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Kenneth Harris. Thatcher. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.
Kenneth Minogue and Michael Biddess, eds. Thatcherism: Personality and Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Hugo Young. One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher. London: Macmillan, 1991. In May 1979 Margaret Thatcher started her more than eleven years as Prime Minister, determined to arrest and reverse the "decline" she felt was occurring as a result of the post-war consensus established by the Attlee Government and subsequent ones. By November 1990 when she left office, there was little doubt that Britain was a fundamentally different place both socially and politically. The power of trade unions had been rolled back considerably, privatization was a reality rather than the dream of some conservative think-tanks, and Socialism was dead as a serious political ideal or movement in British politics and society. While there is little debate that these changes did indeed occur over the past two decades in British society and politics, there is considerable debate over the role that Thatcher played in creating these changes. Michael Biddess, in his essay on Thatcherism in his co-edited book Thatcherism: Personality and Politics, argues that these changes could not have occurred without her. Supporting this view is Kenneth Harris who argues that the Thatcher Government must be seen as one of the most important Governments in twentieth century Britain, and the most important since the legendary Attlee Government of 1945-51. Yet while the individual members of the Attlee Government could later claim shared responsibility for the changes they implemented, Harris argues that only Thatcher can rightfully claim personal credit for the changes implemented under her three Governments. [1] Agreeing with this viewpoint, but quite different in tone from the first two is Hugo Young, who entitles his book One of Us, but ends with the statement that Thatcher really "wasn’t one of us." [2] Important changes were indeed made, but they were not completely retained by her successors. Finally, Peter Jenkins offers a completely opposite viewpoint, arguing that serious changes did indeed occur during the 1980s within British society and politics, but that they were more as a result of long-term trends underway long before Thatcher, rather than due to any intervention on her part.
Biddess begins by comparing the 1979 and 1983 general elections. In 1979, "Thatcherism" was merely given "its opportunity, not its national endorsement." [3] The James Callaghan Government lost the election, as governments often do, but it hardly can be said that Thatcher herself won the election. Yet just four years later, Thatcher and her various policies and ideals became "the terms and ideas on which the [June 1983 general election] was fought." [4] Despite a much higher unemployment rate and generally more worse economic conditions than when she came to office, her Government was reelected in a landslide with the greatest amount of seats in the post-1945 period prior to 1997. [5] While Biddess concedes this degree of electoral success can not be seen "as any simple token of national conversion to her values," he nevertheless concludes that Thatcher’s policies attracted much support from many Britons, and that more important than that, she set the tone and tenor of British politics and society for the 1980s and beyond. [6]
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