• Home
• UK Politics
• World Politics
• Policy
• Media
• Lifestyle
• Sport
• Contributors
• Topics

In Defence of Margaret Thatcher

Former General Secretary of the Labour Party, Peter Watt explains why Margaret Thatcher is rightly lauded as one of the greatest PM’s of all time.

By Peter Watt

28 Nov 2011, 12:00

I am about to write something that I never thought I would – a defence of Margaret Thatcher.  Not that I suspect that many people think she needs one, but I think that we on the left still haven’t got over the trauma of the long period in opposition that she imposed upon us.  Worse still, it seems that we are in danger of forgetting why she was successful and we weren’t.  And with the Meryl Streep film ‘Iron Lady’ out soon there is an inevitable re-kindling of some pretty strong feelings on all sides about her.

Now before anyone starts the entirely predictable ‘you’re in the wrong Party’ tripe let me first say this.  It was Margaret Thatcher that first politicised me – objecting to her ‘there is no such thing as society’ approach was at odds with my own sense the world.  Like so many I was angry at the seeming indifference to the unemployed; the devastation of so many of our northern towns and the passing of section 28.  And that is before you get to the unforgiveable attacks on the ANC and her defence of the then apartheid regime in South Africa.   All of this added to a determination that what she represented had to be stopped.  I remember the excitement I felt when she finally did resign.

I still feel all of those things.  But I also know something else.  She was incredibly successful and popular.  She won three general elections in a row and increased her vote at each.  Huge swathes of middle England adored her and she trounced Labour.  I remember at the time I just couldn’t understand it.  Everyone I knew wanted her gone and yet she kept winning.  Unemployment kept rising and still she kept winning.  Polls seem to turn against her and still she kept winning.  By-elections kept being lost and still she kept winning.  People booed at members of her Cabinet when they appeared on Question Time and enthusiastically cheered Labour politicians.  Millions marched against her and still she kept winning.

Labour folk like me just couldn’t understand it.  And so we blamed the voters.  But the problem was that Margaret Thatcher knew something we didn’t.  A significant number of voters make their decision on who to vote for on who they feel has their best interest at heart.  So her tough no nonsense approach that emphasized strong leadership, personal responsibility and aspiration worked for many.  The opportunity to own your own home, the talking up of Britain after the 1970’s and standing up to the French and Germans all hit the mark.  It didn’t matter what the realities were of whether, say, her tough talking on Europe actually amounted to anything because it was how she made people feel. 

The World seemed pretty scary with poor international economic conditions and a threatening Eastern Bloc.  Labour’s positions may well have seemed reasonable to Labour but frankly the last thing people wanted was reasonable.  What they wanted was strong and uncompromising leadership – and with Margaret T that was what they got.

And quite frankly we also need to reflect on the fact that thirteen years of Labour Government did not see the wholesale reversal of her legacy, in fact we barely reversed anything.   At the time we may have objected to the privatisation of BA, BT or British Gas but with hindsight we were never going to reverse them and why the hell did we even object?  There was always a row at Party Conference about reversing the Tories Trade Union legislation but we were never really going to legislate to allow secondary pickets or strikes without a ballot of members.  In other words, despite the fact that we look back and despise, the reality is that we have not changed a whole lot of what she actually did.

And that is why now I have come to admire her.  Not everything she did or stood for, but as an incredibly successful democratically elected Leader.  She is rightly lauded as one of the greatest PM’s of all time.  It wasn’t until people in the Labour Party recognised that maybe they need to start looking at what they were doing and saying for the causes of our defeats, rather than at the voters stupidity, that we started to become competitive.  We needed to understand voters beliefs, fears and hopes rather than just pandering to our own sense of what was right and wrong.  But even then we still lost the 1992 election to a weak Tory Leader.  The voters were still to be convinced.

But to read some of the Thatcher hating twitter and blog posts about at the moment and you’d think that Labour had spent all of the 1980’s and early 90’s winning the argument.  You’d think that Margaret Thatcher was hated by everyone when she kept winning.  You’d think that she was despised by people now – when polls say that is far from being the case.  If we are to win again anytime soon then we must not rewrite history.  We need to remember that from 1979 – 1997 we were in opposition because we kept losing.  And we kept losing because more people voted for Margaret Thatcher (and John Major) than voted Labour.

But most of all we need to remember that she won and we lost because she instinctively understood voters.  She knew how to make them feel secure and provided strong leadership.  She spoke up for people who wanted to better themselves and their families.    She was the daughter of a Grocer and understood the needs of families struggling but determined to make ends meet.  And for all of that, and despite that fact that so much of what she stood for I oppose, ultimately I admire and respect her.  Labour would do well not to forget the lessons learned over those long 18 years in opposition