 by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. If you want to know where someone is going, then look at where they have been. We are all the product of our experiences but rarely do these events alter the course of a great nation. However, in the case of' The Right Honourable The Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC and FRS they did. We must, therefore, look carefully at the early Thatcher, the strict Non-Conformist tradition into which she was born, her hard-working, God-fearing parents (and particularly her father), how they made their living, how and where she secured her extensive education that moved her out and up, for her personal and professional experiences did not merely influence just herself, but also the lives of all of us. Thus, to a singular degree, to look at her past is to see our present and that makes Margaret Thatcher one of the most important of our leaders and one of the most readily understandable. We always knew where she stood, like it or not. Her clarity of thought and expression became a byword, not least in the corridors of power where such clarity is often the first casualty. But not with Mrs.Thatcher. We understood her because she understood us... and her deep understanding was readily apparent whenever she spoke and whatever she spoke about. Her opponents were stymied on the rock of her unflinching plain spoken common sense. We knew she was right because we knew whereof she spoke. "Her nonsense," they grumbled, "was their nonsense." Of course the liberal elite delighted in such clever put-downs, first because her sureness about what was right and wrong infuriated their relativism, making them appear (what they so often were) weak and ineffectual; second because they both scorned and envied her bond with real people and their everyday concerns. Liberals, you see, too often concentrate on fomenting outrage about the affronting and unconscionable aspects of our human reality when instead they must move beyond mere outrage, should instead be constantly at the task of exploring and implementing practical solutions, one step at a time. Too often they feel that mere outrage is sufficient, thereby putting them on the high road to Heaven. But they forget, if they ever knew at all, it is everyday people who must understand every change, accept every change, and implement every change or there can be no change. Or to put this another way liberals might decry the lack of inside water and toilet facilities, using the most persuasive and eloquent of language to make their case for dignity, sanitation, and health. Such exquisite outrage touches our hearts.... but nothing else. However real people have to fill the heavy pails to the brim and engage in the hard business of carrying them upstairs and down until practical entrepreneurs find a way (with their own time and money, mind) to cut the burden, reduce human work and improve the human condition... and make money where there was no money before. Liberals then peruse the situation, urging that the enterprise, its works and of course its profits be taxed as a matter of "fairness". In due course, Margaret Thatcher became the strongest possible opponent of such cockamamie "fairness". We knew she was right and supported her accordingly. Thus "her sense was our sense". Margaret Thatcher remembered this salient aspect of leadership more often than any of the prime or other cabinet ministers of her era. She was always at her greatest when she not only remembered and represented these "common" people and their pressing concerns, but made sure these people were not excluded from planning and shaping the future in which they must live. Consider this: her maiden speech after she was finally elected to Parliament in 1959 after a typically hard-fought battle was in support of her private member's bill (Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960). It required local authorities to hold their council meetings in public. And so she began as she was to go on: the people's friend, and none better. It was the way, the only way, to build a land of hope and glory. It begins... To understand the magnitude of her epochal achievement, you have only to consider the right honourable gentlemen (for they were all men) who were the Conservative Party prime ministers of the realm before she ascended to their ranks and changed the reality of political generations forever: Sir Winston Churchill, grandson of a duke, heir to a gilded place at the acme of the peerage; followed by the Earl of Avon (Anthony Eden); the Earl of Stockton (my distant cousin Harold Macmillan); the Earl of Hume with the consummate noble pedigree, a plethora of titles and the hauteur it takes generations to perfect. Finally, her immediate predecessor, Edward Heath, who, too, was a member of the Establishment. Margaret Thatcher was not... broad acres, liveried servants, a safe seat in the House of Commons, followed by the nirvana of the hereditary House of Lords were as remote from her reality as they were from ours. See for yourself... Born in the village of Grantham, England on October 13, 1925, just a few years after British women gained the suffrage, Margaret Hilda Roberts was the second daughter of Alfred Roberts, a small-time grocer and lay Methodist minister, and Beatrice Roberts, a dressmaker. Throughout her career, Thatcher never tired of reminding the everyday people that she was one of them, growing up "above the shop" in an apartment that lacked indoor plumbing and running water. She thus knew first-hand and over and over again the drudgery of filling, carrying and emptying pails... that was her present, unending reality. She knew it was also ours. She was determined to go beyond it. Her greatness comes from the fact she was determined to help all of us go beyond it, too. Fortunately she started with the best possible help: a strong sense of self and personal