She faced a nation directed by the fluctuations of the stock market and by the relentless drive of materialism, by the energy of popular music and the colourful panorama of television. Because of the latter medium, the nature of news and comment had an instantaneous visual impact that supplanted analysis and reflection. The country shone with screens, with flickering images lasting for no more than a few seconds. Thatcher was the ideal embodiment of such a world – if ever an ascending prime minister was willing to act as chameleon, it was she. Under the auspices of the PR consultant Gordon Reece, she doffed the faintly ridiculous hats which reminded too many of the Mothers’ Union. She underwent voice training. The playwright Ronald Millar provided her with mantras: ‘Let us be cool, calm – and elected’ was the first. Laurence Olivier himself assisted in her voice coaching sessions. The singer Lulu and the comedians Kenny Everett and Ken Dodd were all happy to be associated with Thatcher. This was to change – in the years to come, no self-respecting ‘artiste’ would dream of giving succour to the lady from Grantham.
Employment in the early Eighties became of paramount importance, with lists of the most significant redundancies read out on the television news as if they were casualties in a war. But for Thatcher, these casualties were the price to be paid if inflation was to be conquered. She had inherited a tax system that could be described as either ‘confiscatory’ or ‘redistributive’ according to personal conviction. The upper rate of tax was set at 83 per cent, but it began at £20,000; it was not levied only upon millionaires. Thus it seemed as if Labour had taxed the rich to feed the poor, only to render everyone poor. It is within this context that Thatcher’s ‘Franciscan’ exhortation should be understood.
The Labour government had proved itself unable to contain the divisions within the nation; with the Conservative government, there would be no more juggling of incompatible priorities. This was the true ‘Thatcher revolution’, at least in principle. Inflation was the great danger, and it must be crushed before any reforms could be contemplated. So far as she and her chancellor Geoffrey Howe were concerned, the solution was to control the money supply and let the market adjudicate in matters of price. Monetarist theory had at its heart a dictum that was simple enough: government should not spend what it did not have, and what it spent must be worth something. Thatcher and Howe had only to be thrifty, but the ‘dismal science’, as economics had become known, was young and inexact. They soon found themselves dismayingly close to the position of their predecessors, cramped and hobbled by circumstance. The monetarist drive in Howe’s first budget ran counter to election promises that could not lightly be cast aside. To honour the latter, and to support the hundreds of thousands left unemployed by the new policy, the government found itself pouring millions more into social benefit than was sustainable under monetarism. The result was recession.
Had it all been a costly and ghastly mistake? The human price was already apparent: unemployment had reached 2 million by 1980 and was climbing. Three hundred and sixty-four economists had written to the press to testify that this revolution had no basis in sound economics. Many were predicting a U-turn, a challenge to which Thatcher offered a celebrated retort at a Conservative party conference: ‘You turn if you want to; the lady’s not for turning.’ Caught off guard when the conference was invaded by activists protesting at job cuts, she rose to the occasion, observing that ‘It’s wet outside, I expect they wanted to come in … It’s always better where the Tories are.’ Although she lacked a sense of humour, she was quite capable of wit.
Naturally, no U-turn was forthcoming. In other fields, matters were more auspicious. The ‘Right to Buy’, the policy by which the Tories promised council tenants the opportunity to purchase their homes, had been the jewel of the Tory manifesto, and it was set in place. The pledges to restrict secondary picketing and to establish secret ballots were likewise in the manifesto, but it would be a while before they could be tested. The top rate of tax was reduced from 83 per cent to 60 per cent, the European average. In the eyes of many, the previous rate had been one of the chief causes of the country’s relatively poor economic performance. The rich could always seek other climes.
The cost of the war on inflation mounted ever higher, and its casualties began to protest. Riots broke out in the early Eighties, motivated in part by the insensitive ‘sus’ laws, later known as ‘stop and search’, and in part by mass unemployment in the black communities. They began in the depressed district of St Paul’s in Bristol in April 1980, and spread to Brixton in London the next year, with burning buildings, tear gas, police charges and mob attacks. The frenzy was contagious, and riots took place in at least 58 British towns and cities. The Times reported that fears about the breakdown of law and order were being widely expressed in foreign centres, no doubt laced with schadenfreude. Some commentators went perhaps too far. ‘The extinction of civilised life on this island,’ wrote E. P. Thompson, ‘is probable.’ It was an opportune moment for dismay: at the end of March 1982, there was a strong warning that the Argentinian navy was about to invade the sovereign territory of the Falkland Islands.
51
The Falklands flare-up
Neil Kinnock, later leader of the Labour party, said of Thatcher that she had ‘the greatest gift: the right enemies’. Certainly General Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina was an ideal enemy. He had come to power in a coup and had ensured that some 20,000 of his compatriots ‘disappeared’. Now the Falkland islanders were next on his list of internal undesirables.
It had the makings of a great naval adventure, but it played out in the eyes of a world looking for disasters. Many wanted to see the back of Thatcher and cheered on the Argentinians. Others wanted to retain Britain’s influence and cheered the British contingent. It was a small turf war, but it had momentous consequences for Britain. Was it about to decline into a third-rate power? A genuine fear of failure invaded the military, as well as the diplomatic contingent, Westminster and the public at large.
As early as 1976 there had been negotiations between Britain and Argentina about the sovereignty of the islands. In early 1982, the Argentinian government formulated plans for a military solution, and the possibility of confrontation came closer when it was proposed to withdraw HMS Endurance from its hydrographic work in the vicinity – to the Argentinians, it appeared like the prelude to a more general withdrawal.
An Argentinian invasion fleet sailed on 28 March, with the instruction to protect the lives of the island population. Its presence became known to the British authorities by 2 April, and five days later the first stage of the ‘task force’ was under way. Diplomatic initiatives, led principally by the Americans, now became vital. It was not militarily or financially feasible, the British Foreign Office suggested – it would be better to back down or to reach an accommodation. But Thatcher would have none of it: ‘They wanted us to negotiate. You can’t negotiate away an invasion! You can’t negotiate away that the freedom of your people has been taken … by a cruel dictator. You’ve got to stand up and you’ve got to have the spine to do it!’
For their part, the British people confined their protests to hurling cans of corned beef at the windows of the Argentine embassy, while a BBC broadcaster conveyed something of the spirit of the time as he signed off with ‘Let’s just hope we win,’ his tone at once gently patriotic and grimly wistful. The BBC was not always a friend to Thatcher, but here, perhaps for the last time, she found in it an ally.