A verdict on Margaret Thatcher

On hearing of Margaret Thatcher's death yesterday the news in the UK and around the world has been filled with analysis of her life and work. She was clearly one of the most influential figures of the second half of the twentieth century; the first female prime minister, a very long serving prime minister, a leader who made great changes to the nation which have lasted long beyond her premiership. But what is your verdict?

It seems probable that you will have a verdict. According to an ICM poll in the Guardian, 25% of the British public see her record as very good, 25% as good, 20% as very bad and 14% as merely bad. 11% see her as neither good nor bad (having a mixed legacy) but only 5% didn't know. Maggie was someone on whom an overwhelming majority of people felt forced to make a decision.

She started with humble origins. Her father was a grocer and Methodist lay preacher. He proved to be a great influence in her life. On one occasion she said "Well, of course, I just owe almost everything to my own father. I really do. He brought me up to believe all the things that I do believe." So just what did she believe?

Mrs Thatcher undoubtedly had a great belief in her own ability. She excelled academically, reading Natural Sciences at Oxford University, and also politically, becoming only the third ever female president of the University Conservative Association. She continued to combine science and politics beyond university, but struggled to get herself elected. She must have wondered whether it was going to happen but her self-belief seemed to keep her going. This was a self-belief, perhaps bordering on arrogance that was expressed in her statement:

Watch your thoughts for they become words.
Watch your words for they become actions.
Watch your actions for they become habits.
Watch your habits for they become your character.
And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.
What we think, we become.
My father always said that... and I think I am fine.

Once elected as MP for Finchley in 1959 she rose quickly through the ranks as junior minister, then as spokesperson on housing and land once the Conservatives returned to opposition. At the next leadership election she supported Ted Heath and was rewarded with a role as Education Secretary when Heath became Prime Minister. During that time, her lasting action was the withdrawl of free school milk and her acquiring the nickname, Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher.

In 1976 her critique of Soviet policies repressing their own people earned her the more famous nickname of 'The Iron Lady'. This was a name that she fully embraced and perhaps took as determining her rigid stance on a number of topics.

When Ted Heath faced a leadership challenge she felt that he had acted incorrectly in the past and that she should stand against him. On hearing this Heath informed her that she would lose, but to everyone's surprise she was victorious and despite her interview as Education Secretary in which she said that she didn't think there would be a woman Prime Minister in her lifetime, went on to break that glass ceiling.

On arrival in Downing Street she quoted the prayer of St Francis of Assisi:

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

Mrs Thatcher was a conviction politician, but inevitably that did not bring the harmony that she spoke of. She remains, as has been seen in the press coverage following her death, a divisive figure. Loved and hated in almost equal measure. My first political memory is of her arrival as the new Prime Minister in 1979 and so I was one of those who, up to 1990, couldn't quite imagine a male Prime Minister - as she was parodied in a Werther's Original advert in the late 1980's.

During her time in office she acted to curb the power and influence of the unions, to institute austerity measures and to battle escalating unemployment. None of these issues has gone away, though the role of the unions seems forever changed by her time in office. There was great dissatisfaction at her government. Indeed in 1981 her approval rating, at 25% was the lowest ever for a serving Prime Minister.

This all changed in the Falklands Conflict, when despite much popular opposition, she engaged British forces to retake the Islands after an Argentinean invasion. Her unwavering determination led to success within a couple of months and then to a landslide victory in the 1983 election.

Her next term of office was marked by the Miner's Strike with a year of difficulties, often violent confrontations between strikers and police and the eventual decline of the British coal industry as she pursued strategies to stimulate the British economy. One of her driving beliefs was that increasing personal wealth would have a positive effect on the whole of Britain. She said that, “No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.” In her interview with Women's Own, in which she stated that there was no such thing as society, the thrust of her argument was that there is no institution that we can look to to fix all our problems. Instead we must look to sort our own problems out and then use what we have to help others. Perhaps the current ideas of Big Society owe something to her ideology.

On Northern Ireland, she was equally uncompromising. She resisted the terrorist threat, even when it came close to home with the Brighton bombing during the Tory Party Conference. It is always easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and seeing the advances since made in Northern Ireland, and to argue that a more conciliatory tone may not have driven so many young Catholics into the IRA, or to argue that only by taking a stand against terrorism can it be driven out.

Perhaps one of her greatest legacies came through foreign policy with the strong relationship with Ronald Reagan and her ability to work with Mikhail Gorbachev. Her work here brought the break up of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe some steps nearer, though there were clearly many who had influence in these developments.

The introduction of the Poll Tax, proved to be part of her undoing as Conservatives, fearing for their seats, pressured her to change that policy. She was shortly afterwards forced into a leadership contest in 1989, which she won, and then another in 1990, from which she withdrew after winning the first round as she was persuaded that she couldn't go on to win the second round. Her influence in politics, from the House of Lords and in meetings with both Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers, continued into the new millennium before her deteriorating health forced her to withdraw from public life due to a series of mini strokes and dementure as was seen most poignantly in the recent film, The Iron Lady.

So what is your verdict on her? David Cameron spoke yesterday about her having saved our country. Others have spoken more of the change that she brought, some good and some, perhaps less good. The culture which she helped to instil has led to some of the greed which has brought about our current economic difficulties and banking crisis. I know you will have a verdict, a judgment on her.

But in a couple of ways, our verdict on her is irrelevant. Firstly, she didn't seem to pay too much heed to other people's opinions during her time as Prime Minister, instead pursuing what she believed to be correct regardless of what others thought.

Secondly the only judgment that will now matter is God's verdict. She will face God, but he will judge her by a different set of criteria. It will not be the success of her economic or foreign policies, it will not be the way in which she dominated her government, it will not even be the quality of the relationship that she had with her husband, Dennis. God's assessment of her will depend upon how she responded to Jesus Christ. She could quote him, allude to him, attend church and many other religious things, but the ultimate verdict on her will not be to balance out the good against the bad. Instead God will know that Margaret Thatcher fell short of his standards, because we all do (Romans 3:23). He will know whether she came to him seeking forgiveness for her shortcomings and going on to live in relationship with him through Jesus Christ or not. That will be the sole criteria by which she will face judgment. As we consider her record and make our own verdict on her today and in the coming weeks, we will be influenced by our own politics, our own moral code and our own prioritites. As we consider God verdict on Mrs Thatcher, we must also consider that we too fall short of God's ideal and have the same need to repent and live in relationship with Jesus Christ. As we face her mortality, let us consider our own and see how we need to respond to God.