northern Ireland is a matter for the people of Northern Ireland, this government, this parliament, and no-one else."
In 1981, a number of Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
(IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....
prisoners in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
's Maze Prison
Maze (HM Prison)
Her Majesty's Prison Maze was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from mid-1971 to mid-2000....
(known in Northern Ireland as 'Long Kesh', its previous official name) went on hunger strike
1981 Irish hunger strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners...
to regain the status of political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s, which had been revoked five years earlier under the preceding Labour government. Bobby Sands
Bobby Sands
Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....
, the first of the strikers, was elected as a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone
Fermanagh and South Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)
Fermanagh and South Tyrone is a Parliamentary constituency in the British House of Commons. The current MP for the constituency is Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin....
a few weeks before he died.
Thatcher refused to countenance a return to political status for republican prisoners, famously declaring, 'Crime is crime is crime; it is not political.' After nine more men had died, most rights were restored to paramilitary prisoners, but official recognition of their political status was not granted. Thatcher later asserted, 'The outcome was a significant defeat for the IRA.'
Thatcher also continued the policy of 'Ulsterisation
Ulsterisation
Ulsterisation refers to one part 'primacy of the police' of a three part strategy by the British Government to pacify Northern Ireland during the conflict known as The Troubles...
' of the previous Labour government and its Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, informally the Northern Ireland Secretary, is the principal secretary of state in the government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of...
, Roy Mason
Roy Mason
Roy Mason, Baron Mason of Barnsley, PC is a British Labour politician and former Cabinet minister.He was born in Royston, and grew up in Carlton, Barnsley in South Yorkshire...
, believing that the Unionists of Northern Ireland should be at the forefront in combating Irish republicanism
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
. This meant relieving the burden on the mainstream British army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
and elevating the role of the Ulster Defence Regiment
Ulster Defence Regiment
The Ulster Defence Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army which became operational in 1970, formed on similar lines to other British reserve forces but with the operational role of defence of life or property in Northern Ireland against armed attack or sabotage...
and the Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
.
The Falklands
On 2 April 1982, a ruling military junta in ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
invaded the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
and South Georgia, a British overseas territory that Argentina had claimed
Sovereignty of the Falkland Islands
Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands is disputed between Argentina and the United Kingdom.The British claim to de jure sovereignty dates from 1690, and the United Kingdom has exercised de facto sovereignty over the archipelago almost constantly since 1833...
since an 1810 dispute on the British settlement. The following day, Thatcher sent a naval task force
Task force
A task force is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology...
to back diplomatic efforts with the threat of the use of force, and if negotiations failed, to recapture the islands and eject the invaders. The conflict escalated from there, evolving into an amphibious and ground combat operation. An opinion poll published prior to the British landing showed 70% support for military action. Argentina surrendered on 14 June and the operation was deemed a success, despite 258 British casualties. Victory brought a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and increased support for the Thatcher government, with Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
declaring "The Empire Strikes Back". One poll suggested that 84% of the electorate approved of the prime minister's handling of the crisis.
1983 General election
The 'Falklands Factor', along the resumption of economic growth by the end of 1982, bolstered the government's popularity. The Labour party at this time had split, and there was a new challenge in the SDP-Liberal AllianceSDP-Liberal Alliance
The SDP–Liberal Alliance was an electoral pact formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom which was in existence from 1981 to 1988, when the bulk of the two parties merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, later referred to as simply the Liberal...
, formed by an electoral pact between the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (UK)
The Social Democratic Party was a political party in the United Kingdom that was created on 26 March 1981 and existed until 1988. It was founded by four senior Labour Party 'moderates', dubbed the 'Gang of Four': Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams...
and the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
. However, this grouping failed to make its intended breakthrough, despite briefly holding an opinion poll lead. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1136223.stm
In the June 1983 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1983
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...
, the Conservatives won 42.4% of the vote, the Labour party 27.6% and the Alliance 25.4% of the vote (though the gap between Labour and the Alliance was narrow in terms of votes, the Alliance attained only a fraction of the seats that Labour held).
Although the Conservatives' share of the vote had fallen slightly (1.5%) since 1979, Labour's vote had fallen by far more (9.3%) and in Britain's first past the post system, the Conservatives won a landslide victory
Landslide victory
In politics, a landslide victory is the victory of a candidate or political party by an overwhelming margin in an election...
. Under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives now had an overall majority of 144 MPs.
Industrial relations
Thatcher was committed to reducing the power of the trades unions but, unlike the Heath government, adopted a strategy of incremental change rather than a single Act. Several unions launched strikeStrike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
s in response, but these actions eventually collapsed. Gradually, Thatcher's reforms reduced the power and influence of the unions. The changes were chiefly focused upon preventing the recurrence of the large-scale industrial actions of the 1970s, but were also intended to ensure that the consequences for the participants would be severe if any future action was taken. The reforms were also aimed, Thatcher claimed, to democratise the unions, and return power to the members. The most significant measures were to make secondary industrial action
Industrial action
Industrial action or job action refers collectively to any measure taken by trade unions or other organised labour meant to reduce productivity in a workplace. Quite often it is used and interpreted as a euphemism for strike, but the scope is much wider...
illegal, to force union leadership to first win a ballot of the union membership before calling a strike, and to abolish the closed shop
Closed shop
A closed shop is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed....
. Further laws banned workplace ballots and imposed postal ballots.
Miners' strike
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on "vesting day", 1 January 1947...
received the largest amount of public subsidies going to any nationalised industry: by 1984 the annual cost to taxpayers of uneconomic pits had reached £1 billion. The year-long confrontation over strikes carried out from April 1984 by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in opposition to proposals to close a large number of unprofitable mines, proved decisive. The government had made preparations to counter a strike by the NUM long in advance by building up coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
stocks, ensuring that cuts in the electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
supply—the legacy of the industrial disputes of 1972—would not be repeated.
Police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
tactics during the strikes came under criticism from civil libertarians
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
, but the images of crowds of militant miners attempting to prevent other miners from working proved a shock even to some supporters of the strikes. The mounting desperation and poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
of the striking families led to divisions within the regional NUM branches, and a breakaway union, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers
Union of Democratic Mineworkers
The Union of Democratic Mineworkers is a British trade union not recognised by the TUC or the Labour party for coal miners, which is based in Nottinghamshire, England...
(UDM), was soon formed. A group of workers, resigned to the impending failure of the actions and worn down by months of protests, began to defy the Union's rulings, starting splinter groups and advising workers that returning to work was the only viable option.
The miners' strike lasted a full year before the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. Conservative governments proceeded to close all but 15 of the country's pits, with the remaining 15 being sold off and privatised in 1994. Private companies have since then acquired licences to open new pits and open-cast sites, with the majority of the original mines destroyed and the land redeveloped.
The defeat of the miners' strike led to a long period of demoralisation in the whole of the trade union movement. Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
, then chancellor of the exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, later recalled:
Apartheid
The Thatcher government opposed the apartheid policy of the white-minority government of South AfricaHistory of South Africa in the apartheid era
Apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained...
, but resisted international pressure to impose economic sanctions
Economic sanctions
Economic sanctions are domestic penalties applied by one country on another for a variety of reasons. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, tariffs, trade barriers, import duties, and import or export quotas...
on the former colony, where the United Kingdom was the biggest foreign investor and principal trading partner.
At the end of March 1984, four South Africans were arrested in Coventry, remanded in custody, and charged with contravening the UN arms embargo
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418
United Nations Security Council Resolution 418, adopted unanimously on 4 November 1977, imposed a mandatory arms embargo against apartheid South Africa. This resolution differed from the earlier Resolution 282, which was only voluntary...
, which prohibited exports to South Africa of military equipment. Thatcher took a personal interest in the Coventry Four
Coventry Four
Four South African alleged arms smugglers were arrested by HM Customs & Excise officers in Coventry in March 1984 and charged with conspiring to export arms from Britain to apartheid South Africa in contravention of the mandatory UN arms embargo...
, and 10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....
requested daily summaries of the case from the prosecuting authority, HM Customs and Excise. Within a month, the Coventry Four had been freed from jail and allowed to travel to South Africa, on condition that they returned to England for their trial later that year. However in August 1984 South African foreign minister Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
decided not to allow the Coventry Four to return to stand trial, forfeiting £200,000 bail money put up by the South African embassy in London.
In April 1984, Thatcher sent senior British diplomat, Sir John Leahy, to negotiate the release of 16 Britons who had been taken hostage by the Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
n rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan political leader. He founded and led UNITA, a movement that first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–1974, then confronted the rival MPLA during the decolonization conflict, 1974/75, and after independence in 1975 fought the ruling...
. At the time, Savimbi's UNITA
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the Angolan War for Independence and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war .The war was one...
guerrilla movement was financed and supported militarily by the apartheid regime of South Africa
History of South Africa in the apartheid era
Apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the rights of the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were curtailed and white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained...
. On April 26, 1984 Leahy succeeded in securing the release of the British hostages at the UNITA base in Jamba, Angola
Jamba, Angola
Jamba is a town in Angola, located in the southeastern province of Cuando Cubango, just north of the Namibian border along the Caprivi Strip....
.
In June 1984 Thatcher received a visit from P. W. Botha, the first South African premier to come to Britain since his nation had left the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
in 1961. The leader of the opposition
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...
condemned the visit as a 'diplomatic coup' for the South African government, and Labour MEP
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
Barbara Castle
Barbara Castle
Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn , PC, GCOT was a British Labour Party politician....
rallied European Socialists in an unsuccessful attempt to stop it. In talks at Chequers
Chequers
Chequers, or Chequers Court, is a country house near Ellesborough, to the south of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills...
Thatcher told Botha the policy of racial separation was 'unacceptable'. She urged him to free jailed black leader Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
; to halt the harassment of black dissidents; to stop the bombing of African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC) guerrilla bases in front-line states; and to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and withdraw from Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
.
Thatcher defended Botha's visit as an encouragement to reform, but he ignored her concern over Mandela's continued detainment, and although a new constitution brought coloured people of mixed race and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
ns into a tricameral assembly, 22 million blacks continued to be excluded from the representation. After the outbreak of violence in September 1984, Thatcher granted temporary sanctuary to six African anti-apartheid leaders in the British consulate in Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
.
In July 1985 Thatcher, citing the support of Helen Suzman
Helen Suzman
Helen Suzman, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.-Biography:Helen Suzman, a life-long citizen of South Africa, was born as Helen Gavronsky in 1917 to Jewish immigrants....
, a South African anti-apartheid MP, reaffirmed her belief that economic sanctions against Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
would be immoral because they would make thousands of black workers unemployed; instead she characterised industry as the instrument that was breaking down apartheid. She also believed sanctions would disproportionately injure Britain and neighbouring African countries, and argued that political and military measures were more effective.
Thatcher's opposition to economic sanctions was challenged by visiting anti-apartheid activists, including South African bishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
, whom she met in London, and Oliver Tambo
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and a central figure in the African National Congress .-Biography:Oliver Tambo was born in Bizana in eastern Pondoland in what is now Eastern Cape...
, exiled leader of the outlawed ANC guerrilla movement, whose links to the Soviet bloc she viewed with suspicion, and whom she declined to see because he espoused violence and refused to condemn guerrilla attacks and mob killings of black policemen, local officials and their families.
At a Commonwealth summit in Nassau
Nassau, Bahamas
Nassau is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has a population of 248,948 , 70 percent of the entire population of The Bahamas...
in October 1985 Thatcher agreed to impose limited sanctions and to set up a contact group to promote a dialogue with Pretoria, after she was warned by Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
leaders, including India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n prime minister Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India . He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira...
and Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, that her opposition threatened to break up the 49-nation organisation. In return, calls for a total embargo were abandoned, and the existing restrictions adopted by member states against South Africa were lifted. ANC president Tambo expressed disappointment at this major compromise.
Brighton bombing
On the early morning of 12 October 1984, the day before her 59th birthday, Thatcher escaped injury in the Brighton hotel bombingBrighton hotel bombing
The Brighton hotel bombing happened on 12 October 1984 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. The bomb was planted by Provisional Irish Republican Army member Patrick Magee, with the intention of assassinating Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet who were staying at the hotel for the...
during the Conservative Party Conference when her hotel room was bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
. Five people died in the attack, including Roberta Wakeham, wife of the government's Chief Whip
Chief Whip
The Chief Whip is a political office in some legislatures assigned to an elected member whose task is to administer the whipping system that ensures that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.-The Whips Office:...
John Wakeham, and the Conservative MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Sir Anthony Berry
Anthony Berry
Sir Anthony George Berry was a British politician, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate, and a Whip in Margaret Thatcher's government...
. A prominent member of the Cabinet, Norman Tebbit
Norman Tebbit
Norman Beresford Tebbit, Baron Tebbit, CH, PC , is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet from 1981 to 1987 as Secretary of State for Employment...
, was injured, and his wife Margaret was left paralysed. Thatcher herself would have been injured if not for the fact that she was delayed from using the bathroom (which suffered more damage than the room she was in at the time the IRA bomb detonated). Thatcher insisted that the conference open on time the next day and made her speech as planned in defiance of the bombers, a gesture which won widespread approval across the political spectrum.
Anglo-Irish Agreement
On 15 November 1985, Thatcher signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish AgreementAnglo-Irish Agreement
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland...
with Irish Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald
Garret FitzGerald was an Irish politician who was twice Taoiseach of Ireland, serving in office from July 1981 to February 1982 and again from December 1982 to March 1987. FitzGerald was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1965 and was subsequently elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD in 1969. He...
, the first time a British government gave the Republic of Ireland a say (albeit advisory) in the governance of Northern Ireland. The agreement was greeted with fury by Northern Irish unionists. The Ulster Unionists
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
and Democratic Unionists
Democratic Unionist Party
The Democratic Unionist Party is the larger of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland. Founded by Ian Paisley and currently led by Peter Robinson, it is currently the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons of the...
made an electoral pact and on 23 January 1986, staged an ad-hoc referendum by resigning their seats and contesting the subsequent by-elections, losing only one, to the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party
Social Democratic and Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...
(SDLP). However, unlike the Sunningdale Agreement
Sunningdale Agreement
The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The Agreement was signed at the Civil Service College in Sunningdale Park located in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1973.Unionist opposition, violence and...
of 1974, they found they could not bring the agreement down by a general strike. This was another effect of the changed balance of power in industrial relations.
Privatisation
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
s, and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
ialism. Since gaining power, she had experimented in selling off a small nationalised
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
company, the National Freight Company, to its workers, with a surprisingly positive response. After the 1983 election, the Government became bolder and, starting with British Telecom, sold off most of the large utilities which had been in public ownership since the late 1940s. Many people took advantage of share
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
offers, although many sold their shares immediately for a quick profit and therefore the proportion of shares held by individuals rather than institutions did not increase. The policy of privatisation
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
, while anathema to many on the left, has become synonymous with Thatcherism
Thatcherism
Thatcherism describes the conviction politics, economic and social policy, and political style of the British Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990...
and was also followed by Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
's government. Wider share-ownership and council house sales became known as "popular capitalism" to its supporters (a term coined by John Redwood
John Redwood
John Alan Redwood is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Wokingham. He was formerly Secretary of State for Wales in Prime Minister John Major's Cabinet and was an unsuccessful challenger for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1995...
). One critic on the left described privatisation as 'the biggest electoral bribe in history'.
Cold War
In the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, Thatcher supported United States President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's policies of deterrence
Deterrence theory
Deterrence theory gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons, and features prominently in current United States foreign policy regarding the development of nuclear technology in North Korea and Iran. Deterrence theory however was...
against the Soviets. This contrasted with the policy of détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
which the West had pursued during the 1970s, and caused friction with allies who still adhered to the idea of détente. U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
forces were permitted by Thatcher to station nuclear cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...
s at British bases, arousing mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
. However, she later was the first Western leader to respond warmly to the rise of the future reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
, declaring that she liked him and describing him as "a man we can do business with" after a meeting in 1984, three months before he came to power. This was a start of a move by the West back to a new détente with the USSR under Gorbachev's leadership, which coincided with the final erosion of Soviet power prior to its eventual collapse in 1991. Thatcher outlasted the Cold War, which ended in 1989, and those who share her views on it credit her with a part in the West's victory, by both the deterrence and détente postures.
The West won the Cold War 'without firing a shot', Thatcher said, because the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
would not risk confrontation with its armed forces.
Domestic criticism
In February 1985, in what was generally viewed as a significant snub from the centre of the British establishment, the University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
voted to refuse Thatcher an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for higher education. This award had previously been given to all prime ministers since the Second World War. Although the government's counter-claim of increased expenditure was also challenged, the decision of the Oxford dons was widely condemned as 'petty and vindictive'. The Chancellor of the university, Lord Stockton
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
, noted that the decision represented a break with tradition, and predicted that the snub would rebound on the university.
In December 1985 Thatcher was criticised from another former Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
bastion when the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
report Faith in the City
Faith in the City
Faith in the City was a report published in the UK in Autumn 1985, authored by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas...
blamed decay of the inner cities on the government's financial stringency and called for a redistribution of wealth. However the government had already introduced special employment and training measures, and ministers dismissed the report as 'muddle-headed' and uncosted. The breach with the Church and its liberal bishops remained unhealed until William Hague
William Hague
William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...
called for renewed co-operation in 1998.
Soon after, Thatcher suffered her government's only defeat in the House of Commons, with the failure of the Shops Bill 1986
Shops Bill 1986
The Shops Bill 1986 was a parliamentary bill in the United Kingdom that would have ended government regulation of Sunday shopping in England and Wales...
. The bill, which would have legalised Sunday shopping
Sunday shopping
Sunday shopping refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognizes as the Sabbath, a "day of rest". Rules governing shopping hours, such as Sunday shopping, vary around the world but some European nations continue to ban Sunday shopping...
, was defeated by a Christian right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
backbench rebellion, with 72 Conservatives voting against the government bill. As well as Thatcher's only defeat, it was the last occasion on which a government bill fell at second reading. The defeat was immediately overshadowed by the US intervention in Libya.
Bombing of Libya
In the aftermath of a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. military personnel in Europe, which were believed to have been executed at Colonel Qaddafi's command, President Reagan decided to carry out a bombing raid on Libya. Both France and Spain refused to allow U.S. aircraft to fly over their territory for the raid. Thatcher herself had earlier expressed opposition to "retaliatory strikes that are against international law" and had not followed the U.S. in an embargo of Libyan oil. However Thatcher felt that as the U.S. had given support to Britain during the Falklands War but she had opposed the U.S. invasion of GrenadaInvasion of Grenada
The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 United States-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of about 100,000 located north of Venezuela. Triggered by a military coup which had ousted a four-year revolutionary government, the invasion...
and that America was a major ally against a possible Soviet attack in Western Europe, she felt obliged to allow U.S. aircraft to use bases situated in Britain. Later that year in America, President Reagan persuaded Congress to approve of an extradition treaty which closed a legal loophole by which IRA members/Volunteers
Volunteer (Irish republican)
Volunteer, often abbreviated Vol., is a term used by a number of Irish republican paramilitary organisations to describe their members. Among these have been the various forms of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army...
escaped extradition by claiming their murders were "political". This had been previously opposed by Irish-Americans for years but was passed after Reagan used Thatcher's support in the Libyan raid as a reason to pass it.
Westland affair
Thatcher's preference for defence ties with the United States was demonstrated in the Westland affair when she acted with colleagues to allow the helicopter manufacturer WestlandWestland Aircraft
Westland Aircraft was a British aircraft manufacturer located in Yeovil in Somerset. Formed as a separate company by separation from Petters Ltd just before the start of the Second World War, Westland had been building aircraft since 1915...
, a vital defence contractor, to refuse to link with the Italian firm Agusta
Agusta
Agusta is an Italian helicopter manufacturer. It is based in Samarate, Northern Italy. It is a subsidiary of Finmeccanica. The company was founded by Count Giovanni Agusta in 1923, who flew his first airplane in 1907...
in order for it to link with the management's preferred option, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of the United States. Defence Secretary
Secretary of State for Defence
The Secretary of State for Defence, popularly known as the Defence Secretary, is the senior Government of the United Kingdom minister in charge of the Ministry of Defence, chairing the Defence Council. It is a Cabinet position...
Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...
, who had pushed the Agusta deal, resigned in protest after this, and remained an influential critic and potential leadership challenger. He would eventually prove instrumental in Thatcher's fall in 1990.
Local government
In April 1986 the Thatcher government, enacting a policy set out in its 1983 manifesto, abolished the Greater London CouncilGreater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
(GLC) and six top-tier Metropolitan County Councils
Metropolitan county
The metropolitan counties are a type of county-level administrative division of England. There are six metropolitan counties, which each cover large urban areas, typically with populations of 1.2 to 2.8 million...
(MCCs): Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester County Council
The Greater Manchester County Council — also known as the Greater Manchester Council — was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater Manchester from 1974 to 1986...
, Merseyside (including Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
), South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...
(including Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
), Tyne and Wear
Tyne and Wear
Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in north east England around the mouths of the Rivers Tyne and Wear. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972...
