It seems easier to muse about anyone who has just passed away than
someone still alive and no more than with Lady Thatcher. Perhaps that is
why greatness only seems to come after death.
This is obviously the hot subject at the moment, but I thought I would put a more of a Hospitality industry angle to it.
No
one in recent times has polarized opinions quite like Margaret
Thatcher. This could be due to her clarity of thought, direction and
policies during her leadership at number 10. Therefore it is fair to say
that no one was ever in any doubt about what Lady Thatcher stood for,
or for that matter what she believed in and when she was asked what she
had changed about British politics, she answered: "Everything." This was
uncharacteristically immodest for her, but it was true.
There
are obviously downsides to any leadership and not everyone can be happy
with any political person, party, ideology or revolution and there are
many that are still angry about the type of permanent revolution she
provided. So if you didn't like having to bring your own milk to school
or worked in the Steel, Coal or the docks or live in Scotland, I can
imagine your views are strong and negative. Some also say that she
cynically used unemployment as a tool for reducing inflation, regardless
of the social costs and that her refusal to support British industry
exacerbated the effects on unemployment and left communities with no
source of employment which continues to this day. The IRA certainly
didn't like her and tried to blow her up in Brighton in 1984, but she
much to the frustration of many she survived to carry on her quest.
So what did she change for the better after she became prime minister in May 1979:
- She changed the belligerent atmosphere of industrial management that had been exhibited towards the trade unions ever since the World War Two.
- She changed the attitude of appeasement and post-imperial guilt that had actuated foreign policy making since the Suez Crisis.
- She changed British politics so fundamentally that the Labour Party had to drop socialism and change its name and objectives in order to get elected.
- And most importantly for the hospitality industry, she changed the sense of embarrassment that Britons felt towards the concepts of productivity and profit.
There are
obviously more changes that occurred in the 12 yrs of office for Lady
Thatcher not least the idea that a woman could run a country or a
company, but it is the idea that anyone could start up a business and
make their own way in the world that changed the Hospitality landscape
the most. The idea that a Chef could run his/her own restaurant for example.........
So
what do you think? Are you better off now because of Thatcher or worse
off? Was she right to say no to Europe? We could probably debate for
ever about these topics, but perhaps todays political powerhouses could
learn a few things from her!?
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