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Margaret Thatcher

This Month

Sausage roll from Ganache patisserie at Castlecrag.

Six surprising things I learnt from a Gen X gap year in London

We expected this to be a memorable time, but it was the workarounds and unknown unknowns that made it even better than we hoped.

  • Andrew Hobbs
Donald Trump may be the worst possible person to guide America through the turmoil that’s probably ahead.

The new world order looks like mercantilism

The chaotic politics of the past 16 years masked the steady development of a new economic order, but trade and the economy aren’t zero-sum games.

  • John Authers

November

Argentinian President Xavier Milei with Tesla boss Elon Musk at Tesla’s gigafactory in Texas in April.

Victoria needs a Milei or Musk to clean up Labor’s economic mess

The question Victorians must face is whether they would tolerate an Argentinian-type solution to the problems facing Australia’s domestic version of Argentina.

  • Morgan Begg

October

Journalism legend George Negus on Elwood beach in Victoria in 2004.

A giant of Australian journalism, George Negus dies at 82

The father, partner and renowned journalist interviewed Thatcher, Gaddafi, Gorbachev and many more in a career spanning 50 years.

  • Sam Buckingham-Jones

July

David Rowe’s comment on Britain’s general election result.

Keir Starmer can drive Britain to reform-led growth

Britain’s new PM must lock in growth quickly if he is to secure Labour’s huge win. With a planning system from hell and a 17,000-page tax code, there is plenty of scope for reform.

  • The AFR View
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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer can work and work with “ridiculously small amounts of sleep”, according to one of his ex-girlfriends.

The productivity hack that really does boost careers

Physical stamina is an oddly overlooked superpower in working life. But although it will take you a long way, it won’t always be enough to achieve enduring success.

  • Pilita Clark

August 2023

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, his wife Akshata Murty and his daughters on holiday in Santa Monica.

Why taking holidays can be a political minefield

Vacations are rarely straightforward for political and business leaders, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take them.

  • Pilita Clark

July 2023

Canada is bracing for higher-than-normal wildfire activity to continue into August, as soaring temperatures and drought turn much of the country’s vast forests into kindling.

The climate crisis requires a wartime footing

Only by invoking the spirit of joint endeavour against a common enemy can we make the radical changes we need to get to net zero.

  • Camilla Cavendish
People born from 1981 onwards have not enjoyed real wage growth because their leaders during the past 15 years – unlike Hawke, Keating, Howard and Costello – have failed to implement productivity-enhancing reforms.

Facts of life are conservative, but younger voters are lurching left

The problem for the Liberal Party is that, since the end of the Howard-Costello era, it has done very little to address the structural causes for the discontent of young Australians.

  • Tom Switzer

April 2023

Nigel Lawson and his celebrity chef daughter Nigella Lawson in 2004.

Nigel Lawson, architect of Thatcher’s economic reforms, dies at 91

Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989, he championed lower personal taxes, wider share ownership and free market economics.

  • Muvija M and William Schomberg

February 2023

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during an address to the National Press Club this week.

What can Australia carve out of a three-way AUKUS tussle?

Government language on the submarine project is as much about an industrial tie-up as a strategic one. But what is that going to be worth?

  • Laura Tingle

October 2022

Liz Truss blowing up the UK bond market had adversely affected all asset classes, including Australian and US equities.

From Westminster to Canberra, zombie ideas are out

The Truss horror show happened because conservatives stick with ideas that are not working for voters, even when ideology says they should be.

  • Laura Tingle
Liz Truss may have more answers than anyone thinks.

Is nostalgia killing conservatism?

The libertarian policies of Liz Truss look weirdly out of step. Until you consider the failings of both centrists and right-wing populists in Europe.

  • Ross Douthat

August 2022

Rowe

30 years on, Gorbachev leaves a complicated global legacy

The world divided between democracy and authoritarianism that we thought, or hoped, Mikhail Gorbachev helped to end three decades ago is now back with a vengeance.

  • The AFR View
Liz Truss on the hustings this week.

Truss, Sunak shy away from Britain’s economic woes

With runaway inflation, worker shortages and a wide range of other problems, the British economy is in trouble. The candidates to take over from Boris Johnson, however, seem oblivious to this.

  • Mark Landler
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July 2022

British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and US president Ronald Reagan were both free-market evangelists.

Tories must decide between Thatcher and Reagan

Race leader Rishi Sunak must persuade Conservatives that Margaret Thatcher would not have pursued Ronald Reagan’s free-spending ways at a time like this.

  • Nicole Torres
Rishi Sunak stands out for stressing fiscal discipline.

Sugar high of tax cuts will not fix UK economic woes

Loosening fiscal policy could stoke inflation and force the Bank of England to push interest rates higher.

  • The Lex Column
Boris Johnson’s decline and fall were largely centred on questions of character, expressed through perceived lies and obfuscation.

Boris Johnson’s rise and fall are like no other

Australia’s politics operates in very different ways from Britain’s. But the UK still has a quiet prominence in Australia’s political, civil and cultural life.

  • Andrew Clark
Thatcher gave the right an ideological glue that worked.

Boris exit must be a reset for the right

The global right has been seduced by the fool’s gold of populist leaders. The British PM’s resignation is a chance to focus on long-term economic revival with a clear ideological purpose.

  • Shamit Saggar
It was a tumultuous Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday afternoon but Boris Johnson refused to concede any weakening of his position.

Fatally wounded, Boris Johnson refuses to accept political death sentence

The political assassination has been as slow and incompetent as that of Rasputin: somehow the UK’s mercurial prime minister manages to hold on.

  • Martin Ivens

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/person/margaret-thatcher-469