The Thatcher Governments

1979

• Unemployment above 1 million
• Strikes ('Winter of Discontent')
• Labour Party splits following the General Election
• Dependency culture?
• Thatcher has a 43 seat majority

Monetarism

• Aim = control inflation
• Achieved by cutting government spending
• Inflation fell from 19% (1979) to 5% (1983)
• BUT; 1981 - recession and riots
• Unemployment rose above 3 million in 1982

The Falklands, 1982

• Helped deliver Thatcher victory in 1983 GE
• Seen as victory which restored British pride
• BUT; 1982, government had discussed a 'leaseback' of the islands
• Lucky in that Argentina was badly organised
• Thatcher extended her majority to 144 in 1983

The Miners strike, 1984/5

• Again, Thatcher was lucky in her opponent (Scargill)
• The government had passed Employment Acts in 1982 and 1984
• Thatcher had also stockpiled coal
• Violence erupted (Orgreave)
• Union power has never recovered

Supply-side economics

• U-turn from Monetarism
• Represented a return to incentives
• Reduced tax, increased incentives, cut welfare spending
• Deregulated; finance, education, hospitals, housing
• Privatisation; British Airways, Steel, Coal, Telecom

Post-1987

• 1987; majority 100
• Councils ordered to contract out services to save money
• Education Reform Act (1988); National Curriculum, GMS, league tables, KS
• Poll Tax - 1989

The fall of thatcher

• Enemies - Meyer, Heseltine, Lawson, Howe
• Europe
• Poll Tax
• Belief she would lose the next general election