responsibility; a father with the strongest possible work ethic, long experience in and love for politics (a town councilor, he later became Grantham's mayor) and (again through her father, a long-time lay Methodist minister) a sense, direct, personal and profound that God was on her side. Perhaps because the tenets of Methodism are not now as widely known as they once were, this essential aspect has gone insufficiently noted, if noted at all. But those who are early imbued with a love of God do not shirk the fight or the terrible odds they might face, for the Lord of Hosts sustains them. And if Margaret Thatcher did not wear her redeemer or her belief on her sleeve, it does not mean the woman did not value what the girl had learned at her father's knee, grateful for it her entire life. One more point: born as she was, a member of the great conscience of Non-Conformity, she understood that she could expect no assistance from the prevailing Establishment, overwhelmingly members of the Church of England. She would have to make her own way .. and so she did, her biography packed with applying for such-and-such a thing, being rejected because she was a woman and, so fortified, applying again... and again until her fortitude, endurance, and commitment wore down the prejudiced so she, the model for the advancement of women, could make another step forward, inspiring and empowering all women, everywhere. It was grueling, often depressing, always demanding... but it was God's work, something that must be done, and wonderful in His eyes. In this way, she harked back to one of the greatest and most significant British statesmen, but it was not a Conservative; rather William Ewart Gladstone, 4 times Liberal Prime Minister between 1868 and 1894, adored by Non-Conformists, including her Liberal father. Thus, with the thickest of irony, the Grand Old Man of British politics saw his mantel of consequence descend to the Grand New Woman. Under the circumstances, Mrs. Thatcher in her time became the great polarizing figure that he had been. If the abuse, the censure, the ridicule and cruel commentary bothered her, she took it all in stride, proud of the enemies she made, bidding them to do their worst for she was ready. "In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman." Thus, Prime Ministers came to rely on Mrs. Thatcher. It is a measure of family pride that cousin Harold Macmillan, premier from 1957-1963, first appointed her to office, in 1961, as Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. It was the lowest rung on the ladder, but she had achieved it against all odds. But far greater odds with far greater risks and far greater challenges now confronted her. The issue was nothing less than the future of England, of Europe, of what we believed in, how we lived, and every right and freedom we so wrongly took for granted. Her opponents, voluble, numerous, boisterous and condescending, belittled, despised, and excoriated her. Her response? In remarks made at the Conservative Party conference the day she was elected leader in February, 1975 she threw down the gauntlet, "I am not a consensus politician," she said. "I am a conviction politician." She meant every word of it and spent the rest of her long political life showing the world what conviction could deliver. Her achievements were staggering... because she was clear what she wanted... not peace and quiet and hours wasted in persiflage and platitudes... but results, results, results. State-run enterprises like British Airways and Rolls-Royce? Privatize to see immediate improvements. Deregulate to the maximum extent? Absolutely. That's far more productive and efficient. Reduce the power and influence of trade unions? To be sure. Those autocratic dinosaurs were well past their usefulness, every incendiary word testament to just how ineffectual they were. Home and stock ownership? Of course. Citizens should be owners and benefit accordingly. And what should be done to other nations intent on stealing what was left of the empire on which the sun never sets? Strike back, early, resolutely, proudly. And so in 1982 she did the necessary to remove covetous Argentina from the British-controlled Falkland Islands. And so bit by bit Great Britain became great again... and we all were better for it and her many electoral victories which made her the longest serving Prime Minister of modern times. Now Margaret Thatcher is dead. Her journey over. Her place of greatness secure forever However, I can hear her now, reminding us that everything she stood for and achieved can so easily be threatened, diminished, lost if we do not do what is necessary to preserve it. Thus her legacy must be one of unceasing vigilance and prompt action to ensure that we maintain the freedom necessary for the well lived life, the life we are free to live, shape and improve to our heart's content.This she would bluntly say is the only way to make not just England but the entire world mighty, then mightier yet and every land the land of hope and glory. Envoi For the musical accompaniment to this article, I have selected Sir Edward Elgar's well- known 1902 song "Land of Hope and Glory," with its deeply affecting lyrics by A.C. Benson. Go now to any search engine. You will find many fine versions. The best make you feel the mystic bond that unites people with homelands, especially if that land is England, a place inspiring the deepest bonds of loyalty, affection and gratitude. As such I can never hear this composition's words and music working so well together without a tear, glad to extol a nation I loved long before I went, just as I admired Margaret Thatcher long before I met her. My fervent wish is that this article is worthy of its subject, the lady who made England mightier yet and will always be an example of what is possible when one is willing to do the necessary work, hard, arduous, daunting though it may be. |
