Sloan: Britain’s Thatcher was most influential leader

LAKEVILLE — Noel Sloan believes that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the great transformational leader of the 20th century.In a talk at The Hotchkiss School Friday, March 23, Sloan painted a vivid picture of the career of the woman known as “The Iron Lady.”Sloan said the state of Britain in the 1970s is best summed up in three events. The three-day week, in 1974, occurred because there was only enough electricity for businesses to function for three days.Britain had to ask the International Monetary Fund for financial assistance in 1976, and the nadir was the “Winter of Discontent” in 1978-79, with municipal, transport and health workers on strike. Hospitals accepted emergency cases only, and uncollected garbage piled up on the streets of London.In Liverpool, Sloan said, a gravedigger’s strike caused serious consideration of dumping corpses at sea.Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan, in office from April 1976 to May 1979, said at the time that if he was a young person he would consider emigrating.Fast forward to November 1990 when Thatcher left office. The economy of the United Kingdom was the fastest growing in Europe, Sloan said. Living standards had improved by 33 percent. “Britain went from frequent strikes and high taxes to few strikes and low taxes,” he said.A blighted area of East London became an international business center, Canary Wharf.Sloan said the weak Labour government was replaced by Thatcher’s Conservative government in three successive elections — an electoral record not seen since the Napoleonic Wars.Internationally, Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan developed a strong rapport — “the closest relationship between a prime minister and a president” — and Thatcher “earned the trust and respect” of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.“In 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and by 1990 the Berlin Wall was down and the Soviet Union had collapsed,” Sloan said. “Britain had a leader able to implement her vision.”Thatcher “was not a conservative, she was a revolutionary,” said Sloan. “She did not like what she saw in Britain.”Since the end of World War II, both Conservative and Labour governments “believed they could manage the economy with big businesses and trades unions,” Sloan said. Thatcher’s objection to this approach was “fundamental.” She saw government intervention in the economy as socialism, and believed “the government’s role was to govern, not to enter into partnerships with powerful interests.”Solutions for BritainThatcher came at Britain’s problems from three angles — patriotism, a strong moral sense and a belief that Britain could be turned around.The idea that “Britain could be great again was exciting and refreshing,” Sloan said. On the moral front, Thatcher passionately believed that “individuals should run as much of their lives as possible,” and stubbornly pushed for limited government, low taxes and balanced budgets.“She believed free markets were the best way to achieve prosperity. She believed in a ‘property-owning democracy,’” he said.Thatcher’s government privatized three major British state-run enterprises — British Telecom, British Steel and British Airways. Utility companies, providing electricty and water, improved efficiency under private management and investment. More than a million units of public housing were sold.In 1979, when Thatcher was first elected, the top tax rate in the U.K. was 98 percent, and the standard rate that most people paid was 33 percent. Thatcher cut those to 40 percent and 25 percent, respectively.But Thatcher did not dismantle the welfare state, Sloan said. Under the Conservatives, public spending on health care and education increased. Health care and university tuition remained free.“Prosperity enabled more spending,” Sloan said.She had an unabashed admiration for the U.S., which she said was “the greatest force for liberty the world has known.”“Her unstated goal was to make Britain more like America,” he said.Thatcher had an equally ferocious dislike of Communism. “Communism was the opposite of everything she believed in,” he said. “She saw it as depriving individuals of basic freedoms, and saw detente as a policy of defeat.”To that end she supported American defense programs such as the Strategic Defense Initiative. “She contributed in a practical way to the collapse of the Soviet Union.”Making vision a realityThatcher was able to implement her vision for Britain because of her perseverance, courage and pragmatism, Sloan said. She engaged in war with Argentina in 1982 over the Falkland Islands because she saw the matter as clear-cut: “It was an attack on British territory and British subjects were in danger of coming under the rule of a military dictatorship.”The Falklands are 8,000 miles from Britain, Sloan said. The move was risky.But Thatcher pressed ahead, saying, “The possibility of failure does not exist.”“Britain was used to failure, but here was the prime minister delivering success,” Sloan said.In 1984 a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army went off in Thatcher’s hotel. Unhurt, the prime minister emerged “calm, defiant, and, as always, looking immaculate.”Thatcher’s pragmatism was evident in her dealings with the coal miners. In a 1981 strike, Thatcher’s government made significant concessions.But three years later, when the miners struck again, Thatcher was ready. The government had stockpiled coal, so there were no blackouts. The miners eventually returned to work, and the episode marked “the end of militant trade unionism” in the U.K.Thatcher was often dragging a reluctant Cabinet along with her, Sloan said. “Only a minority of cabinet ministers shared her vision.”One of Thatcher’s qualities was her energy. She said she needed five hours sleep per night, and when the IRA bomb went off at 3 a.m., she was working.In early 1990, the economic boom had slowed and there was dissent in the Conservative Party. Thatcher, needing a super majority to remain as head of the party and therefore as prime minister, lost by two votes.Not only was Britain in a recession, but Thatcher faced opposition to property tax reforms and her cautious, even skeptical, approach to the European Union.And Conservatives had tired of the combative PM. When she left office, it was with characteristic understatement. “It’s a funny old world,” she said.Thatcher’s legacy is one of transformation, Sloan said, calling Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair “a triumph” of Thatcherism. “He learned lessons from Thatcher, and realized that Labour was too far left. He did not reverse union reforms, didn’t raise the top tax rate, and used market forces to improve public services.”Thatcher “despised consensus,” said Sloan. “She was a conviction politican.“The irony is her convictions produced a new consensus.”