Vitamin Supplements For Spinal Stenosis

30 years of Thatcher (ii) Some notes over 30 years of Thatcher

Origins. The rise of Thatcher in the Conservative Party first and then the British government has its origin in the poor performance of the U.S. economy, the historical defeat of the Conservatives in 1974 (with its worst results until then since 1945 and provided that Edward Heath was not re-elected as party leader) and change of preferences in society in parallel with the depletion of the effectiveness of Keynesian policies.

Thus, although always stand out Thatcher's leadership in changing their society, the truth is that it is partly (and how could it be otherwise) a product of a prior change in British society. The abandonment of consensus on Keynesian policies and the welfare state will post-war brewing since the early 1970s within the Conservative Party. There is no doubt that during this period falls the support of social policies between the voter British media. According to surveys, between 1974 and the rise of Thatcher, the rejection of social spending rose significantly from 34% to 50%. Like what happened in the United States Ronald Reagan, the data show that rejection of the social spending had become popular among the public before the Conservatives did with the government.

Source: Taylor-Gooby, 1985

Consequences. Thatcher gave us a new way of understanding the relationship between state and market in many ways, but best known by most public opinion is their lack of sympathy for the welfare state and social policies. Indeed, the data show that it is in this period when the growth of social spending reaches its lowest level. But despite the prevailing opinion among the left, Thatcher just conducted a cost containment and, in fact, the cuts were concentrated in very few games (and in particular housing it is estimated that spending fell about 11 percent under his first term).

source: OECD

Legacy. But the highlight of the governments of Margaret Thatcher was, without doubt, your gentle change coordinates of British politics, drawing not only the ideology of his party but also of its main competitor, the Labour Party. See the chart below:

Graphic: negative values \u200b\u200b(left) and positive values \u200b\u200b(right). Comparative Manifesto Project data

The Comparative Manifesto Project data (analyzing the ideological content of election programs of political parties) show how the arrival of Thatcher Consevador Party begins a long journey to the right. In fact, the party in 1987 (Thatcher's last election) is the most conservative of all post-war history. In addition, there are many who say that Thatcher was able to drag Labour: Tony Blair took an important part of ideological legacy of Thatcher and the Labour Party stood in consevadoras positions since 1945.

Given the acceptance by the Labour Party from Thatcher's legacy, it is not surprising that some summarizing what happened in the past three decades with metaphors like: