Margaret Thatcher's Place in British Politics ...
Eric Shapiro - Goldsmith's University of London - Spring 2011 - Modern British Politics
Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister marked a significant departure from the “one nation” perspective shared by the Labor and Conservative Parties since the end of World War II. After installing cabinet members in line with her radical approach to governing, she set about dismantling the Welfare State and remaking the United Kingdom according to her own vision. The tenets of Thatcherism – privatization, anti-unionism, centralization, decreased spending on public works – are best understood as a reaction to what she saw as the flaws of Conservative predecessors.
As Prime Minister, Thatcher enjoyed considerable acclaim, owing to her populist appeal and the superficial improvement of the British economy. However, she also presided over a dramatic widening of the income gap and rampant unemployment, the inevitable end results of her policies. Regardless, she popularized a new form of government and a new conventional wisdom that continue to be felt in the U.K. (as well as the U.S.) to this day.
Margaret Thatcher’s views, while significantly shaped by her upbringing, did not emerge onto the national stage in a vacuum. On the contrary, they were the end result of a long and arduous period in British history that saw its genesis in the shortcomings of Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the mid 1960s. Owing to what some blamed on the natural flaws of Welfare State and others attributed to gross mismanagement by both parties in Westminster, Great Britain faced a dire economic and spiritual crisis. Following World War II, the U.K. began a gradual decline in part brought on by the dissolution of its once-glorious Empire. No longer able to depend on a constant flow of imports from various colonies around the globe, the shrinking Commonwealth struggled to reconcile its dedication to the principles of social democracy with the fiscal demands of supporting its population.
When it came to economic issues, pre-Thatcher Conservatives differed from the Labor Party more in terms of degree than fundamental approach to governing. Macmillan, “government economic policy was still advised by largely Keynesian figures” (Morgan 210). Ministers sought to solve problems in ways consistent with Keynes’s hands-on approach, by establishing new government agencies to “prime the pump” and combat inflation through regulation. Although they acted in service of Conservative goals, Macmillan and his ministers resorted to “interventionist” (Morgan 212) means fully in line with the big government precedent set by Labor after Churchill was voted out of office.
Trade unions and the opposition effectively quashed Conservative attempts to enact even modest reforms (although one might easily argue that such attempts were handled poorly), such as in the case of a proposed “pay pause” that would have prevented raises in order to staunch government expenditures in the public sector. In addition, Macmillan’s Conservatives did not take measures to modernize U.K. industry, relying on aged economic models rather than investing in future technologies and trying out new methods (Morgan 214).
Crisis after crisis, compounded by a lack of meaningful reform, tarnished Macmillan and his party’s once shining image: “there appeared to be little forward planning of policy initiates in Conservative ranks” (Morgan 228). Unlike Thatcher, Macmillan did not articulate or institute a consistent policy, appearing to allow events to buffet his administration and dictate its course of actions rather than relying on a consistent set of principles distinct from that of the opposition.
Edward Heath, the next Conservative Prime Minister who would serve in office from 1970 – 1974, came into power with a mandate to undue the perceived excesses of the Welfare State. Indeed, he began his term in a manner consistent with some Thatcherite values. However, a series of disasters resulted in an abrupt, drastic shift in policy. Whereas Heath came into office promising to shrink the Welfare State and curb expenditures, he ended up enlarging the government and exercising stricter control over the economy than his Labor predecessors.
Kenneth O. Morgan writes: “the Heath government, supposedly elected to undo the socialist works of the discredited Wilson administration, took collectivism much further” (Morgan 318). He sought to overhaul and, when necessary, create new agencies rather than leveling them. Although Heath rattled many traditional conservatives with his early rhetoric, his actual policies were only a more extreme example of the Welfare State policies they too tacitly accepted. Far from marking a departure from Conservative values, Heath’s policies were absolutely in line (albeit significantly more liberal) with those of a party that accepted the status quo as defined by the Labor Party during the Atlee administration.
Perhaps Heath’s greatest difference from Thatcher was his relations with the trade unions, whose power seemed to be growing to match that of the government in the mid- 1970s. He attempted on multiple occasions to combat the growing influence of the unions, but he met with little success. More often than not, standoffs between the Heath Administration and the trade union ended in “compromises” that strongly favored the latter: “One group of major public unions after another… had taken on the government and won” (Morgan 331). This made the prime minister appear weak, opening up to criticism from labor as well as the right wing of his own party. Proponents of trade unions branded Heath as an enemy of the working class, while radical Conservatives like Thatcher derided him for his unwillingness and/or inability to stand up to the trade unions.
To be fair, Heath began his tenure as prime minister as a staunch conservative whose views were more in line with Thatcher’s. However, his response to the challenges posed by the trade unions was to micromanage the economy, rather than leave its improvement to the “invisible hand” of the market: “indeed, the government now went from the extreme of non-intervention to new heights of corporatism” (Morgan 323).
Despite the dismal state of the economy during most of his time as Prime Minister, Heath’s inability to deal with the mining strikes during his tenure was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the midst of the strike, after declaring a Three Day Week to save electricity, Heath called a general election, telling voters: “This time the strife has got to stop. Only you can stop it. It is time for you to speak, with your vote” (BBC). Heath sought to turn the election into a referendum on the power of labor unions and the Labor Party that supported them. He mistakenly banked on the proposition that voters, fed up with constant strikes bringing the U.K. to a halt, would affirm his anti-union position. Alas, his plan backfired, calling attention to his administration’s overall weakness and ineffectuality in dealing with the unions: “correctly or not, the public interpretation was of an industrial system out of control and a government in a state of near-paralysis” (Morgan 420).
Margaret Thatcher handled similar problems much differently. Stressing the lack of continuity from the Heath administration to the Thatcher administration, Morgan described how Thatcherism marked: The triumph of the market philosophy, the private ethic, and the imperatives of early-nineteenth century corporatism which Atlee, Macmillan, Wilson, and Heath had variously created” (Morgan 438). In defining her agenda in opposition to that of the prior administration, Margaret Thatcher signaled a clear departure from what she saw as the half-hearted conservatism that dominated her party since Macmillan and reached its apex with Heath. Thatcher and likeminded right-wingers “held the ‘moderation’ of Heath and his henchman in the party leadership directly responsible for the Tories’ electoral failures” (TNR 5). Observing the dismal state of the U.K. under Macmillan, Heath and his Labor successor, James Callaghan, the newly elected Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher seized the opportunity to take her party in a new direction rhetorically and substantively.
However, a large part of Thatcherism’s appeal derived not from its policies, but from the political persona of its namesake. Unlike Heath, Thatcher was clear in her principles and unwavering in her resolve to see them applied, pursuing certain policies even when they were not immediately successful. Whereas Heath and Macmillan seemed to shift their policies according to circumstance and the political mood, Thatcher followed through on her campaign pledges, even when they did not show immediate results. Kenneth Harris wrote in his biography of Thatcher: “Unlike the Conservative government which preceded hers [Edward Heath’s] she has made no U-Turns” (Lloyd ). As a result, Thatcher’s supporters could attribute improvements in the economy, however limited in scope, to her steadfast commitment to a governing philosophy. She was not a proponent of consensus politics, willing to defer to a common ground set by intellectuals and carried out by massive governments.
Thatcher’s differentiated herself from Conservatives of the past in alleged devotion to self-reliance and individualism. Whereas Tory administrations since Atlee attached great importance to social class and credentials, Thatcher allegedly valued individualism and entrepreneurship. Contrasting her with her immediate predecessor, Morgan wrote: “the Heath background was one of constructive, but deferential, working-class Toryism. The Thatcher background was one of entrepreneurial, upwardly-mobile, self-sufficient, middle-class neo-liberalism” (Morgan 443). Taken at face value, Thatcherism placed the individual ahead of the state, allowing for increased freedom to prosper according to one’s abilities. Ironically, Thatcher effectively did the opposite, abolishing or privatizing public services, notably housing and education, created to help those at the bottom realize their potential and advance in society. Discounting innate cultural barriers, it was easier for those at the bottom to prosper under the paternalistic bureaucracy of the post-Atlee Conservatives than under the pseudo-market apparatus of Thatcher, the so-called everywoman.
