Thatcher legacy

• Thatcherism

  • abandonment of KeynesianIsm For free market over consensus
  • Limiting union power
  • No such thing as society
• thatchers failures

  • Britains spending rose in tax bill though she intended to reduce them - VAT
  • government spending increased and 1992 borrowed 30 billion to finance public services - her policies led to unemployment and therefore borrow to subsidise welfare benefits
  • wanted to reduce goerventmn but more civil servants under her
  • appeared anti European but signed Single European Act and EMR
• Feminist criticism

  • A woman not a sister
  • Didnt promote women in politics with only one cabinet woman
  • suggested so she could exploit femininity in male cabinet
  • no structural changes to develop women in society
• social attitudes

  • Victorian liberalism rather than conservative
  • rights of individual and family over abstract greater good