How did Margaret Thatcher transform Britain?
In 1979, Downing Street saw its first woman Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. She was described as dominating British politics ‘more than any other prime minister of the twentieth century’ and by the time she had resigned in 1990, Britain had undergone many changes. ‘Thatcherism’ is derived from the many policies she introduced, most of which will be looked at within this essay when answering the question how Thatcher transformed Britain. The following factors will be looked at: inflation, education, the National Health Care system, Legalisation, trade union legalisation and finally housing policies.
The first factor to be looked at is inflation. Thatcher can be said to have transformed Britain through several economic policies, such as ‘Commitment’ which ultimately aimed to cut the money supply and boost indirect tax to suppress inflation. However the most important economic policy was ‘Monetarist’ which meant ‘high interest rates and no subsidies to ailing companies’. In 1975 inflation within Britain was at an all time high of 24.2% however after Thatcher’s eleven year reign, it was down to a mere 9.5% in 1990, giving evidence to show she had transformed Britain’s economy. However it can be argued that her policies did not have a lasting effect and thus she did not transform Britain, as after she resigned, events such as ‘Black Wednesday’ occurred, which showed her policies were flawed as the pound had to be withdrew from currency fix, as the conservative government were not capable of keeping sterling above its agreed lower limit. Yet despite this, some historians argue that with the introduction of ideologically driven monetarist and deregulatory policies by Margaret Thatcher, the UK was ‘transformed from an insider system to the shareholder oriented outsider system, which it is today.’
Education is also another factor to be discussed. In 1998 the ‘Education Act’ was put into place, which allowed parents full control over their child’s education and gave financial accountability to the schools, as Thatcher had a ‘passionate concern for the right of parents to choose for their children the kind of school and teaching they, not the educational establishment, thought best.’ Thatcher also believed that the system of appointing intellects gave no encouragement to universities to uphold quality values, and thus saw away with ‘academic tenure’ within the Education Act. She also introduced the ‘University Funding Council’ so that low cost would be an incentive for more students to carry on with higher education. However the most important transformation British education went under, was the introduction of an ‘National Curriculum’ which stemmed from the Education act, which allowed parents to choose a school based on it’s league table and success. It also had set subjects to allow all pupils to develop and to have a better understanding of moral, social and spiritual issues, and to prepare children for the realities of life. Through these policies Margaret Thatcher transformed British education positively, as many of them stuck and grew, particularly the National Curricular which is still evident in today’s society, and many historians agree that ‘under her [Thatcher] they had improved the quality of education, and were turning out young people better equipped to face life in society and to develop their own talents.’ However, historians also suggest that Margaret Thatcher transformed British education in a negative way, as her policies “…de-emphasized the school’s responsibility to fight social inequality”, this meant that due to the vast amount of unemployment, many children of working class families could not take advantage of any of the new educational opportunities being offered, and this led to the creation of the name ‘Thatcher’s children- the lost generation’ meaning many were declined the opportunity to move forward in education. Although social inequality was not a long term effect of Thatcher’s government, at the time ‘someone born in 1970 and at secondary school in the 1980s had much less chance of moving up the social class ladder than someone born in 1958,’ giving evidence to suggest Thatcher’s educational policies weren’t as revolutionary as first thought.
