On This Day in History: May 3

Margaret Thatcher Election

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Well that was a long fucking decade. Margaret Thatcher ruled the United Kingdom for all of the 1980s. Badly. She ruled it badly. She was the first woman to ever be elected to head the UK government, and she sucked. They called her the “Iron Lady” because of her “my way or the highway” attitude toward leadership. Unfortunately, her way was frequently shitty. 

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 3, 1979--

How dare I criticize the first female PM of the UK? By examining child poverty. I’m married to a physician who is a leader in the medical community; I respect strong women, but not when they use their strength for evil. Alas, those who commit evil deeds rarely see themselves as the antagonist. They believe they are doing good. And Margaret’s “Thatcherism” was a destructive economic policy that impoverished a population by doing what conservatives often do: give capitalism free rein, fight unions, and cut the social safety net. 

Thatcher was elected Prime Minister on May 3, 1979, as head of a majority government, ousting the incumbent Labor Party. And in many ways, she was a total badass. You don’t like me? Fuck you. She was a presence, a force to be reckoned with, and she won re-election twice. 

Her policies led to millions of lost jobs, with the unemployment rate more than doubling in her first term, leading to rioting in the streets. She was a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” type while children went hungry. Rather than helping out her fellow humans, her legacy was one of materialistic individualism, preaching the virtues of making money over all else. It devastated any sense of national community. Thatcher also expressed hostile attitudes toward the rest of Europe, setting the stage for the “success” of Brexit decades later. 

The relative poverty rate doubled on her watch, with income inequality seeing 28% of children living below the poverty line by the end of her reign. And her policies left a lasting legacy that saw that rate climb to 30% after her departure, the highest in all of Europe. 

Her critics claim that her lasting legacy was one of economic devastation, a leader who destroyed British industry and communities alike, communities that have never recovered. She sold off the nation’s assets to a speculative and unregulated financial sector. Oh yeah the stock market is doing fucking great but tell that to the people who can barely afford food. 

She saw men like Nelson Mandela as terrorists and drank tea with brutal dictators like Chile’s Pinochet. And yet, she has her ardent supporters, those who refer to her as “the patriot prime minister” who put “Britain first.” Conversely, there were those who danced in the streets when she died on April 8, 2013. 

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