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The Exercise of Power

This edition describes how Margaret Thatcher and her supporters rode on her popularity after the Falklands War to roll out a series of radical policies that would transform Britain and how this ideological crusade would divide Britain and her own party to end with her booted out by own friends and allies. After winning a massive majority in the 1983 general election Thatcher no longer had to move cautiously. Under the direction of the Treasury the Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit John Redwood MP drew up a revolutionary plan for the privatisation of Britain's state-owned industries. An initially cautious Thatcher was convinced by the loss making industries effects on the national debt. Despite business and public scepticism the 1984 privatisation of British Telecom proved to be an emboldening success and electricity, gas, airline and even council housing (through the Right to buy scheme, whereby council-house residents were given the chance to buy their homes) privatisations followed. Margaret Thatcher hated the influence of trade unions on government; with particular vengeance as whilst Secretary of State for Education and Science in Sir Edward Heath's 1970-74 government the unions had brought down the Heath government of which she was a cabinet minister of, this made her determined to curtail their power for all successive governments. When the government announced a series of pit closures the Leader of the National Union of Mineworkers Arthur Scargill called for a strike initiating a titanic political struggle. Conflicts, exemplified by the Battle of Orgreave, erupted between strikers and police but the miners were finally defeated by Thatcher's will and returned to work. The No Turning Back Group at the IEA pushed for the privatisation of health and education but Thatcher rejected this idea, instead trying to introduce some market-based reforms into these services. The immensely unpopular Community Charge, which replaced the Rates system with a Poll

English
  • Runtime 50 minutes
  • Network BBC Four
  • Created February 21, 2010 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified February 21, 2010 by
    Administrator admin