Nevertheless, Thatcher frequently drew on her own humble origins and subsequent success to lend her policies a populist tinge. She consciously distanced herself from the aristocrats who dominated the Conservative party before she came into power. In her autobiography, she wrote: “my background and experiences were not that of a traditional prime minister. “My senior colleagues… were perhaps too ready to accept the Labour Party and the union leaders as the authentic interpreters of the people… I did not feel I needed an interpreter to address people who speak the same language” (Buruma 42). Ironically, Thatcher’s upbringing had little impact on her priorities as Prime Minister, which left the average working-class citizens in a much worse position than they had been under the Conservatives she portrayed as out of touch.
For instance, “by 1985, it was recorded that the top 6 per cent of the population in income terms now received 25 per cent of national income, while the poorest 20 per cent… share had actually fallen from even the 5.9 per cent they enjoyed in 1979” (Morgan 470). This higher concentration of wealth at the top of the social pyramid was in large part the end result of a deliberate effort by Thatcher’s administration to spur growth by diverting money traditionally spent on the public sector to business. Urban decay and de-industrialization were rampant, leading Labour and many traditional Conservatives such as Heath to denounce Thatcher. By the standards of the past, her government was indeed a failure. However, her by her own standards, and those of her growing middle class constituency, she was achieving unparalleled success: “the roots of Thatcherism lay in acquisition rather than in production. It sought to create a business, perhaps a rentier, culture” (Morgan 443).
The major tenets of Thatcherism’s approach to domestic policy were privatizing public services, slashing domestic spending, fighting the influence of labor and centralizing government. To accomplish the first goal, Thatcher either sold or introduced market elements to industries that enjoyed public management under both Conservative and labor governments. This process notably did not begin in earnest until 1983, when the Prime Minister replaced her cabinet of veteran Tories with fresh faces more in line with her radical anti-collectivist vision. One significant example was the privatization of the British Telecom in 1984 (Morgan 469). She also facilitated vast media buyouts by tabloid baron Rupert Murdoch and exerted pressure on the few remaining independent publications/channels to tow the government line (478). Far more consequential to the British working class was the privatization of housing, as exemplified in the Housing Act of 1980, which undid a key component of Welfare since 1945 (Morgan 450).
The industries Thatcher could not get away with privatizing outright were subjected to strict regulations and deep cuts in funding. Funding to the arts was significantly reduced in favor of trimming the budget or supporting more practical pursuits. She was particularly harsh to the universities, which had until then, under Conservatives and Liberals, been afforded a privileged position in the budget. Thatcher withheld funding, allegedly in service of increased accountability. Universities were no longer free to construct their own curriculums without the fear of funding cuts. Schools that did receive Thatcher’s support catered towards more practical pursuits like business and finance (Morgan 481, 482).
Concurrent with privatizing public services and centralizing power, Thatcher took steps to neutralize labor unions, arguably the greatest threat to her authority. Defying decades of precedent, “she has pledged to reverse the postwar trend, common to Labor and Tory governments alike, of consulting Britain’s powerful unions” (Grafstein 16). Wary not to repeat the Heath administrations failed attempts at compromise, Thatcher drafted anti-union legislation and showed no mercy in suppressing strikes with little regard for civil liberties. For example, the 1982 trade union law made flying pickets illegal and allowed the government to appropriate union funds during a strike. “In other words,” Laurence Grafstein wrote in an article for The New Republic, “[the legislation] permits governments to play divide and conquer in industrial warfare” (Grafstein 16).
Pre-Thatcher Conservatives were certainly no fans of the mining union, resenting their immense power to lean on government for wage increases. Be that as it may, the general consensus was that any attempt to challenge the TUC on a substantive level would result in embarrassing defeat and a Labor Party backlash. “Harold Macmillan once bracketed [the miners] with the Catholic Church and Brigade of Guards as institutions with which no Conservative government ought ever to tangle” (Morgan 472). As previously discussed, Heath’s attempted stand against the miners played a leading role in his downfall.
Mindful of her predecessors’ failures in vanquishing the mining union, Thatcher prepared in advance for inevitable conflict. To avoid a repetition of the Three Day Week that made the Heath Administration seem powerless, her administration stockpiled coal and cut deals with other European states in the event of a strike. Consequently, the subsequent strike, lasting an entire year from 1984 – 1985, was unsuccessful, marking the end of a long era where labor unions could make demands of government (Morgan 473).
