Produce a historical biography of Margaret Thatcher
Being the first woman ever to hold the position as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and to be the longest serving premier, her impact and legacy still remains extremely influential nowadays. Margaret Hilda Thatcher, née Roberts was born to Alfred Roberts and Beatrice Stephenson in 1925. Her family ran their own grocery business in Grantham, where Margaret was raised in a flat over the shop alongside her elder sister, Muriel Roberts. It is a humble and charming market town in the county of Lincolnshire, situated in the East Midlands of England. It could be argued that her parents, especially her father played a rather austere role in shaping her political convictions during her childhood (MargaretThatcher.org, 2017). Her upbringing was considered unusual of her background. They belonged to the middle-class, and both of her parents were devout Methodists and her father was also a politician. Thus, Margaret was constantly immersed in her father’s preachings and political influence, in which greatly instilled in the values of hard work and unswerving determination (Filby, 2013). It had a clear and lasting impact on her character, values and leadership style that could be clearly reflected during school years and later on in her future career. During her school years, Margaret attended a local state school and displayed tremendous intellectual ability, which later earned her a scholarship and place at University of Oxford, where she studied chemistry at Somerville College from 1943-1947. Despite her keen interest in Chemistry, it was inevitable that it had to take second place to politics in her future endeavours. During her time at Oxford, she was elected president of the Student Conservative Association and she took advantage of the opportunity to meet with numerous prominent politicians and making herself well-known to them, thus contributing to her future political career (History.com,2009). In 1950, Margaret became the youngest female Conservative candidate at at the age of 24 in Dartford. However, she failed to become elected in the elections in 1950 and 1951. Despite initial defeats, she impressed many with her strong and articulate views, and receive more votes than previous candidates. Furthermore, she persevered and took up law, as she believed it would help her immensely to put herself into a pathway of success in the realm of politics. She then delved herself into the legal sphere and got trained and practiced as a barrister, where she specialised in tax law. Not long, she married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy industrialist and gave birth to twins, Carol and Mark. Still determined for success, she ran for parliament again in 1959, in which the Conservatives was the dominating constituency of Finchley, a north London constituency, where she finally won a seat in parliament. Slowly but surely, Margaret begun to rise within the party, and in 1961 she was the youngest woman being appointed as a parliamentary under secretary for pensions and national insurance. Due to her mature political style, she had found it easy to speak with confidence and persuasion on issues that mattered to her voters. These issues were often centralised amongst issues such as rising levels of taxation and state regulations. It was inevitable that she would receive public backlash and furore due to her strong-mindedness. This was evident when she later became the Education Minister during Edward Heath’s government in the early 1970s (biographyonline.net, 2017). Regardless of constantly being undermined as being a woman, she triumphantly led the Conservatives to a decisive victory in 1979, forcing Edward Heath to resign. During her terms in office, she single-handedly helped reshaped most aspects of British politics, the economy, social reforms and to boost the national foreign policies and relationships with other countries, in particularly the United States of America. “She is a prime minister, a warrior and a housewife” (Watton, 2015). She has the unique ability to construct her own public image which combined the conventional experiences of the housewife, whilst not making her gender the basis of her leadership.
