Previously published in Examiner
Part 11 of the Margaret Thatcher series
This series will now look at the only female prime minister of England and the only female prime minister of Canada. The series will end with three male governors of Quebec, so important to Montreal men and women’s history and the three female governor generals of Canada. Two of the three females came from Montreal.
To learn more about Canadian Prime Ministers and other Canadian or Quebec politics, both McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal offer wonderful political science degrees, that you may want to look into.
For further reading, Montreal’s Concordia University has a wonderful women’s studies program at the Simone do Beauvoir Institute
Margaret Thatcher Strong and powerful Icon for the Status of Women, in Britain, USA, Canada and Montreal, though her policies were not necessarily pro feminist.
Margaret Thatcher’s Taxation, Economic, Domestic Affairs and Social Policies continued
Margaret Thatcher’s economic strategy
You could say there was good points and bad points from her strategy. By 1982, she had managed to get inflation down from 18 percent to 8.6 percent. However, this major economic feat was overshadowed by the fact that there were over 3 million Brits out of work; a phenomenon not seen since the 1930’s.
By 1984, Margaret had gotten inflation down and spurred on a growing economy which included low mortgage rates which had not been seen since the 1970’s. Nevertheless the unemployment rate continued to grow. Over 3.3 million people were out of work.
A 90 percent tax on North Sea Oil was behind the initiative to stimulate the economy and have it grow. This short-term funding was expected to balance the economy.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