It is very easy to reduce Thatcherism to a pile of clichés based on certain assumptions about some of its fundamental components. For instance, one might associate “tax cuts” with “small government.” In reality, Thatcherism is riddled with contradictions and misleading terminology. Thatcherism was for “small government” in the sense that it trimmed the sprawling bureaucracy that characterized the U.K. since Atlee.
On the other hand, Thatcher’s government interfered in public life in ways that past governments never dreamed of, tamping down on freedom of the press and expanding the police force. “[Thatcherism] was truly a hegemony that extended the market ethic beneath the shelter of an increasingly powerful state apparatus, at the cost of both social cohesion and personal liberty” (Morgan 438). Contrary to the claims of its foremost proponent, it is overly simplistic to say Thatcher support “limited” or “small” government. On the contrary, Thatcher’s policies all centralized power in an authoritarian executive dedicated to the interests of a new elite. Privatization served to sublimate formerly autonomous institutions, working for the good of society (at least ideally), to the profit motive. Those institutions that resisted privatization, such as labor unions and the media, were legislated and/or intimidated into submission.
From a purely capitalist perspective, Thatcherism was a success. In the short term, it lifted the U.K. out of an economic crisis and went a long way towards restoring its reputation throughout the world. A new, thriving private sector generated wealth and reaped the benefits of a globalized economy. In the long term, Thatcherism sparked a realignment that dominates politics in Britain to this day. The Welfare State once accepted as a given by the Conservative and Labour parties alike is now a shadow of its former self. British politics in the latter half of the 20th century and most of the 21st century thus far can be neatly divided into pre-Thatcher and post-Thatcher periods. The effects of Thatcherism are as visible in the opposition as they are in its party of origin. Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are to the old Labour Party what Macmillan and Heath were to the post-Atlee Conservatives. That is to say, they are watered-down arbiters of the conventional wisdom, established in the former case by Clement Atlee and in the latter by Margaret Thatcher.
Recognizing Thatcherism’s success in purely economic terms is one thing, but to give it credit for lifting the U.K. out of a decline effectively ignores its detrimental effects on a massive portion of the British population. Urban decay is as much a part of Thatcherism’s legacy as thriving businesses. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Margaret Thatcher remade the U.K. according to her own preferred vision, both for the better and for the worse.
Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister marked a significant departure from the “one nation” perspective shared by the Labor and Conservative Parties since the end of World War II. After installing cabinet members in line with her radical approach to governing, she set about dismantling the Welfare State and remaking the United Kingdom according to her own vision. The tenets of Thatcherism – privatization, anti-unionism, centralization, decreased spending on public works – are best understood as a reaction to what she saw as the flaws of Conservative predecessors.
As Prime Minister, Thatcher enjoyed considerable acclaim, owing to her populist appeal and the superficial improvement of the British economy. However, she also presided over a dramatic widening of the income gap and rampant unemployment, the inevitable end results of her policies. Regardless, she popularized a new form of government and a new conventional wisdom that continue to be felt in the U.K. (as well as the U.S.) to this day.
Margaret Thatcher’s views, while significantly shaped by her upbringing, did not emerge onto the national stage in a vacuum. On the contrary, they were the end result of a long and arduous period in British history that saw its genesis in the shortcomings of Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government in the mid 1960s. Owing to what some blamed on the natural flaws of Welfare State and others attributed to gross mismanagement by both parties in Westminster, Great Britain faced a dire economic and spiritual crisis. Following World War II, the U.K. began a gradual decline in part brought on by the dissolution of its once-glorious Empire. No longer able to depend on a constant flow of imports from various colonies around the globe, the shrinking Commonwealth struggled to reconcile its dedication to the principles of social democracy with the fiscal demands of supporting its population.
When it came to economic issues, pre-Thatcher Conservatives differed from the Labor Party more in terms of degree than fundamental approach to governing. Macmillan, “government economic policy was still advised by largely Keynesian figures” (Morgan 210). Ministers sought to solve problems in ways consistent with Keynes’s hands-on approach, by establishing new government agencies to “prime the pump” and combat inflation through regulation. Although they acted in service of Conservative goals, Macmillan and his ministers resorted to “interventionist” (Morgan 212) means fully in line with the big government precedent set by Labor after Churchill was voted out of office.
