We’re Still Living in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain
Margaret Thatcher rose to power in Britain during an age of economic crisis and political polarization, much like the country today. By defeating its opponents at home and abroad, her government helped kickstart the neoliberal era. We’re still living with the consequences.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013), the Secretary of State for Education and Science, at the end of the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton, United Kingdom, October 15, 1971.William Lovelace / Daily Express / Getty
In 1941, when the United Kingdom was at the height of its wartime isolation, George Orwell diagnosed England as “a family with the wrong members in control.” His essay, The Lion and the Unicorn, which tellingly conflated English and British identities, became emblematic of Britain’s transformation during the decade of total war and societal reconstruction.
Four decades later, Britain was once again in the midst of another pivotal upheaval, as the postwar social-democratic order gave way to a new age of market forces and pronounced individualism. Social theorists usually refer to the combined impact of these changes as “neoliberalism”, but in the British context they also carry the more specific label of “Thatcherism.”
The Authorized Version
This strong association between one political personality and a wider picture of systematic change shapes Dominic Sandbrook’s Who Dares Wins, the latest addition to his ongoing, multivolume history of Britain since 1956. Previous books in the cycle have included Never Had it So Good (2006) and Seasons in the Sun (2012). Sandbrook has also written in a similar vein about social and political conflicts in the United States during the 1960s.
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