(including Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
and Sunderland), West Midlands
West Midlands County Council
The West Midlands County Council was, from 1974 to 1986, the upper-tier administrative body for the West Midlands county, a metropolitan county in England....
(including Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
and Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
), and West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
(including Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
).
The GLC was the biggest council in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
; under the leadership of the Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
socialist radical Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
it had doubled its spending in three years, and Thatcher insisted on its abolition as an efficiency measure, transferring most duties to the boroughs, with veto power over major building, engineering and maintenance projects being given to the environment secretary
Secretary of State for the Environment
The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment . This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15...
. The government also argued that the transfer of power to local councils would increase electoral accountability.
Critics contended that 'the excesses of a few "loony left" councils helped Mrs Thatcher to launch a party-political assault', as all the eliminated councils were controlled by the Labour party, favoured higher local government taxes and public spending, and were vocal centres of opposition to her government. The GLC also warned that the break-up of the county councils would lead to the creation of 'endless joint committees and over 60 quangos'.
Several of the councils including the GLC had however rendered themselves vulnerable by committing scarce public funds to controversial causes such as Babies Against the Bomb, the Antiracist Year, and lesbian mothers seeking custody of their children; the Save the GLC campaign itself was estimated to have cost ratepayers £10 million, climaxing in a final defiant week of festivities that cost ratepayers £500,000.
Hong Kong
In 1984 Thatcher visited China and signed the Sino-British Joint DeclarationSino-British Joint Declaration
The Sino-British Joint Declaration, formally known as the Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong, was signed by the Prime Ministers, Zhao Ziyang and Margaret...
with Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
on 19 December, which committed the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
to award Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
the status of a "Special Administrative Region". Under the terms of the One Country, Two Systems
One country, two systems
"One country, two systems" is an idea originally proposed by Deng Xiaoping, then Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China , for the reunification of China during the early 1980s...
agreement, China was obliged to leave Hong Kong's economic status unchanged after the handover on 1 July 1997 for a period of fifty years – until 2047.
European rebate
At the Dublin European Council in November 1979, Thatcher argued that the United Kingdom paid far more to the European Economic CommunityEuropean Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
(EEC) than it received in spending. She famously declared at the summit: "We are not asking the Community or anyone else for money. We are simply asking to have our own money back". Her arguments were successful and at the June 1984 Fontainbleau Summit, the EEC agreed on an annual rebate for the United Kingdom, amounting to 66% of the difference between Britain's EU contributions and receipts. This still remains in effect, although Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
later agreed to significantly reduce the size of the rebate. It periodically causes political controversy among the members of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
Lawson boom, 1984-8
During the 1980s there was a great improvement in the United Kingdom's productivity growth relative to other advanced capitalist countries. Nigel LawsonNigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
, Chancellor of the Exchequer, identified inflation as 'the judge and jury of a government's record', but while the country also improved its OECD inflation ranking from fifteenth in 1979 to tenth in the so-called 'Lawson boom
Lawson Boom
"Lawson Boom" is a term used to describe the macroeconomic conditions prevailing in the United Kingdom at the end of the 1980s, which were indelibly associated with the policies of Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson....
' year of 1987, when inflation had fallen to 4.2%, in the decade as a whole the country still had the second highest inflation rate of the G7
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
countries.
Unemployment had peaked at nearly 3,300,000 in 1984,but had fallen below 3,000,000 by June 1987,in early 1989 it fellow below 2,000,000 and by December 1989 it stood at just over 1,600,000.
The United Kingdom's growth rate was more impressive, ranking first in the OECD-16 in 1987, a statistical achievement that the Thatcher government exploited to the full in the general election campaign of that year. However, the balance of payments record had deteriorated, faring even worse than those of non-oil-exporting countries, and there was a decline in the country's relative standing in terms of unemployment. The resulting welfare payments meant that, even though the Thatcher government in 1979 had taken the view that 'public expenditure is at the heart of Britain's present economic difficulties', it was not until the boom year of 1987 that the expenditure ratio fell below the 1979 level, and for most of the 1980s the average tax take was actually higher than in 1979.
1987 General election
By leading her party to victory in the 1987 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...
with a 102 seat majority, riding the Lawson boom against a weak Labour opposition advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
, Margaret Thatcher became the longest continuously serving British prime minister since Lord Liverpool (1812 to 1827), and the first to win three successive elections since Lord Palmerston
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC , known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century...
in 1865
United Kingdom general election, 1865
The 1865 United Kingdom general election saw the Liberals, led by Lord Palmerston, increase their large majority over the Earl of Derby's Conservatives to more than 80. The Whig Party changed its name to the Liberal Party between the previous election and this one.Palmerston died later in the same...
. Most national newspapers supported her—with the exception of The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
—and were rewarded with regular press briefings by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham
Bernard Ingham
Sir Bernard Ingham is a journalist and former civil servant who is best known as Margaret Thatcher's Chief Press Secretary while she was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Today Ingham lectures in Public Relations at Middlesex University in London...
. She was informally dubbed 'Maggie' by the tabloids, and political protesters were given to chanting the slogan 'Maggie Out
Maggie Out
"Maggie Out" was a chant popular during the Miners' Strike, student grant protests, Poll Tax protests and other public demonstrations that fell within the time when Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom....
!' Despite her third straight victory she remained a polarising figure, her unpopularity on the left is evident from the lyrics of several contemporary pop-music songs.
