The Politics of Thatcherism - Essay Example

What was Thatcherism? In what sense was it radical or conservative? By any estimation, Margaret Thatcher as a former head of the United Kingdom lefta considerable impact on world history at the close of the last millennium. If the democratic will of the majority counts for anything there is a certain amount of radicalism present from several perspectives. The first is that in 20th-century Britain she was the only leader to govern over three consecutive general elections, and through eleven years of service as Prime Minister she set the record for that century. Second, as the first and so far only woman British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher is strikingly the one individual to bequeath her name to an operative philosophy for a political course of action and modus operandi known as Thatcherism.1 Among other things, the philosophy is said to have initiated the movement from government to governance in which greater centralization, or a stronger state, is seen as paramount for the creation of a more energetic free market.2 In the wake of the 1978-1979 winter of discontent, after the Labour Party had been plagued with a stifling series of strikes by public service employees demanding better wages, the Labour government succumbed to union demands for a wage increase. The settlement met with scathing censure by Thatcher, who initiated the call for a vote of No Confidence. The subsequent 311-310 vote, left the ruling Labour Party and its government overwhelmingly defeated.3 Margaret Thatcher, as leader of the Conservative Party, campaigned for a fresh start by advocating energetic trade union control, an assertive market economy, free enterprise, radical reductions in government spending, tax cuts, a stable currency, and a reinvigorated foreign policy. Thatcher believed in private enterprise and personal accountability, and took a strong stand for family values, home ownership, reasonable personal savings, improved educational prospects, and renewed commitment to law and order.4 Thatchers government steadily weakened trade union muscle, specifically with a determined response to the coal miners strike of 1984-1985. The passage of measures such as rate capping and the introduction of the conflict-ridden Poll Tax in 1989 were initiated in an attempt to curb local government expenditure.5 In addition, the elimination of specific metropolitan councils, such as the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986, were moves intended to further check local government power.6 Another long-term effort to promote consumerism and individual initiative was to privatise a large number of formerly state-owned businesses such as British Aerospace, The National Bus Company, Associated British Ports, Jaguar, and British Telecom, to name just a few.7 In addition, Thatcherism professed a strong thrust for nationalism as evinced in the Conservative governments forceful response to the 1982 clash with Argentina over the Falklands.8 In Thatchers last term, as a consequence of rifts in the cabinet over matters concerning the European Community, the wholesale antagonistic reaction of the public to the London Poll Tax, a negative stance on the part of many to her assertive style as Prime Minister, and ultimately the diehard intransigence of much of her own Conservative Party, Thatcher resigned in 1990.9 Even though the economy in the United Kingdom enjoyed improvement in the late 1980s, in the years following Thatchers administration, a grave economic decline with high unemployment ensued.10 Still, Thatcherism seems to enjoy a certain theoretical resilience in the face of the rational and empirical imperfections of its ephemeral results.11 If Thatcherism reflects a governing philosophy built on the policies and style of leadership of Margaret Thatcher, the broader spectrum of its interpretation and application reaches beyond Thatchers own elucidation to entail lasting political imperatives for a conglomerate of free markets, fiscal discipline, strong control over public expenditure, tax incentives, nationalism, Victorian values, privatisation and a bit of populism.12 The concept of Thatcherism is remarkably apt for exploring modern politics entrenched in the concepts of the New Right, and informed by constituent and monetary aspects. Thatcherism as a policy retains an ongoing relevance as an auspicious outline for the pursuit of specific objectives.13 In the philosophy of Michael Oakeshott conservatism is more a family of concepts than an ideology, more a disposition than a doctrine. Conservatism as such is a no-nonsense and down-to-earth need for permanence accompanied by intolerance for the unpredictability of change. If change is unavoidable, or already in place, a conservative mindset will try to contain it and tolerate the inconvenience with the least amount of trouble.14 Authority along with law and order remain conservative standards that champion the defence of property and uphold the forces