How, and to what extent, was Margaret Thatcher successful Free Essay Example, 2500 words

The new post-war Britain was in a state of transition from his conventional politics and values when she left Grantham behind. Britain significantly transited during the World War II, thus making the circumstances favorable for the victory of the Labour Party of Clement Attlee in the year 1945. The year 1945 assumes immense significance as a point of transition in the political thinking history, with many changes happening on and after the culmination of the World War II being intensifications of the prevailing aspirations and conceptions instead of being new departures (Barker, 1996). The Attlee government built on the collectivism of the years of war and dwelled on the industrial nationalization, thus paving the way for the introduction of the welfare state. Complete employment became the political life’s overriding object to the politicians’ generation that had witnessed the 1930s’ mass unemployment. Margaret Thatcher proceeded with this like most of the ambi tious politicians before her. However, to maintain a full employment, it was essential for the Labour and Conservative successive governments to interfere more minutely into the economy in a variety of ways including the establishment of wages and dictation of prices. We will write a custom essay sample on How, and to what extent, was Margaret Thatcher successful or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now In this process, the economic freedoms and the private enterprise which had to be supported by the Conservatives were crowded out. It was essentially â€Å"the road to serfdom† (Cowdrill, 2010, p. 88) as had been warned by Friedrich Hayek, the favorite intellectual guru of Margaret Thatcher in the year 1944. Some politicians and intellectuals including Keith Joseph and Enoch Powell rallied to the cause of Friedrich Hayek, but they were ridiculed as nonconformists whereas on her part, Margaret Thatcher resolved to climb the greasy pole. When she took the role of education secretary in the government of Edward Heath between 1970 and 1974, Heath firstly tried to adopt the approach of free-market into the economic management, but with the rise in the rate of unemployment beyond the 1m mark, he was pushed to take a U-turn. Then the government displayed spending binge of such a magnitude to decrease the rate of unemployment that by the year 1975, inflation went over 24 per cent (Cowdrill, 2010, p. 47) and a lot of people started hoarding food. That was the time when Margaret Thatcher became a Thatcherite. Joseph convinced her that the country would be saved by a free-market approach. These very daring policies in the year 1975 served as the agenda of Margaret Thatcher for the next decade and a half.