The Thatcher Years

Abstract

In the early hours of 4 May 1979 Mrs Thatcher, standing on the steps of No 10, Downing Street, quoted from St Francis of Assisi: 'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. Where there is despair, may we bring hope.' The unctuous tone, not quite eliminating the slight rasp of her diction, was by this time a familiar characteristic of her political persona; the calculated and breathtaking cynicism however was still able ;o shock. Seven vears on she stands condemned by her own words. There is evidence to suppose that both her and her government are now widely discredited. They have displayed a dazzling capacity for incompetence. There is little rkason to believe we are any nearer the promised light at the end of the tunnel, and indeed it would seem proven beyond doubt that the costs of the government's economic strategy have been decisively shifted to the unemployed and the impoverished. The recent willingness to involve Britain in lunatic military confrontations has palpably worried some of the Conservatives' most established sectors of support. And perhaps most damaging of all the probity of Mrs Thatcher and her ministers has been questioned on numerous occasions: double-dealing, mendacity and preferment fester beneath the sanctimonious call for a return to an older moral order. Mrs Thatcher promised a crusade. She has brought instead discord, despair and death.