Trade unions and the opposition effectively quashed Conservative attempts to enact even modest reforms (although one might easily argue that such attempts were handled poorly), such as in the case of a proposed “pay pause” that would have prevented raises in order to staunch government expenditures in the public sector. In addition, Macmillan’s Conservatives did not take measures to modernize U.K. industry, relying on aged economic models rather than investing in future technologies and trying out new methods (Morgan 214).
Crisis after crisis, compounded by a lack of meaningful reform, tarnished Macmillan and his party’s once shining image: “there appeared to be little forward planning of policy initiates in Conservative ranks” (Morgan 228). Unlike Thatcher, Macmillan did not articulate or institute a consistent policy, appearing to allow events to buffet his administration and dictate its course of actions rather than relying on a consistent set of principles distinct from that of the opposition.
Edward Heath, the next Conservative Prime Minister who would serve in office from 1970 – 1974, came into power with a mandate to undue the perceived excesses of the Welfare State. Indeed, he began his term in a manner consistent with some Thatcherite values. However, a series of disasters resulted in an abrupt, drastic shift in policy. Whereas Heath came into office promising to shrink the Welfare State and curb expenditures, he ended up enlarging the government and exercising stricter control over the economy than his Labor predecessors.
Kenneth O. Morgan writes: “the Heath government, supposedly elected to undo the socialist works of the discredited Wilson administration, took collectivism much further” (Morgan 318). He sought to overhaul and, when necessary, create new agencies rather than leveling them. Although Heath rattled many traditional conservatives with his early rhetoric, his actual policies were only a more extreme example of the Welfare State policies they too tacitly accepted. Far from marking a departure from Conservative values, Heath’s policies were absolutely in line (albeit significantly more liberal) with those of a party that accepted the status quo as defined by the Labor Party during the Atlee administration.
Perhaps Heath’s greatest difference from Thatcher was his relations with the trade unions, whose power seemed to be growing to match that of the government in the mid- 1970s. He attempted on multiple occasions to combat the growing influence of the unions, but he met with little success. More often than not, standoffs between the Heath Administration and the trade union ended in “compromises” that strongly favored the latter: “One group of major public unions after another… had taken on the government and won” (Morgan 331). This made the prime minister appear weak, opening up to criticism from labor as well as the right wing of his own party. Proponents of trade unions branded Heath as an enemy of the working class, while radical Conservatives like Thatcher derided him for his unwillingness and/or inability to stand up to the trade unions.
To be fair, Heath began his tenure as prime minister as a staunch conservative whose views were more in line with Thatcher’s. However, his response to the challenges posed by the trade unions was to micromanage the economy, rather than leave its improvement to the “invisible hand” of the market: “indeed, the government now went from the extreme of non-intervention to new heights of corporatism” (Morgan 323).
Despite the dismal state of the economy during most of his time as Prime Minister, Heath’s inability to deal with the mining strikes during his tenure was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the midst of the strike, after declaring a Three Day Week to save electricity, Heath called a general election, telling voters: “This time the strife has got to stop. Only you can stop it. It is time for you to speak, with your vote” (BBC). Heath sought to turn the election into a referendum on the power of labor unions and the Labor Party that supported them. He mistakenly banked on the proposition that voters, fed up with constant strikes bringing the U.K. to a halt, would affirm his anti-union position. Alas, his plan backfired, calling attention to his administration’s overall weakness and ineffectuality in dealing with the unions: “correctly or not, the public interpretation was of an industrial system out of control and a government in a state of near-paralysis” (Morgan 420).
Margaret Thatcher handled similar problems much differently. Stressing the lack of continuity from the Heath administration to the Thatcher administration, Morgan described how Thatcherism marked: The triumph of the market philosophy, the private ethic, and the imperatives of early-nineteenth century corporatism which Atlee, Macmillan, Wilson, and Heath had variously created” (Morgan 438). In defining her agenda in opposition to that of the prior administration, Margaret Thatcher signaled a clear departure from what she saw as the half-hearted conservatism that dominated her party since Macmillan and reached its apex with Heath. Thatcher and likeminded right-wingers “held the ‘moderation’ of Heath and his henchman in the party leadership directly responsible for the Tories’ electoral failures” (TNR 5). Observing the dismal state of the U.K. under Macmillan, Heath and his Labor successor, James Callaghan, the newly elected Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher seized the opportunity to take her party in a new direction rhetorically and substantively.
