Baroness Margaret Thatcher, nee Roberts, passed away this past week. The grocer’s daughter from Lincolnshire rose the ranks from bank-benching in Parliament to Shadow Secretary of Education, to leader of the Conservatives, to Great Britain’s first Prime Minister.
She was 87 years young, a celebrated inspiration for the right, the conservatives, and all independents; and a caustic irritant to the left and liberals and Labour, although that party’s return to power depended on adopting her core conservative principles. She remains a reminder of the divide which defined a generation, and which is now defining ours.
The Cold War was thawing -- or freezing -- in the late 70’s, early 80’s, but the final gasps of the Soviet Union and Leninist Communism were still shaking the world, like the hollow hacking of a dying man on life support. In Great Britain, plagued with the contagion of Big Government getting Bigger, the lesser evil of socialism, more insidious because of its “democratic” veneer, had wrapped its siphoning tentacles around the United Kingdom, a shadow of its former imperial glory days. Labor strikes crippled the nation, from the miners to the grave-diggers to the trash-handlers. 1974 was a bitter year for Conservatives, as the party suffered its third defeat.
A young Thatcher encouraged and exhorted her disheartened colleagues and the country, reminding them that the party had to reach out to people’s hearts, not just their minds – a message which disaffected Republicans and conservatives in the United States today should heed. Disgusted with the enfeebled leadership in her party, Thatcher challenged the weak-willed opposition leader, and won. During the 1979 parliamentary elections, Thatcher ran on a simple platform: “Labour isn’t working.” It worked, and Thatcher and the conservatives won the first majority in decades.
From the outset, the feminists, the unionists, the socialists hissed with fussy disapproval. Thatcher wanted to cut taxes, cuts spending, cut the government out of the lives of British citizens. She privatized major industries, including British Steel, and she eventually gave way to selling off the British railway system. Unions engaged in crippling strikes, but instead of caving in, she dug in, and overcame them. In some private conversations, Thatcher admitted that she almost gave in, but when one association broke away, the thread was pulled, the trade unions gave up, and Labour lost its “labor” vote for a generation.
In foreign policy as much as in domestic policy, Thatcher was a fighter. While the Irish Republican Army attempted her assassination, she deliberately maintained her role and her rule over the United Kingdom. When the Argentinian military junta attempted to seize the Falklands, Thatcher dispatched her forces, pushing away the petty Latin American fray. In two months, followed by the massive submarine attack on Argentina’s ARA General Belgrano, the Argentinians surrendered. Her approval ratings soared, and her government reasserted their majority in 1983, in spite of pervasive deflation matched with unemployment and recession. Thatcher’s economic medicine worked. The patient struggled for a time, yet the doctor remained standing.
Her staunch support with United States President Ronald Reagan during the 1980’s presented a formidable blockade then battery to the Soviet Union, which was decaying on the inside, then crumbled on the outside in 1989, finally disappearing once and for all Christmas Day, 1991.“The problem with socialism”, she quipped, “is that the government runs out of other people’s money.” With a simple economic argument and a strong cause, a stable United Kingdom and Pound Sterling reemerged. Into the late 1980’s, the economy improved dramatically. Subsidies were cut, yet opportunity expanded for all Britons. To this day, the generation which followed Thatcher’s shared their gratitude for a Prime Minister who enabled their parents and grand-parents to afford their own home once again.
She was divisive, concise, and committed, so much so that within her party, rumblings about her “reign”disturbed more than inspired others. One bank-bencher posed a weak first challenge, then another forced her premiership to endure a second ballot, which she lost. In the early 1980’s, her stalwart refusal to reverse course on massive liberalization cost her nothing:
“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the 'U-turn', I have only one thing to say: "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."”
During times of peace and prosperity, her strength-turned-stubbornness cost her the premiership. Her failures should warn future leaders that one must never ingratiate with opponents, yet he (or she) must cooperate with (not necessarily capitulate to) one’s colleagues.
Thatcher’s wins against Big Government in Great Britain coupled with the Reagan Revolution expanded a global conservative revival. Her life and losses hold lessons for future conservatives, especially in America where, where “conservatives” are shaking off their second drubbing, an unexpected loss in spite of dire economic indicators, facing a President and a party tilting this country further to the left.
Margaret Thatcher’s conviction, communication, and conservatism are still needed for conservatism, a movement on the mend. Future leaders in the United States should emulate her courageous advocacy of individual liberty and limited government. Even in death, her example can inspire hope.
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