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Stop Thatcher having a state funeral
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geoffrey_prime
geoffrey_prime
758 posts

Re: Stop Thatcher having a state funeral
Aug 20, 2009, 20:05
oooo how patronising!

I am not prepared to waste valuable time in a pointless exercise. I have though taken a few minutes to "Google"...and if you really want to learn something...as you would expect there is lot's of stuff on "Thatcherism".

The following extract from Wiki..
Which I have read and agree with, sums it up..

Thatcherism Overview

Margaret Thatcher"Thatcherism" is supposedly characterized by decreased state intervention via the free market economy, monetarist economic policy, privatisation of state-owned industries, opposition to trade unions, and a reduction of the size of the Welfare State. "Thatcherism" may be compared with Reaganomics in the United States, Rogernomics in New Zealand and Economic Rationalism in Australia. Thatcher was deeply in favour of individualism over collectivism, with self-help as a mantra.

Thinkers closely associated with Thatcherism include Keith Joseph, Enoch Powell, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. In an interview with Simon Heffer in 1996 Thatcher stated that the two greatest influences on her as Conservative leader had been Joseph and Powell, "both of them very great men".[2]

Friedman once said: "the thing that people do not recognise is that Margaret Thatcher is not in terms of belief a Tory. She is a nineteenth-century Liberal."[3] Mrs. Thatcher believed in economic liberalism and stated in 1983 that "We have a duty to make sure that every penny piece we raise in taxation is spent wisely and well. For it is our party which is dedicated to good housekeeping—indeed, I would not mind betting that if Mr. Gladstone were alive today he would apply to join the Conservative Party".[4] In the 1996 Keith Joseph memorial lecture Mrs. Thatcher argued that "The kind of Conservatism which he and I...favoured would be best described as 'liberal', in the old-fashioned sense. And I mean the liberalism of Mr. Gladstone, not of the latter day collectivists".[5]

Nigel Lawson, Mrs. Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989, has defined Thatcherism as:

'Thatcherism' is, I believe, a useful term … No other modern Prime Minister has given his or her name to a particular constellation of policies and values. However it needs to be used with care. The wrong definition is 'whatever Margaret Thatcher herself at any time did or said'. The right definition involves a mixture of free markets, financial discipline, firm control over public expenditure, tax cuts, nationalism, 'Victorian values' (of the Samuel Smiles self-help variety), privatization and a dash of populism.[6]


Theory of Thatcherism
The policies of "Thatcherism" were based on monetarist, or supply-side, theories of U.S. economists. According to monetarist theory, inflation results when government pumps money into the economy at a rate higher than the nation's economic growth rate. Thus, government should keep a tight rein on the money supply to prevent prices from rising rapidly. Supply-side economists maintain that the economy as a whole flourishes when businesses grow and their prosperity "trickles down" throughout the society.[7]

Notes:
2. Simon Heffer (1999). Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell. Phoenix. pp. 958. ISBN 075380820X.
3. The Observer, 29 September 1982
4. Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1983)
5. Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture (11 January 1996)
6. Nigel Lawson (1992). The View From No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical. London: Bantam. pp. 64. ISBN 0593022181.
7. Hunt, Lynn, et al. (2009). The Making of the West, Vol. C (Since 1740), 3rd Edition. Bedford/St. Martin. pp. 940
8. Peter Hennessy (2001). The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945. Penguin. pp. 397. ISBN 0140283935.
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