Margaret Thatcher: Britain’s Greatest Ever Culture Warrior?

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Margaret Thatcher via Wikimedia commons

It is often said that Britain’s first woman Prime Minister is the greatest economic reformer that her country has ever produced.

But what’s usually left out is the degree to which her culture wars helped shaped the mood of the time, which made it possible to privatize vast swathes of the British economy, emasculate the trade unions and win three general elections in the late 70s and throughout the 80s.

Anyone who has read the stepping stones papers which was generated by the Conservative party research department in the late 70s will instantly appreciate this point.

Back in the late 70s, Britain was a country in crisis. It was to all intents and purposes, a third world country.

Its economy was on the ropes, the pound had been devalued and it had gone to the International Monetary Fund for urgent assistance. Britain in 1978 was a lot like Sri Lanka in 2022.

And the unions were incredibly powerful back then.

Under Thatcher’s Conservative predecessor, Britain had implemented the three day week initiative to conserve energy consumption across board.

Even when elections were called in 1974 to weaken the power of the unions, the Conservative party were…