Thatcherism

Thatcherism comprises the conviction, economic, social and political style of the British Conservative Party politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990. It has also been used to describe the principles of the British government under Thatcher as Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 and beyond into the governments of John Major, Tony Blair and David Cameron. An exponent of Thatcherism is regarded as a 'Thatcherite'. Thatcherism represented a systematic, decisive rejection and reversal of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry and close regulation of the British economy. There was one major exception, the NHS, which was widely popular. In 1982, she promised the British people that the NHS is 'safe in our hands'. Both the exact terms of what makes up Thatcherism as well as its specific legacy in terms of British history over the past decades are controversial. In terms of ideology, Thatcherism has been described by Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989, as a political platform emphasising free markets with restrained government spending and tax cuts coupled with British nationalism both at home and abroad. The Daily Telegraph stated in April 2008 that the programme of the next non-Conservative British government, Tony Blair's administration with an emphasis on New Labour, basically accepted the central reform measures of Thatcherism such as deregulation, privatisation of key national industries, maintaining a flexible labour market, marginalising the trade unions and centralising power from local authorities to central government. Thatcherism attempts to promote low inflation, the small state and free markets through tight control of the money supply, privatisation and constraints on the labour movement. It is often compared with Reaganomics in the United States, economic rationalism in Australia and Rogernomics in New Zealand and as a key part of the worldwide economic liberal movement. Nigel Lawson, Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989, listed the Thatcherite ideals as 'free markets, financial discipline, firm control over public expenditure, tax cuts, nationalism, 'Victorian values' (of the Samuel Smiles self-help variety), privatisation and a dash of populism'. Thatcherism is thus often compared to classical liberalism. Milton Friedman said that 'Margaret Thatcher is not in terms of belief a Tory. She is a nineteenth-century Liberal'. Thatcher herself stated in 1983: 'I would not mind betting that if Mr Gladstone were alive today he would apply to join the Conservative Party'. In the 1996 Keith Joseph memorial lecture, Thatcher argued: 'The kind of Conservatism which he and I favoured would be best described as 'liberal', in the old-fashioned sense. And I mean the liberalism of Mr Gladstone, not of the latter day collectivists'. Thatcher once told Friedrich Hayek: 'I know you want me to become a Whig; no, I am a Tory'. Hayek believed 'she has felt this very clearly'. The relationship between Thatcherism and liberalism is complicated. Thatcher's former Defence Secretary John Nott claimed that 'it is a complete misreading of her beliefs to depict her as a nineteenth-century Liberal'. As Ellen Meiksins Wood has argued, Thatcherite capitalism was compatible with traditional British political institutions. As Prime Minister, Thatcher did not challenge ancient institutions such as the monarchy or the House of Lords, but some of the most recent additions such as the trade unions. Indeed, many leading Thatcherites, including Thatcher herself, went on to join the House of Lords, an honour which William Ewart Gladstone, for instance, had declined. Thinkers closely associated with Thatcherism include Keith Joseph, Enoch Powell, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. In an interview with Simon Heffer in 1996, Thatcher stated that the two greatest influences on her as Conservative leader had been Joseph and Powell, who were both 'very great men'. Thatcher was a strong critic of communism, Marxism and socialism. Biographer John Campbell reports that in July 1978 when asked by a Labour MP in Commons what she meant by socialism 'she was at a loss to reply. What in fact she meant was Government support for inefficient industries, punitive taxation, regulation of the labour market, price controls – everything that interfered with the functioning of the free economy'. A number of commentators have traced the origins of Thatcherism in post-war British politics. The historian Ewen Green claimed there was resentment of the inflation, taxation and the constraints imposed by the labour movement, which was associated with the so-called Buttskellite consensus in the decades before Thatcher came to prominence. Although the Conservative leadership accommodated itself to the Clement Attlee government's post-war reforms, there was continuous right-wing opposition in the lower ranks of the party, in right-wing pressure groups like the Middle Class Alliance and the People's League for the Defence of Freedom and later in think tanks like the Centre for Policy Studies. For example, in the 1945 general election the Conservative Party chairman Ralph Assheton had wanted 12,000 abridged copies of The Road to Serfdom (a book by the anti-socialist economist Friedrich Hayek later closely associated with Thatcherism), taking up one-and-a-half tons of the party's paper ration, distributed as election propaganda. The historian Dr. Christopher Cooper traced the formation of the monetarist economics at the heart of Thatcherism back to the resignation of Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Peter Thorneycroft in 1958.