protecting it. Good governance is central. Strong national sentiment represents another traditional appeal. Responsibility to country entails paying taxes and taking up arms. Political conservatives, however, can fall under three divisions – reactionary, moderate, or radical – with respect to a specific political thrust.15 Thatcherism can be considered radical from two points of view – first, in its derivative meaning and next in the clear-cut elements of reform it introduces in a political outlook or emphasis in the Conservative party. From its derivation the word radical originates paradoxically in a dynamic of returning to the root or source, even though its political nuances suggest more of a striking departure from the standard or traditional norm. Certainly Thatcher, as would any political opponent campaigning for deep-seated or far-reaching change in the existing system, can be said to advance radical political views. In the 19th century, radical described a leaning toward sweeping reform. British 19th-century radicals campaigned to expand suffrage and restructure political organisation. In the 20th century European radicals were deemed to be centre left, even though, weighed against modern factors, their outlook might be thought comparatively conservative today.16 Thatcherism, as a thrust for innovative remedies in response to unsuccessful government policies, could be considered radical. Thatcher ran for office set firmly against the status quo and veered away from consensus. From a radical standpoint, Thatcherism was as antithetical to a committed One Nation Conservatism as it was to the disastrous end result of social democracy and saw little difference between them.17 In her third term Thatcher conceivably appeared alarmingly radical to any number of conservative colleagues. Thatcher resigned in 1990 under unusual circumstances, suggesting that some in her own party were afraid of her policies as a dynamic force for change.18 Sir Geoffrey Howe, her foreign secretary, a strong advocate for Britains full participation in the European Community, resigned principally over Thatchers reservations on the European Union issue. While Thatcher energetically contested any encroachment on British sovereignty, she did endorse Europes shift toward a single market. Thatcher believed that the European Community should be a union of sovereign states, each with its own customs, traditions and identities.19 There has been fierce debate in the Conservative party itself over whether Thatcherism was a reaffirmation of conservative principles – which might be termed radical in its derivative sense of returning to conservative roots – or a spurious departure from them. Some have suggested even that the Conservative party had been commandeered by a radical faction through Thatcherism.20 Heffernan delineates the argument that the influence of the Conservative Thatcher government has served to transform the basic structure of British politics from what the political arena had seen in times past to what it needed to become in the contemporary setting. For Heffernan Thatcherism is more of an astute response to an altered state of affairs and modern times than a fully radical about-face of Conservative policy.21 In that vein, the legacy of Thatcherism has impacted on facets of significance in the Labour Party whose New Labour programme continues to echo political principles espoused by Thatcher Conservatives in the 1980s: enterprise, self-sufficiency, a professed control of government, free market economy, privatisation of nationalised industries, the divestment of public housing, partial constraint of trade unions, and some limitation of local government.22 However, Labour radicals protest that New Labour is not simply an adjustment to the New Right, that if Thatcherism got some things accurate, it was better at taking on and tearing down obsolete stances in politics, than at positively constructing a better society.23 Gamble comments that the task Thatcherism was called upon to perform has been a curious one. The efforts of the Thatcher revolution to demolish long-standing institutions, structures and policies of the welfare state which once enjoyed the full backing of the government is not generally typical of the Conservative party. The assertive approach and ideological assurance manifest in the process seem to be foreign to conventional conservatism. However, appreciated as statecraft, and meant to secure the Conservative party advantage and to reinstate the autonomy of action and power of the party in government, Thatcherism takes its place firmly in the Conservative tradition, and clears the ground for impending ventures and future change.24 In the estimation of Robert Pyper, Thatcherism concentrated on major reforms in clear-cut areas of interest, while steering clear of change in others, moving away from traditional forms of government towards a wider and looser concept of governance or statecraft. Pyper avers that the constricted focus of Thatcherism