Read Online Bang!: A History of Britain in the 1980s by Graham Stewart - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Graham Stewart
Tags: History
Ads: Link
her set-piece speeches, fully involving herself in their content rather than leaving speech writers free rein to put whatever substance they liked into her mouth,
it was Millar who provided her with her more memorable lines. He shared her love of aphorism, fusing an outlook from the sort of proverbs and homespun wisdom that had been familiar components of
American speech since at least the days when Benjamin Franklin’s
Poor Richard’s Almanack
was a colonial best-seller. Indeed, Millar knew he had found his leading lady when she
approached him for help with her opening broadcast as party leader in 1975. When he recited to her some apposite lines by Abraham Lincoln –
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer . . .
– Thatcher excitedly snapped open her handbag and retrieved from it a crumpled and faded cutting with exactly the same lines on it. ‘It goes wherever I go,’
she assured him. 14 Yet, while America’s Great Emancipator had succinctly summarized her view of life, perhaps nobody did more for her public
image than the Soviet Army paper
Red Star
, which responded to her anti-communist rhetoric in 1976 by dubbing her the ‘Iron Lady’. Delighted by the backhanded compliment, she
repeated the phrase for both domestic and foreign consumption, bolstering her claim to be not just the irritating schoolgirl of Callaghan’s twice-weekly baiting but some kind of modern
Boudicca. ‘Sunny Jim’ the prime minister might have been in the hotsummer of 1976, but it was not a helpful sobriquet for the Winter of Discontent. By contrast,
Thatcher hit home her advantage and demonstrated her new actress-like sense of timing: ‘The Russians said I was an Iron Lady. [
pause
] They were right. [
pause
] Britain needs an
Iron Lady. [
cheers
]’ 15
Labour clung to the hope that the long general election campaign would expose Thatcher’s tendency to make unguarded statements at variance with what had been agreed with her shadow
Cabinet. Instead, she accepted her advisers’ strategy to save her energies until late in the campaign. Gordon Reece encouraged her to get her mind off politics by going to the theatre. So off
she promptly took herself to see . . .
Evita
.
With Reece and Millar’s help, the showbiz side of politics was turned to her advantage. At one of her rallies, Lulu, Ken Dodd and the DJ Pete Murray provided warm-up entertainment before
she breezed onstage to the theme of
Hello Dolly
, re-lyricized to ‘Hello Maggie!’ Indeed it was not until 16 April 1979, nearly halfway through the election campaign, that
Thatcher cheekily made her first major public speech, on Callaghan’s home turf of Cardiff. ‘I am a conviction politician,’ she assured the assembled believers. ‘The Old
Testament prophets didn’t go out into the highways saying, “Brothers I want consensus.” They said, “This is my faith and my vision! This is what I passionately
believe!’” 16 Not for the only time in her career, she risked being accused of displaying messianic tendencies, but the speech emphasized
that she represented a galvanizing force in British life.
It was Thatcher’s advantage that she embodied change merely by being a woman. Nor was she afflicted by any snobbish attitude towards modern methods of reaching out to those disengaged by
traditional politics. Her team understood that the media, particularly television, needed visual material to accompany reports. Giving them the right photo-opportunity was the surest way of
securing airtime. The shots of her doing the shopping were deemed particularly helpful because ordinary voters, particularly women, were assumed to relate to her at this level. What was more, it
showed her as she wanted to be portrayed: the grocer’s daughter who well understood how to manage a household budget as a precursor to getting the
it was Millar who provided her with her more memorable lines. He shared her love of aphorism, fusing an outlook from the sort of proverbs and homespun wisdom that had been familiar components of
American speech since at least the days when Benjamin Franklin’s
Poor Richard’s Almanack
was a colonial best-seller. Indeed, Millar knew he had found his leading lady when she
approached him for help with her opening broadcast as party leader in 1975. When he recited to her some apposite lines by Abraham Lincoln –
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer . . .
– Thatcher excitedly snapped open her handbag and retrieved from it a crumpled and faded cutting with exactly the same lines on it. ‘It goes wherever I go,’
she assured him. 14 Yet, while America’s Great Emancipator had succinctly summarized her view of life, perhaps nobody did more for her public
image than the Soviet Army paper
Red Star
, which responded to her anti-communist rhetoric in 1976 by dubbing her the ‘Iron Lady’. Delighted by the backhanded compliment, she
repeated the phrase for both domestic and foreign consumption, bolstering her claim to be not just the irritating schoolgirl of Callaghan’s twice-weekly baiting but some kind of modern
Boudicca. ‘Sunny Jim’ the prime minister might have been in the hotsummer of 1976, but it was not a helpful sobriquet for the Winter of Discontent. By contrast,
Thatcher hit home her advantage and demonstrated her new actress-like sense of timing: ‘The Russians said I was an Iron Lady. [
pause
] They were right. [
pause
] Britain needs an
Iron Lady. [
cheers
]’ 15
Labour clung to the hope that the long general election campaign would expose Thatcher’s tendency to make unguarded statements at variance with what had been agreed with her shadow
Cabinet. Instead, she accepted her advisers’ strategy to save her energies until late in the campaign. Gordon Reece encouraged her to get her mind off politics by going to the theatre. So off
she promptly took herself to see . . .
Evita
.
With Reece and Millar’s help, the showbiz side of politics was turned to her advantage. At one of her rallies, Lulu, Ken Dodd and the DJ Pete Murray provided warm-up entertainment before
she breezed onstage to the theme of
Hello Dolly
, re-lyricized to ‘Hello Maggie!’ Indeed it was not until 16 April 1979, nearly halfway through the election campaign, that
Thatcher cheekily made her first major public speech, on Callaghan’s home turf of Cardiff. ‘I am a conviction politician,’ she assured the assembled believers. ‘The Old
Testament prophets didn’t go out into the highways saying, “Brothers I want consensus.” They said, “This is my faith and my vision! This is what I passionately
believe!’” 16 Not for the only time in her career, she risked being accused of displaying messianic tendencies, but the speech emphasized
that she represented a galvanizing force in British life.
It was Thatcher’s advantage that she embodied change merely by being a woman. Nor was she afflicted by any snobbish attitude towards modern methods of reaching out to those disengaged by
traditional politics. Her team understood that the media, particularly television, needed visual material to accompany reports. Giving them the right photo-opportunity was the surest way of
securing airtime. The shots of her doing the shopping were deemed particularly helpful because ordinary voters, particularly women, were assumed to relate to her at this level. What was more, it
showed her as she wanted to be portrayed: the grocer’s daughter who well understood how to manage a household budget as a precursor to getting the
Similar Books
