Thatcherism

Thatcherism A term describing the ideology of Margaret Thatcher, which formed the basis of the British Conservative governments under her and Major from 1979. It combined a number of features, none of which was innovative in itself. It was based on monetarism and a belief in reducing the power and actions of the state in economy and society, and promoting the private sector wherever possible. This economic liberalism stood in curious contrast to its moral conservatism, in which the state was accorded a bigger role to uphold what was seen as the moral fabric of society, against the encroachments of liberal permissiveness. It appreciated the European Community as an economic tariff-free zone but, with a rhetoric bordering on the xenophobic, fiercely opposed further European integration in the cultural and, above all, political sphere. Instead, it valued highly the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’, on the basis of which Britain would seek to increase its influence in world affairs, looking to its pre-1945 status as a world power. The influence of Thatcherism could be seen in the government of the Labour Party, which under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown accepted her monetarist policies of low inflation and low personal taxation.