was originally rather narrow and impoverished, since certain elements were underscored while others were discounted.25 Thatcherism made a determined thrust in the direction of minimising government with a systematic agenda of privatisation, along with ongoing efforts to reduce the scope of the public sector. Paradoxically the tendency to interfere and intrude belied Conservative protestations about small government.26 Pypers perspective on Thatcherism still seems to argue for a singular mixture of both conventional Conservatism and radicalism. In 1979 Prime Minister Callaghan facing the vote of No Confidence in his Labour government, observed that there are times that there is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves, and suggested that the time was ostensibly ripe for Mrs. Thatcher. The Thatcher revolution was based on radical insights devised to be put into action and unified into a comprehensive programme by one person – Margaret Thatcher. In spite of the compromises and unpredictability unavoidable in the political process, Thatcherism emerged clearly from her philosophy. Thatchers express objective was to restore vigour to a nation in decline, where British individualism had, in her view, been spoilt by socialism and the welfare state.27 Thatcherism can be called radical in the sense of the revolution it generated in the British political focus. Through Thatchers influence 21st-century Britain is a society converted in the direction of individual freedom and responsibility with its character intact. Thatcher did not succeed fully in asserting her individualism into the body politic, so the public still looks to government for a wide range of services and a safety net when needed.28 Margaret Thatchers own delineation of her thought in Statecraft gives the impression of a genuinely radical independence of thought and action within the framework of a measured Conservative reference – conservative, again in the radical sense of returning to basic principles and perspectives that inform the choices and decisions of a statecraft that esteems action over rhetoric and constructive attainment over superficial diplomacy, and retains a certain autonomy in the face of the waxing and waning appreciation and censure of capricious public opinion.29 History awaits more distance for an impartial and objective discernment to pronounce a definitive judgement on the Thatcher legacy and the full implications of the ism which it generated. References Bealey, Frank and Johnson, Allan G. (1999) The Blackwell Dictionary of Political Science: A Users Guide to Its Terms Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Burton, John. (1987). "Privatization: the Thatcher Case." Managerial & Decision Economics 8, no. 1: 21-29. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost accessed April 12, 2006. Clarke, Peter. (1998). "The Rise and Fall of Thatcherism." London Review of Books. Volume 20 Number 24, 10 December 1998. Available at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n24/clar03_.html Gamble, Andrew. (1988) The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism. Durham: Duke University Press. Garnett, Mark. (2004) "The Free Economy and the Schizophrenic State." Political Quarterly. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. Pages 366-372. Hayes, Paul M. (1991). "Thatcher appraised." Round Table 319, no. 1: 373. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost accessed April 12, 2006. Heffernan, Richard. (2000). New Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain. Chippenham, Wiltshire: Antony Rowe Ltd. Judge, David. (2005). Political Institutions in the United Kingdom: Comparative Political Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lloyd, T. O. (2002) Empire, Welfare State, Europe: History of the United Kingdom 1906-2001. 5th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moran, Joseph. (2005) "The myth of the chattering classes was the product of a Thatcherite populism that aimed to short-circuit traditional elites, speaking directly to ordinary people" New Statesman. 24 October 2005. Pages 34-35. Pearce, Dr Robert (2004) "Thatcherism" New Perspective Vol 9,  No 3 Available at http://www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/thatcherism93.htm Pyper, Robert and Lynton, Robins. (2000).United Kingdom Governance. London, Hampshire: Macmillan Press Ltd. Reitan, Earl A. (2003). The Thatcher Revolution: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, and the Transformation of Modern Britain 1979-2001. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Tansey, Stephen D. (2002). Politics, the Basics. London: Routledge. Townson, Duncan. (1999). A Dictionary of Contemporary History, 1945 to the Present. Oxford, Oxfordshire: Blackwell Publishers. Thatcher, Margaret. (2002). Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers. "We are all radicals now." (1997). New Statesman Volume126, Number 4355: page 5. Academic Search Premier, accessed April 11, 2006. Read More