We’re the children of Thatcher

In a 1949 speech to Dartford Young Conservatives, Margaret Hilda Thatcher (then Roberts) considered Britain’s past and future: “In war-time there was a slogan, ‘It all depends on me.’ People seem to have forgotten that, and they think it depends on the other person. I suggest that the Young Conservatives bring back the slogan, because unless each one of us does our bit to put the country on its feet no one else will.”

The Dartford Chronicle reported after the meeting that Thatcher’s feelings on the event and the future of youth politics were overwhelmingly positive: “In these times so many young people seemed to do nothing but wait for someone else to do things, and to expect to have everything brought to them. She was glad the Young Conservatives were getting up and doing something themselves, and showing the youth of the country the way they must go.”

Of course, despite reducing the Labour majority by 6000, she failed to gain that safe Labour seat. But this mantle of getting up, getting on and striving through your own hard work remained not just as a glimpse of her future philosophy but of student politics from her rise onwards.

Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator (later the only national publication to endorse her in the first round of the leadership contest) reminisced yesterday how he was introduced to her as a “Scottish Tory”, to which she replied “Ah, so you’re the one.” Of course, her sense of political humour is famed – “u-turn if you want to” – but she was hinting at the bigger issues facing the young right in terms of numbers, clarity of message and optimism for the future. In the postwar political milieu of cradle-to-grave government involvement, the change she enacted inspired a whole generation of politicians.

You need only flick through a few pages of the influential Britannia Unchained to realise that Thatcherism is alive and kicking in the backbenches, amongst people who were young during her time in office. When Mark Reckless MP led the rebellion of 53 Tory MPs leading to pass an amendment calling for real term cuts in 2014-2020 EU budget, inflicting the first defeat of the coalition government, we can find Thatcher in everything he did there. In a world where the Conservatives are happy to increase the EU budget, somebody has to channel Thatcher in terms of respect for democracy and conviction. When Jesse Norman MP orchestrated the rebellion on Lords reform, a Lib Dem policy few of the voters got behind or even cared about, he turned his back on an almost-guaranteed promotion to bring reason to the forefront. When the young Stella Creasy MP suggested that “everything should be on the table” at the next spending review in light of government debt, it’s with Thatcher-like honesty that she knew political point scoring by pussyfooting around debt is poisonous in the long run.

Of course, Thatcherism is not anchored to the Conservative Party. When Tony Blair embraced market forces not just as palatable but as a friend to the working person, we can only see this as a continuation of the Thatcher project. When Labour these last few days began to agree that the welfare system needs vast reform, they seem to have realised what Thatcher noticed – that living in a country where not working can bring in as much money as working devalues and angers the honest, working person who wants to strive. When the independent TaxPayers’ Alliance, the country’s most effective pressure group (with more members than the Lib Dems), holds this government to account on a daily basis over the 400+ tax increases it will implement by May 2015 they’re embodying Thatcher’s defence of the worker that “There is no such thing as public money.”

Regardless of Labour’s hostilities towards her, the party has not made any serious suggestion of reversing the paradigm shifting changes she instigated from 1979 to 1990. The Labour Party and its youth wing, broken from years of becoming increasingly different from a political topography that Thatcher landscaped, had to reinvent itself. Dan Hawkridge, Chair of University of York Conservative and Unionist Association is right when he says “What riles the left the most is Labour had to totally re-invent itself to be able to compete.” Suddenly, young supporters of Labour began adopting the progressive ideologies of New Labour in a move that would be unthinkable before Thatcher.

Nick Button, chair of University of York Labour Club is quick to point out her influence on young Labour politics: “Her ideas are still popular among large sections of Conservative Future and Labour Students as well.” He admits the difficulty facing political youth today having not lived through her premiership but concluded that “her legacy remains and whether you like it or not, she remains as influential today in student politics as when she was Prime Minister. Because of that, I will always have respect for her.”

Several months ago I asked Stuart Andrew, the MP for nearby Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough, whether he thought the party lived in the shadow of Thatcher at the expense of other heroes. He said that her effect is felt so strongly because of her profound place in fashioning the views of current politicians on both sides of the house.

And this eminent presence will, undoubtedly, undergo a resurgence. When Ed Miliband said today that “she reshaped politics of an entire generation,” he probably wasn’t looking forward. But he might as well be. Student politics today is as shaped by her as it ever has been.

The same woman that inspired and fashioned the current cohort of MPs will, again, form the future generation as Thatcherism outlives its maker.