Margaret Thatcherism

Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She was a member of the Conservative Party in the UK and to this day her reign is still a cause of controversy among many in England, especially those living in the north. However, she managed to transform the United Kingdom into the opportunistic paradise that it has been since the mid nineteen eighties. She held many ideologies on the topics of the British economy and multiculturalism. Certain aspects of these ideologies led to them affecting the British society in both positive and negative ways. Her form of politics also led to her generating an ‘ism’ in ‘Thatcherism’.

In terms of her practices on economic policies, one of the most famous and controversial

As Anthony Seldon and Daniel Collings stated in their publication, Britain Under Thatcher, The policy of privatisation called "a crucial ingredient of Thatcherism" (Seldon, Collings, 1). Thatcher accelerated her wish to privatise many state owned companies after her success in retaining power from the 1983 general election. The government sold twenty nine billion pounds worth of state owned business to private companies. This impacted British society as it fuelled the huge economic growth that the United Kingdom experienced during this time. However, privatisation also often results in these services becoming more expensive to the general public as private businesses run their companies to make a profit, whereas the government’s main focus for these services is to make them available to its citizens, then to try and make a profit. This point is emphasised by Jean Jacques Laffont in his book, Privatisation and Incentives. In this publication, the author states ‘the cost of public ownership is a suboptimal investment by the firm’s managers in those assets that can be redeployed to serve social goals pursued by the public owners’ (Laffont, 1). It is evident from these examples that Thatcher’s economic policy of privatisation impacted the British society during her reign. It helped to increase economic growth for the United

‘The Iron Lady’ transformed Britain culturally where opportunities were available for all to grasp. The immigrants from around the world became, as Ross Douthat stated in his article in The New York Times, ‘the engineers of growth’ (Douthat, 1). The author continues to argue that today’s Great Britain is baring the fruits of Thatcher’s work during her reign as Prime Minister; ‘The seeds of today’s multicultural, global London – epitomized by that Olympic ceremony (in 2012) – were sown by Thatcher’s will-power’ (Douthat, 2). It’s obvious that Thatcher’s political ideology on multiculturalism had a huge effect on British society. It had such an impact that Britain today is still benefiting from Thatcher’s ideology. She made the United Kingdom an extremely attractive destination for immigrants to come and carve out a better life for