[15/04] CM 10

Margaret Thatcher

> Political death: 1990. Her political demise was due to a vote of her own party. She became a threat to the new liberal project of the party. So John Major won the internal election and replaced her for a couple of years.

> This overall objective was to reduce public spending. The main spenders of public money were local authorities, so one way to reduce it was to reduce the expenditures of local authorities. The plan was to adopt a new taxation system: the local rate, called in the media “the poll-tax”. In the law there was a “clause” which said that if you don't pay the tax you won't be able to vote. Instead of the old system of taxation which depended of personal wealth, the new tax would be indifferent and would tax everyone for the same amount per head. The tax was so unfair for poor people, that if the municipality didn't make the rate of taxation lower, the poor wouldn't be able to vote. At the occasion of this poll-tax, Thatcher was removed from her position of power.

> John Major continued the same policies as Thatcher.

Municipal housing: people who rented their flat for more than ~5 years could buy it very cheaply. Biggest single privatisation operation of thatcherism.

• Neo-conservatism: revival of 19^th C. atitudes, especially in the public assistance area. More and more people in the Cons party believed that people should look back to the 19^th C on the “Victorian values”, the value of self-help (poor people are annoying because they need assistance: manage your budget, don't drink too much, find a job, you'll be responsible). “Self-help” was the title of a book (which gave advice to manage your life ?). If you help the poor too much, they won't be motivated to try harder.

• (Neo-)liberalism: very little regulation in companies. Thatcher was opposed to the European Union: instead of more regulation, she wanted a deregulation. The Telecom sector was privatized. Energy, water, etc were privatized and so more easely deregulated.

• Monetarism: abandoning a policy of full-employement and don't see unemployement as a problem.

> Blair 1997-2002-2007 → Brown 2007-1010

Blairism was seen as a continuation of Thatcherism. Nowadays Blair help people in country in Asia of Africa about their politics, so they appear more acceptable for western contries (rich countries).

New Labour was all about “the third way”: the new labour and blair as the leader recognized the insurmontable legacy of Thacher. She had the right approach in economics. In a capitalism world what they wanted is to run the economics the right way. But it was neither left, nor right, just the economy. They tried to marginalized the rest of the people in the labour who didn't believe that they should follow the thatcherism economy. The New Labour people proposed to follow the Thatcher way (Mendelson proposed it in 2002).

> Under Thatcher, unemployement was a political problem, but it wasn't a fundamental problem, it was even a part of the solution: it would motivate people. Under Labour it's slightly different, they was suppose to be Labour, taking care about the interest of working people. So people expected the Labour to look at unemployement as a problem. Under Blairism the gvt pushed people to look for a job, and they created a minimum national wage. There was a different one for young people, to encourage employers to hire young people.

> 4 options: find a job, if you don't: find a volunteer work, if you don't: find a minion job, if you don't have any of the above you'll be forced to join a training course.

> PFI Private Finance Initiative from Thatcher, Blair turned it into PPP Public Private Partnership. Way of reducing the authority of public, give more to private.

> Privatize everything but not the NHS: central element of the modern British nation.