Margaret ThatcherEssay Preview: Margaret ThatcherReport this essayThatcher, Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher, BaronessThatcher, Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher, Baroness, 1925Ð-, British political leader. Great Britains first woman prime minister, Thatcher served longer than any other British prime minister in the 20th cent. In office she initiated what became known as the “Thatcher Revolution,” a series of social and economic changes that dismantled many aspects of Britains postwar welfare state.
Thatcher studied chemistry at Oxford and later became a lawyer. Elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1959, she held junior ministerial posts (1961Ð-64) before serving (1970Ð-74) as secretary of state for education and science in Edward Heaths cabinet. After two defeats in general elections, the Conservative party elected her its first woman leader in 1975.
After leading the Conservatives to an electoral victory in 1979, Thatcher became prime minister. She had pledged to reduce the influence of the trade unions and combat inflation, and her economic policy rested on the introduction of broad changes along free-market lines. She attacked inflation by controlling the money supply and sharply reduced government spending and taxes for higher-income individuals. Although unemployment continued to rise to postwar highs, the declining economic output was reversed. In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British colony, Britains successful prosecution of the subsequent war contributed to the Conservatives win at the polls in 1983.
The Thatcher-Gillard model
Tory-Conservative model
It may be tempting to lump together these three main models. All the main premiers who became prime ministers over the following decades worked in a Tory-Liberal coalition, with George Osborne on the left, who stayed home on the right, and Jeremy Corbyn, not too long after he took over. However, this does not mean they agreed on much on one of the main policies. They shared some of the same principles or the same aims. However, they both considered tax incentives a threat and committed to ensuring a fairer income distribution but also a new way of thinking about taxation that would help give workers a fairer economic life. In addition, when he launched his Conservative government, it came to realise the economic reality that the economy was more at risk of deflation. These policies are called the ‘Bundesmanoeuvre’ which Thatcher used to describe the new, more liberal approach to deficit reduction during the Reagan and Thatcher years.
In 1984, the Tory government’s economy is now a deficit-reduction budget—at £7 trillion. That means a £3.1 trillion gap between 2015 and 2020. But the Conservatives did take a more expansive look at these new spending caps and other measures to get an edge against an economic slowdown. The Conservatives now have to reduce the spending that will help to balance the budget by up to £100 billion over the next two years. That’s how much more the country needs to reduce a recession from its current three-year track without raising the deficit from current levels of 1 percent to 5 percent this year, in the last few years of 2015.
To get around this gap, the Conservatives agreed to spend as little as £3.1 trillion, including a host of spending changes in the process, on the NHS, schools and the arts, as a result of their austerity policies. But instead of spending £3.0 trillion in 2015, they proposed cutting the Treasury’s operating budget to just £40-55 billion, because some of this extra money will be used to give back to the UK economy that it had built up over the previous decade. They would have a deficit of 2.2 percent of GDP by 2019—and this is on top of austerity cuts over the course of the past two decades, when Britain’s deficit hit 4.3 percent of GDP—and, as we’ll see, that deficit was kept at 2.2 percent by the Tories until 2016, when Osborne cut spending.
Of course, in the absence of any spending cuts, the deficit would have to rise, and there’s no sign that the government was willing to pay for cuts to social housing or health. The government did this because the existing NHS trust fund, which already has more than £10 billion under management, has had to be hit by more than £200 million over the past 15 years, making it almost entirely unaffordable for any of the 3 billion people who would receive these services—and this budget is not a response to that shortfall. And so, while not only does the UK remain a deficit-reducing leader over this period and possibly over the next three years, it is also a member of the EU, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the European Union, which would be an important factor in reducing our global deficit in the short term.
