Did Thatcherism leave the nation divided?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cpdbEK3E4U8

The greatest divisions this nation has ever seen were the conflicts of trade unions… under the dictat of trade union bosses… They used their power against their members. They made them come out on strike when they didn’t want to… It was that which Thatcherism, if you call it that, tried to stop. Not by arrogance, but by giving power to the ordinary, decent, honourable trade union member who didn’t want to go on strike. By giving power to him, over the Scargills of this world…

That is one conflict. That is gone. Now another one.

I believe passionately that people have a right by their own efforts to benefit their own families. So we’ve taken down taxation. It doesn’t matter to me who you are or what your background is. If you want to use your own efforts to work harder, yes, I’m with you, all the way!

…

We’ve had an increase in home ownership, the heart of the family, under this government… Far more share ownership. Far more savings in building society accounts. This is what is building “One Nation”. As every earner becomes a shareholder. As more and more people own their homes. No, we are getting rid of the divisions. We are replacing conflict with cooperation. We are building One Nation through wider property and democracy.

“What’s wrong with politics?”

Baroness Thatcher’s lecture to the Conservative Political Centre, 11th October 1968.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=101632

Doubtless there will be accusers that we are only interested in more money. This just is not so. Money is not an end in itself. It enables one to live the kind of life of one’s own choosing. Some will prefer to put a large amount to raising material standards, others will pursue music, the arts, the cultures, others will use their money to help those here and overseas about whose needs they feel strongly and do not let us underestimate the amount of hard earned cash that this nation gives voluntarily to worthy causes. The point is that even the Good Samaritan had to have the money to help, otherwise he too would have had to pass on the other side. In choice of way of life J. S. Mill’s views are as relevant as ever.

‘The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it … Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.’

These policies have one further important implication. Together they succeed at the same time in giving people a measure of independence from the state—and who wants a people dependent on the state and turning to the state for their every need—also they succeed in drawing power away from governments and diffusing it more widely among people and non-governmented institutions.

“What’s wrong with politics?”

Baroness Thatcher’s lecture to the Conservative Political Centre, 11th October 1968.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=101632

Fifthly, we have not yet appreciated or used fully the virtues of our party political system. The essential characteristic of the British Constitutional system is not that there is an alternative personality but that there is an alternative policy and a whole alternative government ready to take office. As a result we have always had an Opposition to act as a focus of criticism against the government. We have therefore not suffered the fate of countries which have had a ‘consensus’ or central government, without an official opposition. This was one of the causes of trouble in Germany. Nor do we have the American system, which as far as Presidential campaigns go, appears to have become almost completely one of personalities.

There are dangers in consensus; it could be an attempt to satisfy people holding no particular views about anything. It seems more important to have a philosophy and policy which because they are good appeal to sufficient people to secure a majority.

A short time ago when speaking to a university audience and stressing the theme of second responsibility and independence a young undergraduate came to me and said ‘I had no idea there was such a clear alternative.’ He found the idea challenging and infinitely more effective than one in which everyone virtually expects their MP or the government to solve their problems. The Conservative creed has never offered a life of ease without effort. Democracy is not for such people. Self-government is for those men and women who have learned to govern themselves.

No great party can survive except on the basis of firm beliefs about what it wants to do. It is not enough to have reluctant support. We want people’s enthusiasm as well.

Remarks opening the new wing of Churchill Archives Centre, 30th October 2002.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=109441

I would just offer two friendly warnings. First, even the fullest record, in my experience, never conveys the essence of a crisis. Having read through much of the documentation of my premiership when I was working on my memoirs, I was often struck by the way in which the mood of the moment was lost. Tension and trouble – and in government there are plenty of both – are efficiently smoothed away by the note-takers.

Secondly, and more generally, I caution against politicians or historians imagining that a knowledge of the facts and access to past experience alone provide the answers to the most important questions. Convictions drawn from outside politics are also required in order to take the right political decisions. Our beliefs – and indeed our instincts – must anchor us firmly if we are not to capsize in the daily storms of politics. There is more to leadership than enlightened pragmatism.