Margaret Hilda Thatcher (born in 3 October 1925 - died in 8 April 2013).British Conservative and only female Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990.
She implemented policies known as Thatcherism. Thatcherites believed in fiscal discipline, free markets, small state, constraints on labour movement and privatization. For the time, this prescription was indispensable to lifting Great Britain from the mire.
Soviet officials nicknamed her the 'Iron Lady' to reference her uncompromising style of politics. While originally meant as an insult, it came to represent will-power and strength of character - she wore it as a badge of honor.
Menace of the Trade Union movement
In the 1970's Britannia was dubbed the 'Sick man of Europe', plagued by constant strikes and walkouts. These endemic strikes were referred to as the 'British Disease'.
This culminated in the 'Winters of Discontent', a series of crippling strikes throughout the first three months of 1979. At this time, Britain seemed ungovernable and was locked into a permanent state of decline.
The sight of uncollected mountains of rubbish, rolling blackouts and unburied bodies destroyed James Callaghan (Labour Prime Ministers) government, allowing Thatcher to squeak into power with a 30-seat majority.
Achievements
She relinquished Britain from the grip of the trade union movement, which during the Winters of Discontent brought the economy to its knees. The most menacing being the 'National Union of Mineworkers' run by Arthur Scargill, they were thankfully defeated in 1985.
Cut taxes, cut regulations, cut inflation and reduced the budget deficit. For example - the top tax rate was 98% and the bottom rate was 65% in 1979 when she became prime minister. When she left office in 1990, the top tax rate was down to 40% and the bottom rate was 25%.
Inflation was reduced from 20% in 1979 to 4% in just two terms, GDP grew by 29.4% during her tenure and 1.6 million net jobs were created.
She vanquished the Argentine dictatorship in 1982 when they invaded the Falklands island. The stunning victory more than doubled her poll rating, guaranteeing an outright majority in the 1983 election.
Privatized loss making moribund state industries by selling shares to the public. She made loss making companies such as Rolls Royce efficient and profitable.
Finally, she created a system that rewarded hard work, enterprise and entrepreneurialism.
Poll Tax
Paradoxically Margarets greatest political strengths - her forthright views and refusal to do a U-turn came to be her own undoing.
After winning a stunning third term victory, the conservatives promised to introduce a community charge (poll tax), a fixed tax levied per person.
The policy was phenomenally unpopular, as it placed disproportionate burden on the poor - 80% would pay more as a result of the poll tax.
It triggered violent opposition culminating the poll tax riots. Her hubris and refusal to back down cost her the support of the conservative party - she finally stepped down in November 1990.
Legacy
Her success is that the 'post-Thatcherite consensus' still exists today.
Even in the aftermath of the biggest financial crisis since the great depression - no major political party has committed themselves to reversing her anti-trade union legislation, privatisation and free market reforms.
Furthermore, Tony Blair (former Labour prime minister) wrote in his 2010 autobiography A Journey that 'Britain needed the industrial and economic reforms of the Thatcher period'. He said that 'much of what she wanted to do in the 1980s was inevitable, a consequence not of ideology but of social and economic change'.
Her critics will argue that while the bitter pill she prescribed cured the patient, it left behind some nasty side effects. These included wider income inequality and higher unemployment, was this too great a price for her reforms?
A Revolutionary Figure
All told she was a one woman whirlwind who put the 'Great' back in Great Britain. I believe she will go down in history as one of the greatest and most controversial post-war prime ministers.
I wish there were more people with her passion, conviction and courage to stand up for their beliefs. Regrettably, many of today's politicians sound too robotic, lack enthusiasm and simply recite party lines.
Mark Twain - 'Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear'.
Disclosure: I'm an independent and not a member of any political party.
Recommended Reads
Peter Oborne 'The outsider who changed the course of British history'.
Clive Crook on Bloomberg, 'How Thatcher Saved Britain'.
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