The Thatcher EraThatcherism1979-1990

”You turn if you want to: the lady's not for turning!”

(by her speechwriter—also an actor, writer, dramatist— Ronald Millar in Nov, 1980)

”a society of two nations”(McDowall 180)

• a cut in the top rate of income tax from 83 to 60 percent• VAT was raised from 8 percent to 15 percent• from 1979 to 1980 prices rose by 22 percent (partly

because of the VAT hike)• March 1981 budget should be deflationary

→ cutting public borrowing and raising indirect taxes again

• industrial production fell by 10 percent, manufacturing production by 17 percent (by 1983) (McDowall 180)

→ a riot erupted in Brixton, in 10-11 April 1981 (between Metropolitan Police and protesters in Lambeth, South London), followed by another in Toxteth (inner city Liverpool between black community and local police) in July, and others around the country

Thatcher adamantly refused to accept that these disturbances might be linked to rising unemployment.

By the end of 1981, opinion polls showed her to be the most unpopular Prime Minister since records began.

Community Charge (popularly known as the poll tax) was a system of taxation introduced in Scotland from 1989, and England and Wales from 1990 → it was meant to replace of the rates to fund local government.

(It provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the local authority.)

→ Poll Tax Riots: • in 1989 in Glasgow at George Square

• the largest occurred in central London on Saturday 31 March 1990 (the Battle of Trafalgar since much of the rioting took place in Trafalgar Square)

• rising government expenditure, which by 1983 had reached 48 percent of GDP – (she brought down this figure to 40 percent in the next seven years)

• mortgage rates were also rising • unemployment had remained above three million (in

1979 it was 1.25 million) • simultaneous assaults on trade-union power and loss-

making state industries• the new Coal Board chairman the elderly Scot, Ian

MacGregor appointed by Thatcher announced a programme of pit closures

→ on 6 March 1984, brought most of the miners out on a strike that lasted over a year (back to 1979 Thatcher praised the "realism" of the National Coal Board when they offered the miners a 20 percent pay rise, and overruled them [the National Coal Board] when they proposed to close 23 pits early in 1981)

→ defeat of the miners reinforced her reputation as the Iron Lady

• The most serious accusation against the Thatcher government was that it created a more unequal society, a society of “two nations”, one wealthy, and the other the poor. (McDowall 180)

→ The number of the very poor (with a small amount of government help) increased from 12 million in 1979 to over 16 million by 1983

→ Geographical division too: (1) prosperous suburban areas vs inner city areas • The government sold state-owned houses and

flats, yet it halved the number of new houses being built between 1981-1985 → the number of homeless people increased

(2) division between the north and the south → 94 percent of lost jobs since 1979 were north of the Wash-Bristol Channel line

Foreign affairs/Falkland war• on 2 April 1982 the ruling military junta in

Argentina ordered the invasion of the British-controlled Falkland Islands

• Argentina surrendered on 14 June and the operation was hailed a success

• Casualties: 255 British servicemen and 3 Falkland Islanders, as well as 649Argentinians died, half of them after the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the cruiser ARA General Belgrano on 2 May.

• Thatcher was criticised for the neglect of the Falklands’ defence that led to the war, and for the decision to sink the General Belgrano

→ eventually the Falklands gave her a landslide victory in 1983