As part of a RadioFrance radio and podcast series, Speeches That Changed the World, Colin Hay discussed the significance of a speech that set the tone for Thatchers’ remaining years in office and its global implications. - in French.
From the RadioFrance website:
“Freshly re-elected for a second term at the head of the British government, the "Iron Lady" is relaunching an economic and social revolution that will transform the United Kingdom, profoundly influence Europe and set the neo-liberal tone for contemporary globalisation.
addressed the Conservative Party's annual conference in Blackpool in October 1983. In front of her supporters, the British Prime Minister was triumphant: four months earlier, the Tories had won a resounding victory in the general election.
Since taking office at 10 Downing Street in 1979, she had applied, against all the odds, the liberal policies she believed were the only way of curing Britain's decline: an offensive against the trade unions, a reduction in the influence of the welfare state, an apology for free enterprise, and the restoration of law and order.
This shock therapy almost killed the patient and sent Mrs Thatcher packing. It took the military recapture of the, that distant British territory coveted by Argentina, to transform Maggie the 'witch' into a national hero. And to enable her to approach her second term in office with redoubled tenacity, authority and even brutality.
Back in 1976, the Soviets dubbed her the "Iron Lady". For eleven years - a length of premiership in Great Britain unprecedented in a century - she proved this. Margaret Thatcher didn't just transform Great Britain. She had a profound influence on the development of the European Community. And, first on her own and then in tandem with US President, she set neoliberal tone for the past four decades of globalisation.”
This text was translated from French using automatic translation software and edited by Remi Edwards.