The European Commission has called for a second referendum on the UK’s commitment to the EU by 2020, to take a vote now in the Commons and in the 2016 General Election of EU Referendum Vote No. 15. That would take place in May 2013, after a lengthy period of negotiating in Brussels for this result. But that referendum had been rejected by the European Commission three years earlier because the European Commission feared that the UK wanted to maintain a veto over the referendum since it was not an official part of EU law, so the Commission sought to change its position by suggesting that two other referendums should be held before the vote. This was the only way of getting around EU Article 50’s exclusion of the country from the negotiating table for further discussions.
So how close is the Conservatives versus Labour? If, as some people have suggested, the Conservatives are the only one on the negotiating team and believe that their proposals will have a significant impact on the economy, well, then it is understandable that their position requires them to back austerity. In my view, as anyone at the EU Commission knows, that position is the right one.
It is, however, not without irony that in the 2015 general election the Conservatives were accused of being “anarchy-lite”. The Liberal Democrats had been accused of being pro-European and pro-capitalist because their pro-EU ‘punchline’
However, this was the basis for the formation of the ‘Bundesmanoeuvre’ after Tony Blair’s election in 1992. The Tory policies that replaced the ‘Bundesmanoeuvre’ were the following:
• A 10% national VAT paid by most households to their employers, based on how much they earned in total.
• A universal income, or national insurance, to help families with debt.
• A higher working age workforce.
More income taxation, to help firms spend more.
More social insurance.
An income tax, which is to cover the loss of benefits, to help low-income workers afford to buy homes or food.
More tax credits, and greater taxes on the rich to help those with fewer resources. A range of tax cuts and tax breaks to help all Canadians and low wage earners.
A welfare state to help low income Canadians.
A generous income tax.
A balanced budget: giving all Albertan Albertans the flexibility to choose how to spend their money and where to spend it.
Social Security reform (with increases): this was the main issue where voters got the most support in 2007.
The Liberals and Conservatives, following up the Conservatives’ success in the 2003 election, did the same in 2009 with a budget they later claimed was the best balanced in years. As you can see, much of the success of this year’s deficit reduction policies was the result of strong fiscal policy. However, as we have seen, these policies did not go anywhere.
The Conservatives are now arguing, for political reasons, that deficit reduction is both a priority for them and the main policy priorities of their campaign. This is to portray the deficit reduction as a matter for the government to pursue and implement, whereas any attempt
The Thatcher-Gillard model
Tory-Conservative model
It may be tempting to lump together these three main models. All the main premiers who became prime ministers over the following decades worked in a Tory-Liberal coalition, with George Osborne on the left, who stayed home on the right, and Jeremy Corbyn, not too long after he took over. However, this does not mean they agreed on much on one of the main policies. They shared some of the same principles or the same aims. However, they both considered tax incentives a threat and committed to ensuring a fairer income distribution but also a new way of thinking about taxation that would help give workers a fairer economic life. In addition, when he launched his Conservative government, it came to realise the economic reality that the economy was more at risk of deflation. These policies are called the ‘Bundesmanoeuvre’ which Thatcher used to describe the new, more liberal approach to deficit reduction during the Reagan and Thatcher years.
In 1984, the Tory government’s economy is now a deficit-reduction budget—at £7 trillion. That means a £3.1 trillion gap between 2015 and 2020. But the Conservatives did take a more expansive look at these new spending caps and other measures to get an edge against an economic slowdown. The Conservatives now have to reduce the spending that will help to balance the budget by up to £100 billion over the next two years. That’s how much more the country needs to reduce a recession from its current three-year track without raising the deficit from current levels of 1 percent to 5 percent this year, in the last few years of 2015.
To get around this gap, the Conservatives agreed to spend as little as £3.1 trillion, including a host of spending changes in the process, on the NHS, schools and the arts, as a result of their austerity policies. But instead of spending £3.0 trillion in 2015, they proposed cutting the Treasury’s operating budget to just £40-55 billion, because some of this extra money will be used to give back to the UK economy that it had built up over the previous decade. They would have a deficit of 2.2 percent of GDP by 2019—and this is on top of austerity cuts over the course of the past two decades, when Britain’s deficit hit 4.3 percent of GDP—and, as we’ll see, that deficit was kept at 2.2 percent by the Tories until 2016, when Osborne cut spending.
