# UK: was Margaret Thatcher needed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755 "2004-12-02T20:30:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/21 "2004-12-05T23:37:51Z")
When Thatcher came to power Britain stood on the edge of a pecipice. Under her glorious leadership we took a great step forward. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/22 "2004-12-05T23:49:50Z")
I spent some time in England in 1975. Carter style malais had been deeply set in. One of the most frequently used words amongst the populace was the “dole”. The general economy appeared suspended in the 50s. The population was resigned to failure. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/23 "2004-12-05T23:52:32Z")
You do know that the number of people on the dole _trebled_ under Thatcher, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/24 "2004-12-05T23:53:37Z")
By the end of her leadership? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/25 "2004-12-06T00:05:04Z")
> [@grienspace](#): > > One of the most frequently used words amongst the populace was the “dole”. It’s ‘asylum seekers’ nowadays, and some time in the interim it was ‘benefits scroungers’. That’s just nasty media sensationalism. The number of people on benefits hasn’t fallen significantly since Thatcher took office. People have been shunted off the official jobless figures, into Incapacity Benefit etc. But there’s still roughly the same number of people not working. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/26 "2004-12-06T00:22:49Z")
After having read this [cite](http://www.inc.com/magazine/19881101/6028.html), I concur that unemployment actually rose from around 5% to around 8 % under Thatcher. Never mind that much of the workforce was unproductive in 79, but a reading of this cite will attest to the fact that a major favourable turnaround in the overall economy occurred under Thatcher. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/27 "2004-12-06T00:29:53Z")
**Gorillaman** said: > [@](#): > > The number of people on benefits hasn’t fallen significantly since Thatcher took office. People have been shunted off the official jobless figures, into Incapacity Benefit etc. But there’s still roughly the same number of people not working. I don’t believe this is true. Unemployment in Britain in 1980 was about 10%. It rose to a high of 12.5%, and then began to decline. The rate today is, I believe, somewhere around 6%. This despite the fact that only 34% of women were in the workforce in 1980, and now it’s almost double that. A huge number of jobs have been created in Britain in the post-Thatcher era. It’s also interesting to look at GDP growth in the 20 years before 1980 when labor ran Britain into the ground. Over that period, Britain’s GDP grew 49%, an average of about 2.5% per year. In comparison, here are the GDP growths of some other major economic powers: Canada: 95% France: 102% Hong Kong: 288% USA: 55% Japan: 241% Australia: 61% Spain: 137% Italy: 136% [Cite.](http://www.cepr.net/IMF/Emperor_Table_1.htm) In fact, Britain had one of the worst economic performances of any modern economy over that period of time, second only to New Zealand (which was also being run into the ground by socialists). On the other hand, in the period from 1980 to 2000, Britain’s growth average 55% per year - which doesn’t sound like much of an increase, until you realize that the ‘boom years’ were 1960 to 1980, and after that the economic performance of most other countries actually declined. Britain’s 55% GDP growth was better than: Switzerland Iceland Denmark Japan Sweden Austria Finland Netherlands France Canada Italy Australia New Zealand Greece And was only 1 point behind the U.S. So, in the pre-Thatcher era, Britain lagged pretty much every other industrialized nation in GDP growth, and had a high of 12.5% unemployment. In the post-Thatcher era, Britain has one of the best economic performances, and unemployment was cut by over half. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/28 "2004-12-06T00:30:30Z")
> [@grienspace](#): > > After having read this [cite](http://www.inc.com/magazine/19881101/6028.html), I concur that unemployment actually rose from around 5% to around 8 % under Thatcher. > > Never mind that much of the workforce was unproductive in 79, but a reading of this cite will attest to the fact that a major favourable turnaround in the overall economy occurred under Thatcher. And your cite for the ‘unproductive workforce’ is? It is always unclear how much politicians affect economies. World events seem to have far more effect. It is notable that Thatcher believed passionately in ‘monetarism’. As far as I know, this was dropped and never revived. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/29 "2004-12-06T02:24:56Z")
> [@Nametag](#): > > That’s rich. The massive wave of airline bankruptcies, service industry junk fees, and expensive, pointless expansion by banks and finance companies would rather seem to have borne out the “horrific cries of the left.” With respect to airlines, there is virtually no doubt whatsoever that service and prices are BETTER now that prior to deregulation. Regulation was totally unnecessary and and a terrible effect on the availability of service and the price. Small cities are now much better served, and the deals you can get and customer loyalty programs are phenomenal. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/30 "2004-12-06T02:44:35Z")
For the Americans amongst us, what the heck is a ‘poll tax?’ In our usage it is a tax on voters (at the polling place), used to discourage poor people from voting. The poll tax is now banned in the US. I think it means a flat tax of X pounds per person (per head, per poll) the money going to local government. While flat taxes are fairly nasty, why did this elicit such a remarkable reaction against the Tories? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/31 "2004-12-06T06:45:19Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > For the Americans amongst us, what the heck is a ‘poll tax?’ In our usage it is a tax on voters (at the polling place), used to discourage poor people from voting. The poll tax is now banned in the US. > > I think it means a flat tax of X pounds per person (per head, per poll) the money going to local government. > > While flat taxes are fairly nasty, why did this elicit such a remarkable reaction against the Tories? That was pretty much exactly what it was. It wasn’t an explicit attempt to alienate the poor, but an inevitable consequence was that people avoided joining the electoral register (itself a crime) to avoid being identified as owing the tax. Why did it end up with rioting? A number of factors. There was increasingly agressive enforcement of the tax (people went to prison for not paying). It was even more unpopular in Scotland, where it had been imposed a year earlier - the Tories still struggle to win any election north of the border, with this being one of the reasons. The policing of the demonstration was dreadful (Thatcher was fond of a heavy-handed approach to these things). And people sensed blood - they knew that she was on her way out, and the riot speeded things up. On a separate note, there was an article in the Financial Times this weekend (only available online to subscribers), which examined the differences between France and Britain since WW2. Because both countries have nearly identical household incomes, but the French work far shorter hours, more are not in employment out of choice (ie early retirees etc), and so on. And it concluded that their far more state-driven but fluid approach to business, development and infrastructre was a more successful long-term model than Britain’s rigid divide between public and private sectors, the latter being what Thatcher was able to move but not demolish. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/32 "2004-12-06T07:30:27Z")
One other thing about the poll tax is that the amount that people had to pay depended on which local authority they lived in - it wasn’t a uniform flat X throughout the state. Each local authority was given a certain grant from the Government and then worked out the amount it would have to collect from the public after that. But the amount of the Government grant wasn’t uniform throughout the state either, and it just so happened that in areas with safe Conservative seats the grant frequently happened to be higher than it was in other areas - thus necessitating a lower poll tax in those Conservative areas. Needless to say this struck Labour voters as a bit suspicious. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/33 "2004-12-06T07:36:07Z")
**Gorillaman:** Look at the data I cited. Before Thatcher, France’s GDP was growing at nearly twice the rate of Britain’s. After Thatcher, Britain outgrew France. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/34 "2004-12-06T07:45:25Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > **Gorillaman:** Look at the data I cited. Before Thatcher, France’s GDP was growing at nearly twice the rate of Britain’s. After Thatcher, Britain outgrew France. That was the point of the article - that Britain wasted decades by following a wrong path, and that if the French model had been used, then Thatcherism would never have been needed. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755/35 "2004-12-06T07:54:52Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > [The FT] concluded that their far more state-driven but fluid approach to business, development and infrastructre was a more successful long-term model… Ah! fluid - marvellous word. I think the PRC is singing from the same Gallic hymn-book. Expediency? _Mais, oui!_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-was-margaret-thatcher-needed/277755.md?page=1)