Newly elected as Prime Minister in 1979, Margaret Thatcher was quickly faced with high inflation rates in the United Kingdom due to the remnants of the war previously. She had introduced many revolutionary economic policies that arguably had a deep and long-lasting effect on the UK economy, but some would disagree that it did not. It was one of her priorities to regulate public spending with the aid of a tightly enforced monetary policy. Margaret’s government and herself agreed that some form of unemployment was generally healthy for the economy. For that reason, there was not any reason to worry about the rising rates of unemployment, so long as the rate of inflation was kept at a minimum. Her first Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe was confident that the problem would only be short-term and that the majority of the public would benefit from the increasing levels of general prosperity. He and his colleagues managed to reduce the overall government income, by reducing the standard rate of income tax from 33% to 30%, and the marginal rate for higher earners from 83% to 60% (Clements, 2016). The newly changed economy had become more productive and more competitive, but with that it brought some controversial consequences, where the rich people paid less tax and the poorer people had to pay more due to the unexpected rise of the cost of living. This was because inflation rose and Howe was forced to raise interest rates accordingly – from 12% to 14% in June 1979 to 17% in December. This greatly affected many individuals and big corporations and businesses, as this made borrowing expensive. Accompanied by the rising levels of inflation, the number of people unemployed also rocketed and the government had to pay different pensions, such as out-of-work benefits. However, in spite of the initial drawbacks, overtime inflation rates did come down and a number of direct taxations were cut down to the minimum. Yet, a number of problems continued to arise, as the cuts in direct taxes were counterbalanced by an increase in indirect taxes and the overall spending was alleviated by the soaring numbers of unemployment in the country. However, the newly reformed policies helped pave the way for an economic boom that started from 1992-2008, where it was a period of immense and positive economic change. (Elliott, 2013). It has been often criticised that the achievements Margaret Thatcher had made was only down to chance and luck, however it was obvious that she had controlled and made her own luck, as she seized every opportunity available. She was tactful and ambitious, therefore she could exploit any given chances, thus generating a greater likelihood of success and gaining widespread support for her “radical” ideologies.
Aside from being famously known as the “Iron Lady”, one of her other notorious nicknames was the “Milk Snatcher”. This came when Margaret was under Edward Heath’s government in the 1970s where she had ordered to stop the provision of free milk for pupils at junior schools. This was a decision that attracted widespread public attention as a consequence of the government’s attempt to save the government funds for around £9 million a year. The scheme of giving young children free pints of milk in 1944 was a solid attempt to improve the general health and nutrition of children. By abolitioning free milk to young children, it was met with furious complaints from parents as it has proven to do the children's’ health no good. However, it was later found that she never had the intention to put forward the policy but was forced into it by the Treasury, “I learnt a valuable lesson [from the experience]. I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit” (Hickman, 2010).
Continuing her attempt
in stabilising and increasing economic growth, Margaret Thatcher and her government saw trade unions as an obstacle.
Margaret’s years in office were not easy, there were setbacks due to her radical programmes of government policies. Nonetheless, she managed to brought in more supporters into the Cabinet and increased her reputation as a globally recognized figure. Even within parliament, large numbers of male MPs have underestimated her throughout her premiership. This was because they found it hard to adapt to her style of leadership and perhaps her role as a women. In spite of this prevalent sexist attitude, she ignored her critics and proved them wrong through her actions. She famously said in a speech in 1982, “In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.” She had received many suspicions as a female politician, even from female votes and public recognition was constantly a problem. When faced adversity, Margaret Thatcher remained cool calm and collected and handled every situation with caution and care, and regularly displayed her professionalism and remained ladylike. She had wanted the people and the society to be more prosperous by work. She exploited the image of being a “housewife” and turned economics to a subject of political combat, where she stood up for the indefensible status quo.
Did being a woman have an impact on why she did these things?
Woman do not make good politicians
Intruders and did not conceal the fact
References:
Margaretthatcher.org. (2017). Biography | Margaret Thatcher Foundation. [online] Available at: https://www.margaretthatcher.org/essential/biography.asp [Accessed 20 Nov. 2017].
Filby, E. (2017). Margaret Thatcher: her unswerving faith shaped by her father. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9992424/Margaret-Thatcher-her-unswerving-faith-shaped-by-her-father.html [Accessed 23 Nov. 2017].
Facts, M. (2017). Margaret Thatcher – British History – HISTORY.com. [online] HISTORY.com. Available at: http://www.history.com/topics/british-history/margaret-thatcher [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017].
Biography Online. (2017). Biography Margaret Thatcher |. [online] Available at: https://www.biographyonline.net/politicians/uk/margaret-thatcher.html [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].
Elliott, L. (2017). Did Margaret Thatcher transform Britain's economy for better or worse?. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-transform-britain-economy [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].
Hickman, M. (2017). Tories move swiftly to avoid 'milk-snatcher' tag. [online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-move-swiftly-to-avoid-milk-snatcher-tag-2047372.html [Accessed 25 Nov. 2017].