Fortnightly politics column
Sara Kelly is your eyes, ears and voice in Brussels and Westminster. Every fortnight she brings you the latest insights on policy changes, legislation and lobbying.
Monday morning saw the passing of one of the seminal British politicians of the 20th century, former Prime Minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher.
Since then, while Lady Thatcher may not have approved (she followed her father’s motto of “It’s not what you’ve done it’s what you’re going to do next that counts”) many of us have paused for reflection on the significance of her premiership.
Not for turning
As the current PM David Cameron has noted, Lady Thatcher divided opinion but she shaped many peoples’ views on politics and continues to prove either a force to be defined against or a figure of inspiration. Her leadership was one that put aside political deal making, valued determination and decisiveness, and was certainly ‘not for turning’.
Putting aside the policies that are often said to have led to the decline of traditional British industries, her tenure in office undoubtedly left a significant, lasting legacy for entrepreneurship and the tech industry in Britain.
Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 in some of the most difficult economic times. There were state monopolies on the communications industry and electricity. Even your home phone belonged to the post office. Trade unions had held previous Governments to ransom, leading to the three day working week under Edward Heath and the ‘winter of discontent’ under Jim Callaghan.
Growing up and taking much inspiration from her father, the owner of a small grocery business, she held a deep respect for business ownership and, combined with other measures, saw it as a way out of the economic slump.
She saw enterprise as the driving force behind economic growth and wanted to create an entrepreneurial culture in the UK.
As she said herself, “I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society – from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.” She wanted to see business and innovation replace the statism that had marked the ‘70s.
Early sparks of entrepreneurship
So a range of measures were introduced to encourage people to become entrepreneurs. The Enterprise Allowance initiative gave unemployed people who sought to start a business an income of £40 each week to support them in their endeavour. To encourage wealth creation and drive the aspirations the top rate of tax was cut from 83% to 40%. Lower taxes on income and corporations were also aimed at encouraging the greater role of enterprise in the business cycle and increasing the activity of startup firms. Thatcher’s Government also introduced a number of education programmes at universities that focussed on entrepreneurship and small business management.
Not the silver bullet for employment
The measures weren’t perfect. Inevitably not every startup was successful, a trait we still see today. And they didn’t provide a silver bullet to the problems of growing unemployment. But they undoubtedly fostered a new-found respect in Britain for those who chose to take the risk and start their own business.
Thatcher’s policies also provided some of the initial sparks that would later help to ignite the tech industry. The policy of denationalisation introduced competition to business sectors and most notably to those involved in tech, the communications industry. The privatisation of British Telecom (BT), and Cable and Wireless opened the door to market competition, which would in-turn drive huge technological innovation in the mobile industry.
Where today we’re trying to play catch up to foster the coding skills required by digital startups, her administration showed forward thinking and introduced the ‘Micro in schools’ schemes which placed 12,000 of the BBC Microcomputers in schools across the UK. For many schools, the micro was the first computer they’d had. The machine taught people what a computer was, how to use it, and inspired a generation of coders.
Lady Thatcher made a significant contribution to business and innovation in the digital economy, laying some of the foundations on which the tech industry is built today.
Yes, her politics were divisive, but what Prime Minister hasn’t been considered as divisive at one time or another? As the focus of this piece is Thatcher’s legacy for tech entrepreneurs, I will leave others to debate the policies on manufacturing, the poll tax and milk. But her political philosophy of embracing the role of enterprise lives on today in the success of entrepreneurship in the UK.