The Lady's Not For Turning Speech

A Future of Change

Britain was restless with the falling economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With the country's new prime minister, the public were ready for change. In her “The Lady’s not For Turning” speech, Margaret Thatcher hopes to win the support of the British public for her party and for her decisions regarding domestic policies, foreign affairs and the issues concerning unemployment.

Margaret Thatcher was one of the most influential political leaders in Britain's history. In 1979, Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom (“BBC On This Day”). Although Thatcher was loved for her time in office, she was equally hated for it as well. The UK during this time had been facing a recession with the highest unemployment levels ever and terrible inflation (Monaghan).

She uses statistics such as how “2 million unemployed in [her] time does not mean what it did in the 1930s” (“Speech to Conservative Party”). This fact shows how the rise in population is directly connected to a rise in unemployment and although unemployment has gone up the percentage of those unemployed has gone down. This contrast makes it seem less drastic than how unemployment was portrayed by the opposition. Using a metaphor Thatcher goes onto describe how fixing unemployment is not as simple as “pressing a button” and if it was she would have done so by now (“Speech to Conservative Party”). With this the listener sympathizes with her because the metaphor describes how she really is sincere about unemployment issues and she is doing all she can to deal with them. To conclude speaking on unemployment, Thatcher uses detail to describe how in other countries had solved unemployment by “lowering inflation” first (“Speech to Conservative Party”). This conclusion is clearly backed up by her statistics and makes it very believable and trustworthy to the