The Rest Is Politics: Leading - Legacy... Margaret Thatcher

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan tell the wild stories of some of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived – and ask whether they have the reputation they deserve. Should Nina Simone’s role in the civil rights movement be more celebrated than it is? When you find out what Picasso got up to in his studio, can you still admire his art? And in their most recent series, they take a look at Margaret Thatcher. Was the Iron Lady an inspirational figure, or the architect of a broken Britain? Legacy is a scripted, structured podcast (detailing key scenes/moments of the subject’s life story e.g. Napoleon), balanced with free-flowing conversational pieces between the two hosts. Search Legacy now, wherever you get your podcasts, or binge the entire season ad-free on Amazon Music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispoletics.com. Hello, something a little different for you today. We wanted to let you know about another podcast from Gollhanger and our friends at Wondery called Legacy, which tells the wild stories for some of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asked whether they have the reputation they deserve. It's hosted by the brilliant Afua Hirsch and my friend Peter Frankapan. And the newest season is on Margaret Thatcher, which I guess, Alice is the Q. I mean, looking about what is your sense of Margaret Thatcher?

You know, when we talk about legacy, very, very, very, very few political leaders have legacy in the way that that sort of grand word suggests. But she definitely does. I mean, Margaret Thatcher is still part of the political debate today. when we interviewed Rachel Reeves on leading, when she talked about running the economy like it was a household, that is a direct consequence of a framing of economic argument from Margaret Thatcher at the time that she was doing the whole kind of monetarism thing. I think she made substantial economic, political, social, cultural change. And as the legacy program makes clear, they're asking this question whether people have the reputation of the they deserve. But something like Thatcher, there's no such thing as a single reputation. There are some people who think that she was the greatest prime minister who ever lived. And there are other people. Will Hutton, for example, who I interviewed recently about his book, Will Hutton thinks that most of the social and economic problems we're dealing with today are a consequence of Thatcherism.

So it's a very, very, very mixed picture. Yeah. And I guess she's in a time when we often feel a bit powerless. She is a real example of how you can bring change. For better, or for worse, whatever you think about, Mrs. Thatcher. I mean, she, boy, did she have a clear idea about what she was trying to do. She really aligned her cabinet behind it. And Charles Moore's biography of her, I think is quite interesting on this, that she was sort of more cunning and more gradual with some of the things than perhaps we remember today. You know, her plans, for example, on coal mining and unions took longer to unravel. She did more stockpiling, more thoughtfulness. I mean, she's

as well as being bold, she wasn't just breaking things. She was quite a kind of skillful political operator. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to what they make of all this. Yeah. I saw her, somebody posted on social media the other day an interview that Thatcher did with a, I think it was an

Eastern European interviewer, certainly from Europe, not a British interviewer. And the person said at the end of the interview, I have a thing in all my interviews, at the end of it, I asked my guest to jump up and down, and Thatcher just looked at her straight out and said, what a ridiculous thing to suggest to me. And the woman then tried to persuade her to do it, and she said, I've never heard anything

as ridiculous this in all my life. I will not be jumping up and down before an interview. And I was thinking like, you know, Rishi Suu would probably just go, oh, okay, here we go, a little jump. No, he would because he did that famous thing with Pierce Morgan, didn't he? decided taking bets them. The bet. Well, anyway, looking forward to it very, very, very much. So, follow Legacy Now, wherever you listen to podcasts or binge entire seasons early and ad-free on Wondry Plus.

Hi, it's Dominic here from The Rest is History. And here is that clip that I mentioned earlier. The other thing is something else you get some Grantham, and that's the Methodism. And actually this to me, I think this is one of the absolute defining things of Thatcherism. It's the tone, the moralistic evangelical tone. Yeah, and the low church tone rather than the high church tone. Completely. Margaret, as a girl, had to say grace before every meal.

She had to go to chapel three or four times on Sundays. Her father, as a lay preacher, went on and on and on about hard work, individualism, thrift, clean living, all of this. And this is what I think makes her politics different. There is a moralism to it, a low church moralism, that is totally unlike anything that any other Tory leader says before. So in 1984, an interview with the Times, I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end, good will triumph. I mean, Ted Heath could have lived to the age of 10,000, and he would never have said anything like that. It's unthinkable.

Also, I mean, what's interesting is that it's giving to the left what the left often give to the right. it's casting the left as evil and the right as virtuous. And usually it's the other way around. Completely it is. I mean, you see this reflected in her archives, which are online at Thatcher Foundation website, which is brilliant, by the way, this amazing digital archive. You can see all the notes that she would handwrite for her conference speeches. And they'd be full of all the stuff about, you know, the evils of socialism,

good versus evil, what the great religions of the past teach us, what life, you know, life is struggle. Her speechwriters would cut all this. They'd say, God, this is bonkers. But it would find its way in one way or another. And I think you're absolutely right. She thinks socialism is not just wrong. She thinks it's morally, it's evil.

It's corrupting. And people in 70s Britain, you know, they're used to thinking, socialists are well-meaning and idealistic. Maybe they're a bit deluded, but blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, she doesn't think that. She doesn't think they are well-meaning idealistic. She thinks that they're doing the devil's work. And that's what makes for her admirers, it's so invigorating.

And for her critics, I mean, if you're on the left, right, and you're used to thinking yourself of yourself as the goodies, to be told, actually, you're the bad people. It's insulting. And it's why I think one reason why people take it so personally when she sort of wades into battle. If you want to hear more, search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts.