A true statesman, one thinker said, changes the climate of his time.
Margaret Thatcher is of that sort. She was not only Britain’s only female prime minister. She was the only British prime minister in the 20th century to serve three consecutive terms.
She deserves that bronze statue before Parliament, alongside that of Winston Churchill. Unlike Churchill, however, she had the pleasure of inaugurating her own monument. There are benefits to living long.
Churchill was Britain’s wartime prime minister, the one who pleaded with his people for their “blood, sweat and tears†so that their democracy may prevail against the odds. As soon as the war was won, however, Churchill was ousted from power. Democratic politics oftentimes bows to errant winds.
Maggie Thatcher, a grocer’s daughter, might have taken a fourth term in office, but her own party turned against her. Having been taken down as party leader, she could not be prime minister again. Her party went on to win the polls, installing the forgettable John Major as conservative prime minister.
The feisty woman, dubbed the Iron Lady by the Soviet press for her confrontational speeches even before she rose to the top of the political pole. The Queen named her baroness after she stepped down. That gave her a seat at the House of Lords from which she resigned a decade ago after a stroke.
When she rose to the premiership, Britain was called the Sick Man of Europe. Her heavily nationalized economy was in a state of paralysis. The unions were potent forces, dictating policy more than the elected parliament. Youth unemployment was in the high thirties in an economy gripped by recession. All the major nationalized industries — British Airways, British Petroleum, British Rail — were losing heavily, forcing the nation into debt. Punks dominated the popular culture.
Bringing Britain back on its feet was a daunting task. As the say, the best man for the job was a woman. Maggie stepped confidently onto the plate.
Even those who vehemently disagreed with Thatcher conceded she had clarity of vision and stood staunchly for it. That earned her grudging respect.
In her over 11 years in power, Maggie Thatcher turned Britain around. She liberalized the financial market, restoring London as a global center for finance. She privatized all the losing nationalized industries and closed down the inefficient mines.
When Argentina, seeing Britain weakened by domestic troubles, seized the Malvinas (Falklands), Thatcher went to war. The Argentinian military suffered the lady’s wrath. The dictatorship that so brutally ruled that country could not last for very long after the indignity dealt the military.
To achieve her goals of economic transformation, Thatcher had to war with the unions as well. The unions wanted to protect their pelf by protecting a dead economic arrangement. Thatcher crushed the power of the unions in order to liberate the economy.
To say her style of leadership is polarizing will be an understatement. Even after her death, her enemies would not rest. The Left did not want a state funeral for her because that involved public expense.
To say she was effective as a leader will be an understatement as well. Thatcher mounted nothing less than a revolution that brought prosperity back to Britain. Her remarkable leadership, her immense political will, led her to be described as a “conviction politician†(a genre with paltry few members today). She knew what had to be done; and went ahead doing it.
Her contemporary, Ronald Reagan shared her vision and she enjoyed his warm friendship. Together (and later to be joined by Germany’s Helmut Kohl) they tore down big government, built up economic freedom and insisted modern regimes ought to put the individual ahead of the state.
Another contemporary, French socialist president Francois Mitterrand, was constantly wary of the feisty English conservative. Mitterrand is said to have once described Thatcher as a person “with the lips of Marilyn and the eyes of Caligula.†The ideological divide between them was just too wide.
My Thatcher
I must confess that, once upon a time, I shared Mitterrand’s wariness (nay, disdain) towards Thatcher and all she represented.
A student in France when Thatcher took power in 1979, I stood firmly on the Left. I believed the unions were the force that moved history and the state the final broker of humanity’s destiny. Those might sound like funny ideas even then, but I was an émigré from the Diliman Republic where at that time old ideologies were in fashion, where the universe was a bit smaller and the future was utterly unforeseen.
Fortunately, at that time, I struck an intense friendship with two Britons: Diana, who is Welsh, and Pippa who is Scot). We regularly gathered for beer after school. After toiling the day in French, it was such a relief to sit back and argue in the comfort of the English language.
My two dear friends were ardent, almost militant, admirers of Thatcher. We argued intensely over that. Through weeks of argument, my own ideological compass and philosophical axis began to shift. I have met the enemy, and they were right (not just Right).
Over the years, the issues transformed and perspectives evolved. The world changed, and I with it.
Today, I mourn Margaret Thatcher’s passing. It is true what was said of great statesmen: they change the climate of their time. I felt it.