Margaret Thatcher- The Lady who wasn’t for Turning
Two enduring images of Thatcher: the villain in Spitting Image and the hero in Time magazine.
What makes a leader a hero? In my opinion, the determining factor that makes a leader a hero is the context in which they change a nation for the better. Heroes distinguish themselves from ordinary leaders because they initiate vital change during difficult times, be it wars or economic slumps, with a vision that makes their legacy long lasting and widespread. The extent to which Margaret Thatcher can be considered a hero or a villain is a controversial question of history and depends largely on perspective. To some, she was a tyrant, leading with an iron fist that increased social divide in the UK, whilst to others she was a hero- someone who symbolised a conviction of belief and brought about much needed change to a declining nation. First and foremost, Thatcher’s legacy rested upon the hinges of economic change through her radical, but much needed, free market economic policies. Indeed Thatcher’s economic policy was largely based on the work of Friedrich Hayek, a classical economist who essentially argued for competition within markets, incentives for innovation in the form of low tax rates and weak trade unions, and a government that would refrain from intervention, leaving economic activity to market forces. Thatcher did exactly this, lowering the top rate tax from a ridiculous 83% when she came into power to a far more acceptable 40% by the time she left power, reducing the number of individual working days lost to strikes from 29 million to 2 million, and initiating the process of privatisation and deregulation in the UK by privatising state owned assets such as BP and BT and breaking up the monopolies in the gas and electricity industry. These significant changes to the UK economy benefitted the country greatly because they encouraged innovation, entrepreneurship, and independence whilst increasing efficiency and lowering costs through the privatisation process. This, in turn, created profits and business confidence in the nation, which then trickled down into the lower parts of the economy by creating jobs in the long run. This economic change was supported by a lower rate of income tax, which meant that workers were being rewarded more for their Economic Policy
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