The issue of poverty under Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925 and died last year, on April 8th2013.
She was called the 'Iron Lady' because of her tough character. She was at the head of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990 and was elected at the general election of 1979, after a long period of discontent in the 1970s, and thanks to her promise of a new beginning for Britain. She rapidly faced unpopularity, (cartoons) but her successful leadership during the Falklands War and the division among the opposition allowed her to stay in power for another terms in 1983 and again in 1987.

By the mid-1980s, she had failed stopping Britain's decline. Industrial and manufacturing production had significantly fallen and unemployment kept rising. However, she succeeded in privatising national industries and in curbing the power of the trade unions.
But the most concerning issue by the 1980s was poverty. Margaret Thatcher is said to have created an unequal society, divided between the poor, with fewer and fewer help from the government, and the rich, favoured by reductions in income tax. This double standard society was also geographical. North of England concentrated the most depressed areas. 94% of the jobs lost since 1979 had been lost in this industrial area.
To what extent did Thatcher influenced the British economy and worsen poverty ?

Slide 2 :

Tatcherism (slide)

This quote tends to illustrate Thatcher's opinion of a welfare state. Her will to cut public spending and her belief that people should rely on themselves were not in favor of this system.

Slide 3 :

As we can see, two of her major measures were in order to reduce the help provided by the NHS, whereas when she was elected she claimed that ' The NHS is safe with us'. (slide 2)

Besides, she thought the trade unions weakened the economic so she made sure their power would be reduced, thanks to the 6 Acts of Parliament : the Employment Act of 1980, of 1980, of 1988, of 1989, of 1990, and the trade Union act of 1984. Trade union membership tended to decrease since its peak in 1979.

Eventually, the Charge Community passed in 1987 provoked a great protest. (slide)

Slide 4 :

This strict economic policy led to a growth of poverty and unemployement. (slide)

Although, the government sold many state-owned houses and flats to the people who lived in them, it also halved the number of new houses in built between 1981 and 1985, a period in which the number of homeless people increased.
This period was resented as people felt just like during the Victorian area and its strict social policy.

(brochure) : According to the speech she delivered to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton, in 1984, Margaret Thatcher declared that she had not yet manage to reduce the unemployment because the population was dramatically increasing due to the baby boom of the sixties. As a consequence, the number of people searching for jobs was very high, even if she said that “ there are new industries and new jobs in the pipeline.”

Slide 5 :

According to the photos, we can we can compare the miners' strikes under thatcher to the demonstrations of the 1920s, because people were desperately struggling for their jobs . The demonstrations were much more violent under Thatcher.
(slide)

(video)
The strike was the background for the 2000 film Billy Elliot, based around County Durham mining communities Easington and Seaham. Several scenes depict the chaos at the picket lines, clashes between armies of police and striking miners, and the shame associated with crossing the picket line. The film also showed the abject poverty associated with the strike, together with the harshness and desperation of not having coal for heat in winter.

As a conclusion, we can refer to the second text of the brochure to say that Thatcherism was about “ the right of individuals to run their own lives, as free as possible from micromanagement from the state.” Indeed, all thatcher's policies were not so bad, because she freed the economy from the control of the state, and prevent the unions from crashing the economy.
Nevertheless, her economic policy which focused on free market, and the measures created to enforce people to take care of themselves without state help “sowed the seeds of the recent economic crisis” and poor people's living conditions became worse.