Thatcher and the Miners

This week, I pulled from John Blundell's Lady Thatcher: A Portrait, specifically his fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, Beating the Miners and Reforming the Unions. Blundell begins his fifteenth chapter with brief history of the relationship between miners, miner unions, and the resident of 10 Downing Street. Prior to Thatcher's appointment, unions held relative autonomy in performing their duties. However, when Thatcher entered office, Thatcherism sought out massive changes within unions. Large supporter of Thatcherism, Sir Ian MacGregor played a significant role in implementing the reforms Thatcher sought after. Blundell points to the numerous strikes his company resisted, some strikes reaching resounding scores of thousands of participants.

Within his sixteenth chapter, Blundell explains how Thatcherism spread amongst several industries.  This led to constant reforms in unions, which Blundell linked to a decrease in political power for Thatcher's opposing party, the Socialist Party.  As Blundell explains, the goals of the Socialist Party were to "abolish Capitalism" and to take "all the industries and services privatized in the past 26 years back into public ownership."  This would be an issue for England's banks which stood to earn over twenty billion pounds.  By projecting her own ideology, banks felt more secure under Thatcher's leadership and provided her the support to carry out the policies she wished to institute.

The manner Thatcher executed her strategy in beating the miners is explained by this week's readings.  Robert Michels describes in Political Parties how masses have an inherent need for leadership.  This was the case for capitalist tycoons in the Great Britain when Thatcher took office.  Much of Thatcher's power didn't derive from her own arsenal of strength, but rather the power she held through preparing thriving economic leaders.  England's economy was faltering, but the backbone of maintaining that economy lied upon the working middle class, which were led by union and factory bosses.

By uniting the factory bosses and reforming the union, Margaret Thatcher gained a thriving political tool to thwart against her socialist enemies. In this instance, Thatcher led her political army, the middle class, to fight against the Socialists' army, the middle class. This political battle over the support of the middle class also brought upon the persecution that Michel describes in this week's readings. Because Thatcher had a constant political war, she was constantly criticized during her days, however, as history looks back on Thatcher, she is praised for her leadership.