Boom to bust
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel LawsonNigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
, overreacted to a market fall with his reflationary 1988 budget, stoking inflation and precipitating a slide in the government's fortunes. By the time of Thatcher's resignation in 1990, inflation had again hit 10%, the same level she had found it in 1979.
Overall, the Thatcher government's economic record is disputed. In relative terms, it could be held there was a modest revival of British fortunes. Real gross domestic product
Gross domestic product
Gross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....
had grown by 26.8% over 1979-89 in the United Kingdom as against 24.3% for the EC-12 average. Measured by total factor productivity, labour, and capital, British productivity growth between 1979 and 1993 compared favourably with the OECD average.
However under Thatcherite management the macro-economy was unstable, even by the standards of the Keynesian era of stop-go. The amplitude of fluctuations in gross domestic product
Gross domestic product
Gross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....
and real gross private non-residential fixed capital formation was greater in the United Kingdom than for the OECD.
In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions, but there proved to be no simple trade-off between equality and efficiency. The receipts ratio did not fall below the 1979 level until 1992. The expenditure ratio rose again after Thatcher's resignation in 1990, even climbing for a time above the 1979 figure. The cause was the heavy budget charge of the recessions of 1979-81 and 1990–92 and the extra funding required to meet the higher level of unemployment.
Section 28
Though an early backer of decriminalisation of male homosexuality, Thatcher, at the 1987 Conservative party conference, issued the statement that "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay". Backbench Conservative MPs and Peers had already begun a backlash against the 'promotion' of homosexuality and, in December 1987, the controversial 'Section 28Section 28
Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 caused the controversial addition of Section 2A to the Local Government Act 1986 , enacted on 24 May 1988 and repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland, and on 18 November 2003 in the rest of Great Britain by section 122 of the Local Government Act 2003...
' was added as an amendment to what became the Local Government Act 1988
Local Government Act 1988
The United Kingdom Local Government Act of 1988 was famous for introducing the controversial Section 28 into law. In terms of the section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, Local Authorities were prohibited from promoting in specified category of schools, "the teaching of the acceptability of...
. This legislation was repealed by Tony Blair's Labour administration between 2000 and 2003.
Welfare reforms
Welfare reforms in her third term created an adult Employment Training system that included full-time work done for the dole plus a £10 top-up, on the workfareWorkfare
Workfare is an alternative model to conventional social welfare systems. The term was first introduced by civil rights leader James Charles Evers in 1968; however, it was popularized by Richard Nixon in a televised speech August 1969...
model from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Environment
Thatcher, the former chemist, became publicly concerned with environmental issues in the late 1980s. In 1988, she made a major speech accepting the problems of global warmingGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, ozone depletion
Ozone depletion
Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...
and acid rain
Acid rain
Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...
. In 1990, she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research. In her book Statecraft (2002), she described her later regret in supporting the concept of human-induced global warming, outlining the negative effects she perceived it had upon the policy-making process. "Whatever international action we agree upon to deal with environmental problems, we must enable our economies to grow and develop, because without growth you cannot generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment" .
European integration
At Bruges, Belgium, in 1988, Thatcher made a speech in which she outlined her opposition to proposals from the European CommunityEuropean Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
for a federal structure and increasing centralisation of decision-making. Although she had supported British membership, Thatcher believed that the role of the EC should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that new EC regulations would reverse the changes she was making in the UK: "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels". She was specifically against Economic and Monetary Union
Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union
The Economic and Monetary Union is an umbrella term for the group of policies aimed at converging the economies of members of the European Union in three stages so as to allow them to adopt a single currency, the euro. As such, it is largely synonymous with the eurozone.All member states of the...
, through which a single currency would replace national currencies, and for which the EC was making preparations, now known as the euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
and in force as legal tender since 2002 in twelve European countries. Britain has so far remained outside the so-called eurozone
Eurozone
The eurozone , officially called the euro area, is an economic and monetary union of seventeen European Union member states that have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender...
. The speech caused an outcry from other European leaders, and exposed for the first time the deep split that was emerging over European policy inside her Conservative Party.
Thatcher's popularity once again declined, in 1989, as the economy suffered from high interest rates imposed to temper a potentially unsustainable boom
Boom and bust
A credit boom-bust cycle is an episode characterized by a sustained increase in several economics indicators followed by a sharp and rapid contraction. Commonly the boom is driven by a rapid expansion of credit to the private sector accompanied with rising prices of commodities and stock market index...
. She blamed her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
, who had been following an economic policy which was a preparation for monetary union; in an interview for the Financial Times, in November 1987, Thatcher claimed not to have been told of this and did not approve.
At a meeting before the Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
European Community summit in June 1989, Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree to the circumstances under which she would join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a preparation for monetary union and the abolishment of the Pound Sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
. At the meeting, they both claimed they would resign if their demands were not met. Thatcher responded by demoting Howe and by listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters
Alan Walters
Professor Sir Alan Arthur Walters was a British economist, best known as the former Chief Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1983 and again in 1989 after his return from the USA.- Early life :...
on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October, feeling that Thatcher had undermined him.
Leadership election, 1989
In November 1989 Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by Sir Anthony MeyerAnthony Meyer
Sir Anthony John Charles Meyer, 3rd Baronet was a British soldier, diplomat, and Conservative and later Liberal Democrat politician, best known for standing against Margaret Thatcher for the party leadership in 1989...
. As Meyer was a virtually unknown backbench
Backbencher
In Westminster parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a Member of Parliament or a legislator who does not hold governmental office and is not a Front Bench spokesperson in the Opposition...