However, a large part of Thatcherism’s appeal derived not from its policies, but from the political persona of its namesake. Unlike Heath, Thatcher was clear in her principles and unwavering in her resolve to see them applied, pursuing certain policies even when they were not immediately successful. Whereas Heath and Macmillan seemed to shift their policies according to circumstance and the political mood, Thatcher followed through on her campaign pledges, even when they did not show immediate results. Kenneth Harris wrote in his biography of Thatcher: “Unlike the Conservative government which preceded hers [Edward Heath’s] she has made no U-Turns” (Lloyd ). As a result, Thatcher’s supporters could attribute improvements in the economy, however limited in scope, to her steadfast commitment to a governing philosophy. She was not a proponent of consensus politics, willing to defer to a common ground set by intellectuals and carried out by massive governments.
Thatcher’s differentiated herself from Conservatives of the past in alleged devotion to self-reliance and individualism. Whereas Tory administrations since Atlee attached great importance to social class and credentials, Thatcher allegedly valued individualism and entrepreneurship. Contrasting her with her immediate predecessor, Morgan wrote: “the Heath background was one of constructive, but deferential, working-class Toryism. The Thatcher background was one of entrepreneurial, upwardly-mobile, self-sufficient, middle-class neo-liberalism” (Morgan 443). Taken at face value, Thatcherism placed the individual ahead of the state, allowing for increased freedom to prosper according to one’s abilities. Ironically, Thatcher effectively did the opposite, abolishing or privatizing public services, notably housing and education, created to help those at the bottom realize their potential and advance in society. Discounting innate cultural barriers, it was easier for those at the bottom to prosper under the paternalistic bureaucracy of the post-Atlee Conservatives than under the pseudo-market apparatus of Thatcher, the so-called everywoman.
Nevertheless, Thatcher frequently drew on her own humble origins and subsequent success to lend her policies a populist tinge. She consciously distanced herself from the aristocrats who dominated the Conservative party before she came into power. In her autobiography, she wrote: “my background and experiences were not that of a traditional prime minister. “My senior colleagues… were perhaps too ready to accept the Labour Party and the union leaders as the authentic interpreters of the people… I did not feel I needed an interpreter to address people who speak the same language” (Buruma 42). Ironically, Thatcher’s upbringing had little impact on her priorities as Prime Minister, which left the average working-class citizens in a much worse position than they had been under the Conservatives she portrayed as out of touch.
For instance, “by 1985, it was recorded that the top 6 per cent of the population in income terms now received 25 per cent of national income, while the poorest 20 per cent… share had actually fallen from even the 5.9 per cent they enjoyed in 1979” (Morgan 470). This higher concentration of wealth at the top of the social pyramid was in large part the end result of a deliberate effort by Thatcher’s administration to spur growth by diverting money traditionally spent on the public sector to business. Urban decay and de-industrialization were rampant, leading Labour and many traditional Conservatives such as Heath to denounce Thatcher. By the standards of the past, her government was indeed a failure. However, her by her own standards, and those of her growing middle class constituency, she was achieving unparalleled success: “the roots of Thatcherism lay in acquisition rather than in production. It sought to create a business, perhaps a rentier, culture” (Morgan 443).
The major tenets of Thatcherism’s approach to domestic policy were privatizing public services, slashing domestic spending, fighting the influence of labor and centralizing government. To accomplish the first goal, Thatcher either sold or introduced market elements to industries that enjoyed public management under both Conservative and labor governments. This process notably did not begin in earnest until 1983, when the Prime Minister replaced her cabinet of veteran Tories with fresh faces more in line with her radical anti-collectivist vision. One significant example was the privatization of the British Telecom in 1984 (Morgan 469). She also facilitated vast media buyouts by tabloid baron Rupert Murdoch and exerted pressure on the few remaining independent publications/channels to tow the government line (478). Far more consequential to the British working class was the privatization of housing, as exemplified in the Housing Act of 1980, which undid a key component of Welfare since 1945 (Morgan 450).
