As Margaret Thatcher biopic 'The Iron Lady' opens, a U of M scholar reviews Thatcherism
As "The Iron Lady," starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, opens in Minnesota this weekend, the reviewers generally seem to be saying that Streep is great, the film is not.
The University of Minnesota News Service looked around the faculty for a Thatcher expert and found John Watkins, who teaches in the English Department but whose research interests (historiography, sovereignty and queenship, medieval and early modern diplomacy, pre-modern political culture, and classical and medieval origins of the Renaissance) seems history-oriented. Watkins also lilved in Great Britain at the height of Thatcher’s power.
His take, according to the U's press release, is that Thatcher's legacy still divides the nation. Said Watkins:
“While many Britons laud her for redeeming Britain from the yoke of bankrupt socialist policies, others denounce her for reversing a commitment to the welfare of English men and women that dated back to the Victorians. Under her administration, privatization became the buzzword of day. She inherited a country with inflation dangerously approaching 20 percent; she dropped it by 10 percent in her first years.”
But the costs were enormous, including the highest level of unemployment Britain had seen since the '30s. Says the professor:
“Many charge Thatcher with cheapening the level of national discourse by replacing reasonable argument with slogans and sheer bullying. She led Britain to victory in the Falklands War, but so opposed Britain’s involvement with the European Union that she came close to isolating her country from the continent and alienating herself from her own party.”
Watkins concludes: “First of all, Thatcherism decisively changed the country’s economy and politics. Secondly, she had an unusually warm, albeit controversial, relationship with Ronald Reagan that drew Britain closer than ever into the American sphere of influence.”
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It's difficult to position Prime Ministers or indeed British political views with that of the US because they are so different. Americans would baulk at the idea of a stauch conservative who believed in the economics of Reagan but still oversaw universal healthcare and double-digit taxes.
That said, Maggie, as we lovingly call her, is our Reagan. She won the Falklands back, she built the City of London but she also made a lot of poor people a lot poorer and (some say) callously shut down a lot of blue collar industries and crushed the unions. She grew financial London but decimated the North of the the UK.
It's interesting that this movie is out now, because like the US, the UK is currently seeing a shift to the right. Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne are loud proponents of Thatcherism as current Republicans are of Reaganism. But like the current US conservative movement, the right is picking and choosing their memories of their beloved conservative leaders - Thatcher left office with the UK falling into a deeper mire than it found itself in when she arrived in 1978.
The UK now finds itself with government that are making all the mistakes she made - it bows down to the financial industry, it is fast becoming an outsider in Europe and it is doing little to help a young, impoverished rioting population. Our current PM, like Thatcher did in the mid eighties, also recently watched on as London burned as it poor inhabitants rioted. Lessons learned? I don't think so.
"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
- Lady Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher's legacy in Britain is the same as Ronald Reagan's in this country because they stood for the same things and stood for them unflinchingly. There are as many people who worship their memory as who despise them and what they stood for.
Maybe Streep is great and so is the film but the subject who's not. I think Dame Edna would have been preferable to act the part of Thatcher.
And today in prepartion for Olympic economics comes taking money away from school sports to pay for giant soon to be dinosaur stadiums of the new London. Pretty American or even more so Minnesotan idea. I guess Thatcher has lost plenty for Britian to come under the Reagan sphere. And what did British citizens become outraged over last fall? I am anxious to see how this film portrays someone who is very low on my fond historical memories scale.
Streep's genius is making people look better than they were.
And shouldn't that be 'Lord Thatcher'?
She sure ain't no lady.
Erik, I wish you would include more of this article. As it is we are just pulling out our own stereotypes. I have been reading/scanning the Guardian and the UK Mail for over a year now and find their press very entertaining. Today the Mail which is right of center bemoans some of the suffering in Greece. It is such refreshing reading because their boundaries over there seem more fluid.
dan--
That may be because the Germans are bashing the Greeks and saying that they should suck it in and shape up, so the Brits have to be contrary.