Of course, in the absence of any spending cuts, the deficit would have to rise, and there’s no sign that the government was willing to pay for cuts to social housing or health. The government did this because the existing NHS trust fund, which already has more than £10 billion under management, has had to be hit by more than £200 million over the past 15 years, making it almost entirely unaffordable for any of the 3 billion people who would receive these services—and this budget is not a response to that shortfall. And so, while not only does the UK remain a deficit-reducing leader over this period and possibly over the next three years, it is also a member of the EU, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the European Union, which would be an important factor in reducing our global deficit in the short term.
The European Commission has called for a second referendum on the UK’s commitment to the EU by 2020, to take a vote now in the Commons and in the 2016 General Election of EU Referendum Vote No. 15. That would take place in May 2013, after a lengthy period of negotiating in Brussels for this result. But that referendum had been rejected by the European Commission three years earlier because the European Commission feared that the UK wanted to maintain a veto over the referendum since it was not an official part of EU law, so the Commission sought to change its position by suggesting that two other referendums should be held before the vote. This was the only way of getting around EU Article 50’s exclusion of the country from the negotiating table for further discussions.
So how close is the Conservatives versus Labour? If, as some people have suggested, the Conservatives are the only one on the negotiating team and believe that their proposals will have a significant impact on the economy, well, then it is understandable that their position requires them to back austerity. In my view, as anyone at the EU Commission knows, that position is the right one.
It is, however, not without irony that in the 2015 general election the Conservatives were accused of being “anarchy-lite”. The Liberal Democrats had been accused of being pro-European and pro-capitalist because their pro-EU ‘punchline’
However, this was the basis for the formation of the ‘Bundesmanoeuvre’ after Tony Blair’s election in 1992. The Tory policies that replaced the ‘Bundesmanoeuvre’ were the following:
• A 10% national VAT paid by most households to their employers, based on how much they earned in total.
• A universal income, or national insurance, to help families with debt.
• A higher working age workforce.
More income taxation, to help firms spend more.
More social insurance.
An income tax, which is to cover the loss of benefits, to help low-income workers afford to buy homes or food.
More tax credits, and greater taxes on the rich to help those with fewer resources. A range of tax cuts and tax breaks to help all Canadians and low wage earners.
A welfare state to help low income Canadians.
A generous income tax.
A balanced budget: giving all Albertan Albertans the flexibility to choose how to spend their money and where to spend it.
Social Security reform (with increases): this was the main issue where voters got the most support in 2007.
The Liberals and Conservatives, following up the Conservatives’ success in the 2003 election, did the same in 2009 with a budget they later claimed was the best balanced in years. As you can see, much of the success of this year’s deficit reduction policies was the result of strong fiscal policy. However, as we have seen, these policies did not go anywhere.
The Conservatives are now arguing, for political reasons, that deficit reduction is both a priority for them and the main policy priorities of their campaign. This is to portray the deficit reduction as a matter for the government to pursue and implement, whereas any attempt
Thatchers second government privatized national industries and utilities, including British Gas and British Telecommunications. Her antiunion policies forced coal miners to return to work after a year on strike. In foreign affairs, Thatcher was a close ally of President Ronald Reagan and shared his antipathy to Communism. She allowed the United States to station (1980) nuclear cruise missiles in Britain and to use its air bases to bomb Libya in 1986. She forged (1985) a historic accord with Ireland, giving it a consulting role in governing Northern Ireland.
In 1987 Thatcher led the Conservatives to a third consecutive electoral victory, although with a reduced majority. She proposed free-market changes to the national health and education systems and introduced a controversial per capita “poll tax” to pay for local government, which fueled criticisms that she had