I can remember Britain in 1979, grim is the only word you could call it. Strikes, hyper inflation, energy shortages, a feeling the country was on the way out, a terrible time. Labour had no answers any more and couldn't control the unions.
That's a speech that's not only fantastic in its substance its politics are brilliant too. The way she couches things puts the Trade Unions in a croner they can't get out of. What a wonderful address!
i agree, male 48 working class,lorry driver, never really had much money but she was right, my god my memories of the labour party when i left school in 1980..the 1970s, what a bloody disgrace !!.strikes strikes strikes !!
she was right on most of the issues. labour as today always sided with the people who were against the uk. even tony blair did the same. it just took a minute to see how pernicious he truly was as most people were duped by the grinning cheshire cat.
I remember reading this in 'Thatcher in her own words'. The speeches she did before coming to power were simply amazing - far more passionate than any Blair speech...
Im a center-left american but after reading about the winter of discontent, the uk needed thatcher at least for one term. A working/middle class family who can support themselves shouldnt have to cook their dinner over a heater when their electric stove isnt broken and the only reason why it isnt working is because the electric union is on strike for a 5 percent pay raise in the middle of winter while their garbage hasnt been picked up in a month
I've always had a mixed stance about Thatcher. I agree that she saved Britain from the mess that the Labour party put the country into, lowered the debt and reduced government spending, and made Britain Great again on the world stage, but she did with an enormously high social cost and created alot of inequity in the process with Unemployment only coming under control near the end of her tenure as PM. She certainly left the country in better shape than the Labour governments before her, and alienated the center-right/moderate Conservatives within her party while also scaring away the Scottish Conservatives, turning them into permanent Labor voters. Still, I think that her polarizing variant of Conservatism could have been avoided if Labour had been kept out of power for the 60s and 70s if the Conservatives like Harold Macmillan held on to power a little longer and left more competent successors in their place. Thatcherism was an extreme counter to the extremes of the Labour party of the time and the only reason that Neo-Conservatism became so strong during that era is because people became more and more angry at what Labour was doing to UK up to the point that they turned to an extreme option to undo the damage.
If you say so but what did the Conservatives do for you ? Nothing unless you were a Public schoolboy wanting to a Banker then there was Millions Of tax payers money available or otherwise if you were not you had to make do on a YTS . Ridding us of our king of world steel status and now China rule the industrial world with there Steel .
That's a view I have to agree with. I think people were so pissed off by 1979 they wanted a different way. It was painful but a lot of the people she did piss off ultimately didn't help themselves, although Scargill led a lot of those miners on a hiding to nothing - the pits that stayed at work, not having had a ballot, ultimately realised it would end in tears I think and that's why they stayed put.
@@jamesmt142 We had a British Leyland car in 1979, it was a load of rubbish probably made in between strikes at Cowley. We changed it for a Toyota, completely reliable, 40 mpg every day, plenty of luxuries the Austin lacked like a radio, and easy to drive. The unions wrecked the car industry and we never went back to British Leyland until it became the privatised Rover Group and made cars people wanted to buy.
@@jamesmt142 As Thacther herself said about her policies, 'yes the medicine is tough and it's painful at the start... but the patient (the UK) needs it!'
After what happened in 1978 - 9, the rights of the working classes over far left union bosses who represented no-one but the overpaid leaders had to be protected and fortunately they were.
Thank you for sharing this most interesting clip. I quite see how Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election. I have always been ambivalent about her. While I fully accept that the trades unions' abuse of power, including the closed shop, rampant intimidation of any workers who did not obey shop stewards and flying pickets had to stop, I also disliked the yuppie culture, deregulation of bus services and most of all the sale of council houses while prohibiting councils from building more with the money gained. This has caused a chronic shortage of rented accommodation which exists to this day.
Britain needs a new Iron Lady. Theresa May is one of the worst PMs in our peacetime history. How she flunked an election with Corbyn is unbelievable. Thatcher would have crushed Corbyn, stood up for private enterprise and would have stood up to Brussels, rejecting the backstop in a heartbeat. RIP Maggie.
LOVE THE INTRO!!! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!! Long live Maggie!!!! To quote my dear mother, "Margaret Thatcher is the most intelligent woman ever born!"
I don't know where I stand on Thatcher. I can admire her strength and determination, and it can truly be said that there has never been anyone quite like her. However there is something about her which seems almost inhuman. Perhaps it's the front she created for herself to appear a strong leader, but her ruthlessness in policy and decision making was often stripped of empathy and that is something that just doesn't sit right with me. The lack of respect and care for the poor that came about because of this are not good qualities of a leader. Yes she did 'get the job done' in a very effective decisive manner, but the means to her ends were not fair on the lower classes. The Poll Tax was the wake up call she needed, alerting her that she had gone too far with punishing those beneath her. I believe the French President Francois Mitterrand summed her up perfectly when he said "She has the eyes of Caligula but the mouth of Marilyn Monroe."
I think your "almost inhuman" part is more on point - but I think she was a whirlwind of convictions and determination who didn't need to put on any front to appear strong (ie in the way Theresa May does). The only front she had to put on likely involved toning down her extremely strong "alpha" personality with the polite, calm, brown clad "sensible housewife" persona in that video. People loved Tony Blair because he gave them a male, self deprecating humour having, friendly, Labour leading copy of Mrs Thatcher. Which made all the people who voted Liberal (or at least said they did) during the Thatcher years feel okay about supporting him openly.
Not at all: she swept to power three months after this broadcast and then won two further elections. She completely reformed the British economy which had inflation at 25% , was highly uncompetitive and suffered high unemployment before she was elected. She was crystal clear about what was needed and achieved it. 1978: 29 million working days lost to strikes. 1982: 1 million working days lost to strikes. No paradox in sight there.
Sadly she did it to herself, the early Thatcher had a cabinet reputation for thoroughly testing and arguing/debating strongly with her cabinet over new policies, but by the late 80s she wasn't interested in hearing others opinions. I suppose after 10 years in ANY job you start to believe you know it all. Hence she really messed up with the poll tax.
The UNIONS set up the Labour party, to represent THEM in Parliament. Not ordinary working people. Not all working people belong to UNIONS nor are they members of them.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher was a right wing libertarian who through tight control of money & forcing privatisation & to succeed in the free markets & her constraints on the labour movement lead her to become Britain's most hated PM . A bit like Milton Freedman's hypotheses only it was flawed terribly the poor suffered while there was a new man in town the yuppie fetched on by her Darwinism in her libertarian views the rich get richer & didn't they them bankers got rich over night but the ordinary man was left with nothing , to much emphasis on the public school boy not enough on the ordinary people who suffered .
@Paul Gavin no not really. working people create the wealth our society enjoys for next to nothing. thatcher defended and advanced the interests of her millionaire friends at the expense of working people, people who without she wouldn't have been able to light her house at night
Huh? That’s outright blackmail through threat of violence against the other tax payers across society who will fork out for that ridiculous pay. They should be banned and have their heads cracked for treason on the spot. Maggie done it perfect , thank god they barely exist anymore, they become way too radical and we’re openly destroying the whole country.
@@lucasevamy This is what so many people fail to realize. She was such a great woman, only if you were of the upper and elite class! Poor kids of working class parents who grew up in north west England barely had a pot to piss in, thanks to her leadership.
