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Thatcher Years
Margaret Thatcher's term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom began on 4 May 1979 when she accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, and ended on 28 November 1990 upon her resignation. She was elected to the position in 1979, having led the Conservative Party since 1975, and won landslide re-elections in 1983 and 1987. She gained intense media attention as Britain's first female prime minister, and was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. Her premiership ended when she withdrew from the 1990 Conservative leadership election. In domestic policy, Thatcher implemented sweeping reforms concerning the affairs of the economy, eventually including the privatisation of most nationalised industries, as well as weakening of trade unions. She emphasised reducing the government's role and letting the marketplace decide in terms of the neoliberal ideas pioneered by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, promoted by her mentor Keit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Thatcher Ministry
Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 4 May 1979 to 28 November 1990, during which time she led a Conservative Party (UK), Conservative majority government. She was the first woman to hold that office. During her premiership, Thatcher moved to Economic liberalization, liberalise the Economy of the United Kingdom, British economy through deregulation, Privatization, privatisation, and the promotion of Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurialism. This article details the first Thatcher ministry she led at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II from 1979 to 1983. Formation Following the 1979 vote of no confidence in the Callaghan ministry, vote of no confidence against the Labour government and prime minister James Callaghan on 28 March 1979, a general election was called for 3 May 1979. The Winter of Discontent had seen the Labour government's popularity slump during the previous four months, and the opinion polls all pointed towards a Conservative victory. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler and others, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism until the mid-1970s, when it turned to new classical macroeconomics heavily based on the concept of rational expectations. Several students, young professors and academics who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, Thomas Sowell and Robert Lucas Jr. Friedman's challenges to what he called "naive Keynesian theory" began with his interpretation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon (UK Parliament constituency), Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire (UK Parliament constituency), Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Prior to becoming prime minister, he served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the third Thatcher government. Having left school a day before turning sixteen, Major was elected to Lambeth London Borough Council in 1968, and a decade later to parliament, where he held several junior government positions, including Parliamentary Private Secretary and Whip (politics), assistant whip. Following Margaret Thatcher's resignation in 1990, Major stood in the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election to replace her and emerged victorious, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poll Tax (Great Britain)
The Community Charge, commonly known as the poll tax, was a system of taxation introduced by Margaret Thatcher's government in replacement of domestic rates in Scotland from 1989, prior to its introduction in England and Wales from 1990. It provided for a single flat-rate, per-capita tax on every adult, at a rate set by the local authority. The charge was replaced by Council Tax in 1993, two years after its abolition was announced. Origins The abolition of the rating system of taxes (based on the notional rental value of a house) to fund local government had been unveiled by Margaret Thatcher when she was Shadow Environment Secretary in 1974, and was included in the manifesto of the Conservative Party in the October 1974 general election. In the 1979 elections the Conservative manifesto stated that lowering income tax took priority. The Government published a green paper in 1981 under the title ''Alternatives to Domestic Rates''. It considered a flat-rate per-capita tax a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbon Treaty. aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union in 1993. In the popular language, however, the singular ''European Community'' was sometimes inaccuratelly used in the wider sense of the plural '' European Communities'', in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar. In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community. The Community's initial aim was to bring about economic integration, including a common market an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One-nation Conservatism
One-nation conservatism, also known as one-nationism or Tory democracy, is a paternalistic form of British political conservatism. It advocates the preservation of established institutions and traditional principles within a political democracy, in combination with social and economic programmes designed to benefit the ordinary person. According to this political philosophy, society should be allowed to develop in an organic way, rather than being engineered. It argues that members of society have obligations towards each other and particularly emphasises paternalism, meaning that those who are privileged and wealthy should pass on their benefits. It argues that this elite should work to reconcile the interests of all classes, including labour and management, rather than identifying the good of society solely with the interests of the business class. The describing phrase 'one-nation Tory' originated with Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), who served as the chief Conservative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wets And Dries
During the 1980s, members of the moderate wing of the British Conservative Party who opposed some of the more hard-line policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were often referred to by their opponents as "wets". Thatcher coined the usage in 1979–80, with the meaning of feeble, lacking hardness, or willing to compromise with the unions. The label was especially applied to senior members of her government who were nevertheless outside Thatcher's inner circle and who expressed opposition to her strict monetarist policies designed to tackle inflation, and her cuts to public spending. Etymology In British slang, "wet" meant "inept, ineffectual, effete". Within the political context, the term was used by Thatcher's supporters as both as a noun and as an adjective to characterise people or policies which Thatcher would have considered weak or "wet". History United Kingdom Hugo Young identifies the most important "inner" wets as Jim Prior, Peter Walker, and Sir Ian Gilmour, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War (1985–1991)
The time period of 1985-1991 marked the final period of the Cold War. This time period is characterized by a period of systemic reform within the Soviet Union, the easing of geopolitical tensions between the Soviet-led bloc and the United States-led bloc, and the collapse of the Soviet Union's influence abroad, and the territorial dissolution of the Soviet Union. The beginning of this period is marked by the ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Seeking to bring an end to the economic stagnation associated with the Brezhnev Era, Gorbachev initiated economic reforms (''Perestroika''), and political liberalization ('' Glasnost''). While the exact end date of the Cold War is debated among historians, it is generally agreed upon that the implementation of nuclear and conventional arms control agreements, the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, and the collapse of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and additionally as head of state beginning in 1988, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and the only President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s. Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Privolnoye, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR, to a poor peasant family of Russian and Ukrainian heritage. Growing up under the rule of Joseph Stalin, in his youth he operated combine harvesters on a Collective farming, collective farm before join ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975, after having a career in entertainment. Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and began to work as a sports announcer in Iowa. In 1937, Reagan moved to California, where he found Ronald Reagan filmography, work as a film actor. From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, working to Hollywood blacklist, root out alleged communist influence within it. In the 1950s, he moved to a career in television and became a spokesman for General Electric. From 1959 to 1960, he again served as the guild's president. In 1964, his speech "A Time for Choosing" earned him national attention as a new conservative figure. Building a network of supporters, Reagan was 1966 Califo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falklands War
The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial dependency, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The conflict began on 2 April, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, followed by the invasion of South Georgia the next day. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with an Argentine surrender on 14 June, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed during the hostilities. The conflict was a major episode in the protracted dispute over the territories' sovereignt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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