Vale the world's finest feminist

Nicholson

WHEN we first hear news of a momentous event we often remember where we were at that moment in time. When Margaret Thatcher died on Monday, I was in the wrong place. Sitting on an all-woman panel on ABC1's Q&A talking among ourselves about feminism felt wrong as news came in that the world's finest feminist had passed away aged 87. Thatcher would never have gone in for such things. Feminism wasn't about chatting about women's advancement. It was something you did.

And Thatcher did it better than anyone. She never mentioned gender yet became Britain's first female prime minister, winning three elections and transforming her Conservative Party, the Labour Party, her country and the world.

The grocer's daughter, the Oxford-educated scientist who unsuccessfully ran three times before securing a seat in parliament, lived the best form of feminism. She showed men and women what it means to be a leader who matters.

As Claire Berlinski writes in Why Margaret Thatcher Matters, Thatcher had two rare gifts required of leaders who change the world. She could see the gathering forces of history, pulling together sometimes disparate threads to see the big picture. Thatcher recognised the heavy hand of British socialism, the dreadful human cost of high inflation, the strangulation of enterprise and innovation by union dominance, the absence of dignity that came from people being tenants of the state. She understood the threat of creeping communism in Russia long before many of her contemporaries. No wonder the Russians named her Iron Lady years before she became prime minister in 1979.

View Eric Lobbecke's illustration

Thatcher also sensed that the decline of Britain was not inevitable and neither was the spread of communism. She understood that, given the opportunity, people - whatever their nationality - preferred liberty.

Harnessing those forces, Thatcher defeated British socialism. As her chancellor of the exchequer, Geoffrey Howe, would remark, Thatcher dragged Britain out of "the last chance saloon" to become an open, vibrant, new economy where the forces of capitalism lifted and liberated people. Industries were privatised, union power was checked, people were given the chance to own their council homes.

Thatcher's monetary policies cut inflation, taxes and spending. The short-term costs were high. Old manufacturing industries suffered terribly. The human suffering of three million unemployed is hard to fathom if you haven't lived it. Thatcher's popularity tumbled to 25 per cent.

Yet she didn't flinch. Her toughness was about ideas, not short-term political survival. Who can forget her resolve at the 1980 Conservative Party conference when confronted by nervous male backbenchers: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."

Two years later Thatcherism triumphed as unemployment fell and the sclerotic economy started to power ahead. Individual freedom had triumphed over statist stagnation.

Thatcher's steady moral compass saw her deliver a speech at the 1984 Conservative Party conference just hours after an IRA bomb ripped through her hotel room in Brighton, killing five people, including two members of her cabinet. Who can forget a steely Thatcher, appearing as scheduled at 9.30 the following morning, announcing: "The fact that we are gathered here now - shocked but composed and determined - is a sign not only that this attack has failed but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail."

Thatcher stared down the miners' strike in the spring of 1984 with the same determination. The National Union of Mineworkers, led by Arthur Scargill, attempted to cripple the country as unions had done so many times during the 1970s, only to be accommodated by both Labour and Conservative governments.

Thatcher was different. She faced down Scargill, the unions and the hysteria from social democrats in western Europe until they caved in. She understood that the silent majority was on her side. What emerged was a new relationship between labour, management and government. The toxic era of union power and labour protectionism was over.

When Thatcher won a third election in 1987 with a 102-seat majority, it was clear that Thatcherism was a fundamental change of direction for Britain. Even more important than transforming the Tory party, Thatcher dragged the Labour Party to the sensible middle on reform.

Incompetent, convictionless leaders do little and what they do is quickly undone. Thatcher did a great deal and what she did remains intact - a true measure of her legacy.

On Europe, Thatcher was ahead of history, foreseeing the anti-democratic tendencies emanating from Brussels. Together with US president Ronald Reagan, Thatcher's fight for freedom defeated communism across Europe. She saw in Mikhail Gorbachev, months before he became the Soviet leader, someone with whom "we can do business together". And they did. As Gorbachev said on Monday, their relationship, not always smooth but always respectful, ushered in change that helped tear down the Iron Curtain.

Thatcher will always tower over us because, then as now, her convictions, her clarity and her determination provide a contrast to what is lacking in so many politicians. The Iron Lady was a conviction politician long before it became fashionable.. It meant a refreshing clarity to her moral and political mission. Coupled with a soaring self-confidence and boundless energy, she was brave enough to articulate her beliefs repeatedly - against popular opinion.

As John Major said on Monday, Thatcher's convictions upset many - those without convictions and those with different convictions. Of course, she was divisive: she attacked powerful entrenched interests, those who used power at the expense of the forgotten majority.

Thatcher was not perfect. She offended many people. An assessment, rejecting a job application from the young Margaret Roberts in 1948, said: "This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated." The poll tax was an error of judgment and so too opposition to the reunification of Germany.

But in the course of history few people such as Thatcher come along. When they do, they can transform a country and the world beyond for good or evil. Thatcher chose the former and succeeded. And, by the way, she was a woman, a trailblazer, proving to generations of women that real feminism is in the doing.