The industries Thatcher could not get away with privatizing outright were subjected to strict regulations and deep cuts in funding. Funding to the arts was significantly reduced in favor of trimming the budget or supporting more practical pursuits. She was particularly harsh to the universities, which had until then, under Conservatives and Liberals, been afforded a privileged position in the budget. Thatcher withheld funding, allegedly in service of increased accountability. Universities were no longer free to construct their own curriculums without the fear of funding cuts. Schools that did receive Thatcher’s support catered towards more practical pursuits like business and finance (Morgan 481, 482).
Concurrent with privatizing public services and centralizing power, Thatcher took steps to neutralize labor unions, arguably the greatest threat to her authority. Defying decades of precedent, “she has pledged to reverse the postwar trend, common to Labor and Tory governments alike, of consulting Britain’s powerful unions” (Grafstein 16). Wary not to repeat the Heath administrations failed attempts at compromise, Thatcher drafted anti-union legislation and showed no mercy in suppressing strikes with little regard for civil liberties. For example, the 1982 trade union law made flying pickets illegal and allowed the government to appropriate union funds during a strike. “In other words,” Laurence Grafstein wrote in an article for The New Republic, “[the legislation] permits governments to play divide and conquer in industrial warfare” (Grafstein 16).
Pre-Thatcher Conservatives were certainly no fans of the mining union, resenting their immense power to lean on government for wage increases. Be that as it may, the general consensus was that any attempt to challenge the TUC on a substantive level would result in embarrassing defeat and a Labor Party backlash. “Harold Macmillan once bracketed [the miners] with the Catholic Church and Brigade of Guards as institutions with which no Conservative government ought ever to tangle” (Morgan 472). As previously discussed, Heath’s attempted stand against the miners played a leading role in his downfall.
Mindful of her predecessors’ failures in vanquishing the mining union, Thatcher prepared in advance for inevitable conflict. To avoid a repetition of the Three Day Week that made the Heath Administration seem powerless, her administration stockpiled coal and cut deals with other European states in the event of a strike. Consequently, the subsequent strike, lasting an entire year from 1984 – 1985, was unsuccessful, marking the end of a long era where labor unions could make demands of government (Morgan 473).
It is very easy to reduce Thatcherism to a pile of clichés based on certain assumptions about some of its fundamental components. For instance, one might associate “tax cuts” with “small government.” In reality, Thatcherism is riddled with contradictions and misleading terminology. Thatcherism was for “small government” in the sense that it trimmed the sprawling bureaucracy that characterized the U.K. since Atlee.
On the other hand, Thatcher’s government interfered in public life in ways that past governments never dreamed of, tamping down on freedom of the press and expanding the police force. “[Thatcherism] was truly a hegemony that extended the market ethic beneath the shelter of an increasingly powerful state apparatus, at the cost of both social cohesion and personal liberty” (Morgan 438). Contrary to the claims of its foremost proponent, it is overly simplistic to say Thatcher support “limited” or “small” government. On the contrary, Thatcher’s policies all centralized power in an authoritarian executive dedicated to the interests of a new elite. Privatization served to sublimate formerly autonomous institutions, working for the good of society (at least ideally), to the profit motive. Those institutions that resisted privatization, such as labor unions and the media, were legislated and/or intimidated into submission.
From a purely capitalist perspective, Thatcherism was a success. In the short term, it lifted the U.K. out of an economic crisis and went a long way towards restoring its reputation throughout the world. A new, thriving private sector generated wealth and reaped the benefits of a globalized economy. In the long term, Thatcherism sparked a realignment that dominates politics in Britain to this day. The Welfare State once accepted as a given by the Conservative and Labour parties alike is now a shadow of its former self. British politics in the latter half of the 20th century and most of the 21st century thus far can be neatly divided into pre-Thatcher and post-Thatcher periods. The effects of Thatcherism are as visible in the opposition as they are in its party of origin. Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are to the old Labour Party what Macmillan and Heath were to the post-Atlee Conservatives. That is to say, they are watered-down arbiters of the conventional wisdom, established in the former case by Clement Atlee and in the latter by Margaret Thatcher.
Recognizing Thatcherism’s success in purely economic terms is one thing, but to give it credit for lifting the U.K. out of a decline effectively ignores its detrimental effects on a massive portion of the British population. Urban decay is as much a part of Thatcherism’s legacy as thriving businesses. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Margaret Thatcher remade the U.K. according to her own preferred vision, both for the better and for the worse.