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How Thatcher Cleaned Up in Britain's Dirtiest Campaign
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11899 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1987 |
2,105 Words |
| Author
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Ronald Baxter
Ronald Baxter, a former British diplomat and journalist who
spent 20 years in Asia, is currently an international affairs
consultant. |
Europe's first female prime minister, Britain's Margaret Thatcher, made further history on June 11, when she won a third successive term of office in another landslide election victory. She is the first prime minister in this century to do so. Only Lord Liverpool won more elections - he won his fourth in 1814, when Napoleon was still alive. Polls taken immediately after Thatcher's election show that a majority of supporters want her to run for a fourth term in 1992. This time Thatcher swept most of England, doing less well in Scotland.
It was the most significant general election in Britain since the end of World War II, when the Labour Party created a sensation by ousting Tory leader Winston Churchill. Eight years of leadership by Margaret Thatcher changed all that.
The choice before the electorate this time was not just between the policy commitments of the parties, but between the very different philosophies that underlie them. The conservatives, under Thatcher, are convinced that the wealth created by a highly charged economy, with low taxes and minimal inflation, will slowly but surely enrich the entire population and provide the money for social benefits - so dear to Britons of all political persuasions - to help those who cannot help themselves. The Labour Party believes that individual self-interest refutes this theory, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number can be obtained only by corporatism and state control ensuring a fair division and distribution of wealth.
The gulf between these two approaches persuaded many people on election day that the choice was between hearts and minds: the heart voting for compassion and Neil Kinnock, the mind voting for economic revival and Thatcher.
In the 1979, when the Conservatives under new leader Thatcher ended a period of Labour rule, England was a sick, enfeebled nation with one of the worst industrial records in the developed world. Crippling taxes fettered private enterprise. The state-owned industries lost vast amounts of money and were a drain on the economy. Trade union bosses dictated what their members should be paid and how long their workdays should be. It was almost impossible to fire a worker, no matter how inefficient he was, without his union calling a strike. Inflation was too high to make any investment in Britain's future secure. Thatcher, the Iron Lady, changed the face of Britain. Inflation and taxes were cut dramatically. State-run industries were privatized and galvanized. The unions were curbed. Large numbers of Britons became shareholders
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