MP, he was viewed as a "stalking horse
Stalking horse
A stalking horse is a person who tests a concept with someone or mounts a challenge against them on behalf of an anonymous third party. If the idea proves viable and/or popular, the anonymous figure can then declare their interest and advance the concept with little risk of failure...
" candidate for more prominent members of the party. Thatcher easily defeated Meyer's challenge, but there were sixty ballot papers either cast for Meyer or abstaining, a surprisingly large number for a sitting Prime Minister. Her supporters in the Party, however, viewed the results as a success, claiming that after ten years as Prime Minister and with approximately 370 Conservative MPs voting, the opposition was surprisingly small.
Release of Mandela
Thatcher continued to be the leading international advocate of a policy of contact with South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, and the most forthright opponent of economic sanctions against the country, which was ruled by a white minority government. Her stand had divided the Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
48-1 at three conferences since 1985, but had brought her influence in South Africa's white community. Rejecting the U.S. policy of disinvestment as a mistake, she argued a prosperous society would be more receptive to change.
In October 1988 Thatcher said she would be unlikely to visit South Africa unless black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
was released from prison, and in March 1989 she stressed the need to release him in order for multi-party talks to take place, urging that the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
's promise to suspend violence should be enough to permit his release, and that the 'renunciation of violence' should not be an absolute condition for negotiations for a settlement. At the end of March 1989, Thatcher’s six-day, 10,000-mile tour through southern Africa
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
—a follow-up to her 'look and learn' exercise in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
and Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
in 1988—did not include South Africa because Mandela had not yet been released.
Thatcher met reformist South African president-in-waiting F.W. de Klerk in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in June 1989, and stressed that Mandela must be freed and reforms put in place before she would visit the country. In July 1989 she called for the release not only of Mandela, but also Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress .-Family and Education:...
and Oscar Mpetha, before all-group talks could continue.
Thatcher therefore welcomed de Klerk's decision in February 1990 to release Mandela and lift the ban on the ANC, and said the change vindicated her positive policy: 'We believe in carrots as well as sticks.' However Thatcher had also set the freeing of Mandela as a condition of friendship with the white government.
Thatcher said the European Community's voluntary ban on new investment should be lifted when Mandela was released. However her call to the world to reward reforms was countered by Mandela himself, who while still in jail argued sanctions must be maintained until the end of white rule, and criticised her decision to lift a ban on new investment unilaterally. Mandela declared:
However Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC , is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995....
was adamant: 'We needed to make a practical response to a man, President F.W. de Klerk, who has taken his political life into his hands.' Nevertheless as a gesture of goodwill Thatcher agreed to begin aid to the ANC, which until its suspension of violence she had criticised as 'a typical terrorist organisation', her disapproval reinforced by her anti-socialism.
Mandela spoke of his respect for Thatcher, even expressing disappointment that she would not be 'the very first person I would see' on release from prison. However Thatcher’s opposition to sanctions left her isolated within the Commonwealth and the European Community, and Mandela did not take up an early offer to meet her, opposing her proposed visit to his country as premature. Mandela rejected all concessions to the South African government, which he accused of seeking the easing of sanctions before it had offered 'profound and irreversible change'.
Mandela delayed meeting Thatcher until he had gathered support for sanctions from other world leaders in the course of a four-week, 14-nation tour of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. While Thatcher and Mandela agreed about the importance of getting rid of apartheid, their first meeting failed to resolve differences over her unilateral lifting of sanctions and his refusal to renounce armed struggle until existing conditions in South Africa changed. In their economic discussions, Mandela initially favoured nationalisation as a preferred method for redistributing wealth between blacks and whites, but with British investment in South Africa in 1989 accounting for half of the total, and with bilateral trade worth just over $3.2 billion, Thatcher successfully urged him to adopt free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
solutions, arguing they would be needed to maintain the kind of growth
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
that would sustain a liberal democratic
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
order.
Poll tax
Thatcher sought to relieve what she considered the unfair burden of property taxProperty tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
on the wealthiest section of the population, and outlined a fundamental solution as her flagship policy in the Conservative manifesto for the 1987 election. Local government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
rates
Rates (tax)
Rates are a type of property tax system in the United Kingdom, and in places with systems deriving from the British one, the proceeds of which are used to fund local government...
were replaced by the community charge—popularly known as the 'poll tax'—which levied a flat rate on all adult residents, with rebates for low earners, but a minimum payment of 20%.
The government defended the poll tax, firstly, on the principle of marginality, that all voters should feel the pain of local taxation, and, secondly, on the benefit principle, that burdens should be proportional to benefits received. Ministers disregarded political research which showed potential massive losses for marginal Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
-voting households. The Independent on Sunday suggested:
The poll tax was introduced in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1989 and in England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
in 1990. This highly visible redistribution proved to be one of the most contentious policies of Thatcher's premiership. Additional problems emerged when many of the tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predicted. Opponents organised to resist bailiff
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
s and disrupt court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
hearings of community charge debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...
ors. One Labour MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, Terry Fields
Terry Fields
Terence Fields was a British trades unionist and Labour Member of Parliament for Liverpool Broadgreen. He was a supporter of the Militant tendency.-Early life:...
, was jailed for 60 days for refusing to pay.
