It really doesn't have much to say about the politics. It portrays Britain as tottering on the edge of IRA-caused anarchy, being dominated by trade unions and close to bankruptcy and implies that things got better under Thatcher, without really addressing why or how. That's what bothers me the most. I have a grudging respect for how she came into the boy's club of British politics as a woman and managed to put their economy back on a better path and most of that got lost in the movie. Too much time was spent watching her walk around her flat and converse with her deceased husband and not enough on why the title of the movie was "The Iron Lady". The film's lack of discussion of the politics and policies may represent a desire to not acknowledge what she did (although it is clear that she was a devout conservative) or it may just be a lousy script. I'm not sure which it was.
I can set the scene for you.
The previous conservative prime minister Ted Heath had really made a mess of things. Margaret Thatcher had the education portfolio in that government. She stopped the free milk distribution and the left labelled her "Thatcher the Snatcher!"
Ted Heath let the unions run riot. The communist Union leader Arthur Skargill had the whip hand and was getting into the ascendancy.
The miners strike brought the fall of the Heath government. At the following election Labor came to power under James Callahan. The strikes spread and the British auto makers went bankrupt. British Leyland went bankrupt and were nationalized. They took a leaf out of the East German book and trumpeted the "people's car": - the Austin Metro. This was one of the worlds worst cars and very ugly to boot. It looked like a communist creation, which it was. It was an absolute packet of trouble and the wheels literally prone to fall off.
The strikes spread and Skargill worked up the left and the unions to a frenzy. Against all odds, with a tough platform Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the conservative party.
The Callahan labor government fell with the severe effects of strikes in the public service sector. Margaret Thatcher was way behind in poles, advocating a scorched earth policy against the unions.
Margaret Thatcher was interviewed on Panorama by a veteran and very liberal anchor, Robin Day.
Mr Day asked Margaret Thatcher if her policies would not lead to increased confrontation with the unions.
Margaret Thatcher replied: - "When the garbage is piling up in the streets and the people can't bury their dead, I have a lot to confront."
She soared in the polls and the rest is history.
The interesting thing is that the prime minister furthest to the right since WWII achieved what the left was always wanting and could never achieve. Quickly she made Britain pretty much a classless society and smashed the class barriers.
The left really do want an insidious and nasty oligarchy.
The unions have never regained a fraction of their power and influence since the Thatcher administrations and continue in decline.
