Window on Westminster

 

British politics has been dominated for the last fortnight by wall-to-wall coverage of the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with widely divergent assessments of her - decisive saviour or divisive villain.

She dominated my early adulthood. When she was elected in 1979, I naively thought that the miners would stop her in six months but she defeated them six years later after an epic one year strike. I later helped build a broad alliance against the poll tax. This flat-rate municipal charge imposed on people regardless of their income was deeply unpopular and caused her Cabinet colleagues to tell her to quit Downing Street in 1990.

But Maggie, as she was known to friend and foe alike, was undoubtedly one of the greatest British Prime Ministers of the 20th century. She was the only woman to make it to the top. Many feminists didn't see her as a sister but her example helped open politics to women. There are far more women in politics now if fewer than the Kurdistan and Iraqi parliaments.

She axed policies and institutions that she said sapped British economic and political power. The post-war golden period of British capitalism with rising consumer spending, full employment and an explosion of personal freedoms had shuddered to a halt in the early 70s, thanks in part to massive Opec oil hikes. But the structural deficits of the "British disease" were runaway inflation, short-sighted unions and poor management that couldn't invest for the long term.

Mrs Thatcher pioneered a new approach based on boosting markets and managers through a radical programme of privatisation, curbing the unions and asserting British power. The Soviets dubbed her the Iron Lady, which she took as a compliment. Her supporters claim that her close alliance with Ronald Reagan's America helped end the Cold War. She put backbone into evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait when George Bush Senior wobbled. Retaking the Falkland Islands from the Argentinian junta was a massive gamble that could very easily have failed but success helped secure a second landslide victory.

Mrs Thatcher privatised unresponsive public monopolies in gas, electricity and telecommunications although many now complain that are ruthlessly profiteering private oligopolies. She also sold tenants their state-owned homes at knock-down prices to create a property-owning democracy where owners were less likely to be clients of Labour and more responsible for their own fates. There was a major shake out in traditional manufacturing as the UK economy was opened to global competition.

However, this shock therapy devastated the lives of millions.  Furthermore, refusing to replace state owned homes caused major housing shortages. Today's pattern of living is becoming more Kurdish as children stay longer at the parental home because rents and mortgages are beyond their means.

Mrs Thatcher once explained that "Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul" but her critics charge that the soul became too selfish while others say it was a necessary wake up call. Her governments benefitted from the North Sea oil boom which then accounted for 16% of Britain's income.

Opponents say that this oil bonanza wasn't used to build new industries for when the oil ran out. It was argued that there was no alternative to her policies but critics, including Conservatives, ask why she didn't ease the transition, especially in the north where her successors now have a small electoral base.

Mrs Thatcher's death was long expected but it suddenly become a moment of great political importance. The debate is a mixed bag. It reminds people that the Conservatives achieved what could be defined as changes that put the great back into Britain. It could also remind people of its high social cost and re-contaminate the party's image as "the nasty party," to use the phrase of Theresa May - the current Interior Minister and another potential leader in the Thatcherite mould.

The Conservatives are taking a tough line on immigration, welfare cheats, crime and Europe which could win electorally crucial working class support and make Labour look soft on those seen to fiddle the system. But there is a chance that it could backfire.

Mrs Thatcher's three electoral victories could also remind voters that it is 21 years since John Major's Conservatives won an election. Mrs Thatcher is seen as a leader who made the weather as a populist political teacher by adroitly shifting the crucial centre ground of politics to free-market politics.

The Iron Lady set a new gold or brass standard in British politics according to taste. Much of what she did in the 1980s was hotly contested then but has now been accepted as permanent, although some of the solutions created new problems that still afflict us.

Mrs Thatcher had a good send off. Britain does major weddings and funerals very well. But I suspect that when the heat, hysteria and hype of the past fortnight subsides British politics will return to business as usual.

* Gary Kent is the administrator of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and he writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity.