Methodist values deeply influenced Thatcher’s political morality
“Margaret Roberts as a girl had to say grace for every meal. Her father as a lay preacher went on and on and on about hard work, individualism, thrift, clean living, all of this. There is a moralism to it, a low church moralism that is totally unlike anything that any other Tory leader says before her. She said in 1984, I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end, good will triumph.”
“At the end of the year, Willie Whitelaw tried to organize a reconciliation. He said, why don't you get together, have a meeting and come together for the good of the party in the country? Heath said no. And he said to him, Thatcher and her supporters are traitors. They will destroy the party and destroy Britain. He then embarks on this unbelievably spectacular sulk and he lives this for the rest of his life.”
Thatcher transitioned from shrill outsider to powerful leader
“Astute listeners will have recognized that Mrs. Thatcher there did not sound like she did later with her deep masculine voice and her slow, steady elocution because at this point she hadn't actually had the elocution lessons that gave her that voice. At this point, she had a much shriller, faster, less controlled voice.”
Airy Neve masterminded Thatcher’s surprise leadership victory
“Whenever people ask him how she's doing, he says, oh, she's doing terribly. She'll never win. But if you could lend her your vote, that would be very helpful, especially if you would like a really big heavyweight like Willie Whitelaw on the second ballot. Why don't you lend the filly? Give the filly your vote. And actually loads of people say, oh, go on then. Yeah, fair enough.”
Thatcher presented herself as the nation’s housewife
“She actually gets the Mirror journalist and photographer to come and watch her do the housework. The piece says, you know, she did this, she did the shopping, she did the laundry, and after that, she had to tidy up the Tory party, polish off Ted Heath and give Britain a good spring cleaning. With Margaret Thatcher, it's sometimes a bit hard to tell whether she wants to be Prime Minister or Housewife of the Year.”
Trade union power created a crisis of ungovernability
“They're ground down by constant battles with Britain's trade unions. Britain has this very, very fragmented trade union system, lots of different unions competing for members. Because it has so many nationalised industries, this means that instead of hitting a private company against the trade unions, it's the government against the trade unions time after time.”
Britain faced extreme economic decline in the 1970s
“Britain's heavy industries, kind of coal, steel, shipbuilding, car making are on borrowed time. Competitively, Britain's market share is dropping all the time. And if you plot it on a graph compared with that of West Germany, say, which is a reasonable comparison, then Britain looks, British productivity, for example, is absolutely terrible.”
Inflation reached a record twenty-six percent in 1975
“The oil shock of late 1973 basically blew up the British economy. It sent inflation through the roof. And this will be a constant theme of this series. So inflation reached a record 26% in the summer of 1975.”
“The oil shock of late 1973 basically blew up the British economy. It sent inflation through the roof... inflation reached a record 26% in the summer of 1975. The result of all this is that especially on the right and indeed abroad, there is a profound sense by the beginning of 1975, that something has gone very, very badly wrong. The Briton is the sick man of Europe, and it's heading for some sort of apocalyptic reckoning.”
Monetarism became the new Conservative economic creed
“In very simple terms, monetarism is basically the government should stop messing around in the economy, stop taxing and spending, stop worrying about unemployment, just concentrate on one thing, your one priority, which is regulating the money supply to keep inflation down because inflation is the real evil. And this is the brainchild of the Chicago economist Milton Friedman.”
International observers viewed Britain as a failing state
“Severide said to the viewers, Britain's problem is not just that her military strength is ebbing, and her economic strength weakening. Britain is at the stage of Allende's Chilean government, when a minority tried to force a profound transformation of society upon the majority. It's drifting slowly toward a condition of ungovernability.”
Trade union power created a crisis of ungovernability
“They're ground down by constant battles with Britain's trade unions. Britain has this very, very fragmented trade union system, lots of different unions competing for members. Because it has so many nationalised industries, this means that instead of hitting a private company against the trade unions, it's the government against the trade unions time after time.”
Inflation reached a record twenty-six percent in 1975
“The oil shock of late 1973 basically blew up the British economy. It sent inflation through the roof. And this will be a constant theme of this series. So inflation reached a record 26% in the summer of 1975.”
Thatcher leveraged her grocer daughter background effectively
“Alfred Roberts is your absolute textbook, early 20th century public spirited, worthy. He runs this grocer shop and he brings his two daughters up with the values of hard work and thrift and entrepreneurship and all this kind of thing. When she becomes Prime Minister in 1979, when she's outside number 10, she says to the cameras, I owe almost everything to my own father. He brought me up to believe all the things that I do believe and they're just the values on which I fought the election.”
Britain faced extreme economic decline in the 1970s
“Britain's heavy industries, kind of coal, steel, shipbuilding, car making are on borrowed time. Competitively, Britain's market share is dropping all the time. And if you plot it on a graph compared with that of West Germany, say, which is a reasonable comparison, then Britain looks, British productivity, for example, is absolutely terrible.”
International observers viewed Britain as a failing state
“Severide said to the viewers, Britain's problem is not just that her military strength is ebbing, and her economic strength weakening. Britain is at the stage of Allende's Chilean government, when a minority tried to force a profound transformation of society upon the majority. It's drifting slowly toward a condition of ungovernability.”
Thatcher transitioned from shrill outsider to powerful leader
“Astute listeners will have recognized that Mrs. Thatcher there did not sound like she did later with her deep masculine voice and her slow, steady elocution because at this point she hadn't actually had the elocution lessons that gave her that voice. At this point, she had a much shriller, faster, less controlled voice.”