An indication of the unpopularity of the policy was given by a Gallup poll in March 1990 that put Labour 18.5 points ahead. As the crisis deepened and the prime minister stood her ground, opponents claimed that up to 18 million people were refusing to pay. Enforcement measures became increasingly draconian. Unrest mounted and culminated in a number of riots
Poll Tax Riots
The UK Poll Tax Riots were a series of mass disturbances, or riots, in British towns and cities during protests against the Community Charge , introduced by the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher...
. The most serious of these happened on 31 March 1990, during a protest at Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. More than 100,000 protesters attended and more than 400 people were arrested.
Tony Travers
Tony Travers
Tony Travers is a British academic and journalist, specialising in issues affecting local government. He is the director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics and Political Science...
of the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
comments on the policy debacle:
Constitutional commentators concluded from the tax fiasco that 'the British state has become dangerously centralized, to an extent that important policy developments can now no longer be properly debated.' The unpopularity of the poll tax came to be seen as an important factor in Thatcher's downfall, by convincing many Conservative backbenchers to vote against her when she was later challenged for the leadership by Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...
.
After the prime minister's resignation, former chancellor Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC , is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989...
labelled the poll tax as 'the one great blunder of the Thatcher years', and the succeeding Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
government replaced it in 1993 with a council tax
Council tax
Council Tax is the system of local taxation used in England, Scotland and Wales to part fund the services provided by local government in each country. It was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, as a successor to the unpopular Community Charge...
, a banded property tax. Former trade and industry secretary Nicholas Ridley
Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale
Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, PC was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister.-Personal life:...
agreed that Thatcher had suffered a massive defeat over the poll tax, but he argued that Major's repeal 'vindicated the rioters and those who had refused to pay. Lawlessness seemed to have paid off.'
Gulf War
One of Thatcher's final acts in office was to help the US, in deploying UK troops to the Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
to drive Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's army out of Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
. Thatcher's memoirs summarise her advice to US President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
during a telephone conversation with the words, "this was no time to go wobbly!"
Exchange Rate Mechanism
On the Friday before the Conservative Party conference in October 1990, Thatcher ordered her new Chancellor of the Exchequer John MajorJohn Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
to reduce interest rates by 1%. Major persuaded her that the only way to maintain monetary stability was to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism at the same time, despite not meeting the 'Madrid conditions'. The Conservative Party conference that year saw a large degree of unity; few who attended could have imagined that Thatcher had only a matter of weeks left in office.
Fall from power
Thatcher's political "assassination" was, according to witnesses such as Alan ClarkAlan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991...
, one of the most dramatic episodes in British political history. The idea of a long-serving prime minister — undefeated at the polls — being ousted by an internal party ballot might at first sight seem bizarre. However, by 1990, opposition to Thatcher's policies on local government taxation, her Government's perceived mishandling of the economy (in particular the high interest rates of 15% that eroded her support among home owners and business people), and the divisions opening in the Conservative Party over European integration
European integration
European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe...
made her seem increasingly politically vulnerable and her party increasingly divided. A Gallup poll in October 1990 showed that while Thatcher remained personally respected there was overwhelming opposition towards her final initiatives — 83% disapproved of the government's management of the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
, 83% were against water privatisation, and 64% were against the Community Charge
Community Charge
The Community Charge, popularly known as the "poll tax", was a system of taxation introduced in replacement of the rates to part fund local government in Scotland from 1989, and England and Wales from 1990. It provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the...
, while various polls suggested the party was trailing Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
by between 6 and 11 points. Moreover the prime minister's distaste for consensus politics and willingness to override colleagues' opinions, including that of Cabinet, emboldened the backlash against her when it did occur.
On 1 November 1990, Sir Geoffrey Howe, one of Thatcher's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Thatcher's European policy. In his resignation speech in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
two weeks later, he suggested that the time had come for "others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties" with which he stated that he had wrestled for perhaps too long. Her former cabinet colleague Michael Heseltine subsequently challenged her for the leadership of the party, and attracted sufficient support in the first round of voting to prolong the contest to a second ballot. Though she initially stated that she intended to contest the second ballot, Thatcher decided, after consulting with her Cabinet colleagues, to withdraw from the contest. On 22 November, at just after 9.30 a.m., she announced to the Cabinet that she would not be a candidate in the second ballot. Shortly afterwards, her staff made public what was, in effect, her resignation statement:
Neil Kinnock
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...
, Leader of the Opposition, proposed a motion of no confidence in the government, and Margaret Thatcher seized the opportunity this presented on the day of her resignation to deliver one of her most memorable performances:
She supported John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
as her successor and he duly won the leadership contest, although in the years to come her approval of Major would fall away. After her resignation a MORI
MORI
Ipsos MORI is the second largest market research organisation in the United Kingdom, formed by a merger of Ipsos UK and MORI, two of the Britain's leading survey companies in October 2005...
poll found that 52% agreed with the proposition
Proposition
In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence...
that "On balance she had been good for the country", while 48% disagreed thinking she had been bad. In 1991, she was given a long and unprecedented standing ovation at the party's annual conference, although she politely rejected calls from delegates for her to make a speech. She 'all but shunned' the House of Commons after losing power, and gave no clue as to her future plans, speaking only occasionally. Her continued presence was thought to be a destabilising influence on the Conservative government. She retired from the House at the 1992 election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
, at the age of 66 years.
Political economist Roger Middleton summed up the economic record of the Thatcher era in the following terms:
Ironically, as The Economist acknowledged, albeit prematurely, at the close of her premiership: