God and Mrs Thatcher: The Battle for Britain's Soul, by Eliza Filby
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God and Mrs Thatcher: The Battle for Britain's Soul, by Eliza Filby
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Eliza Filby examines how the rise of Margeret Thatcher was echoed by the rebirthof the Christian right in Britain, both of which were forcefully opposed by the Church of England. God and Mrs Thatcher offers an original perspective on the source and substance of Thatcher’s political values and the role that religion played in British politics .
God and Mrs Thatcher: The Battle for Britain's Soul, by Eliza Filby- Amazon Sales Rank: #1212263 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.50" h x 1.38" w x 6.38" l, 1.72 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 432 pages
Review [A] thoroughly researched and thoughtful study. John Campbell, The Independent A fascinating new book. Standpoint This book brings refreshment. It is a welcome and rare. The Spectator There have been plenty of biographies of Thatcher but no other writer has taken quite such an imaginative approach. The Tablet Filby carefully teases out the core creeds of this force of political nature. Church Times
About the Author Eliza Filby: Dr Eliza Filby is an academic, writer and businesswoman. She is currently a visiting lecturer at King's College, London. Dr Filby regularly appears in the media, as a commentator for BBC News, Sky News, BBC Radio 4 and has written for the Telegraph,The Spectator, Standpoint and The Tablet.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Economics is the method; the object is to change the soul.’– Margaret Thatcher, The Times, 1981Not odd, said God, I’d have you know,It may seem easy down belowTo keep the Bishops all in towJust propping up the Thatcher showUp here, you see, there’s hell to payShe wants to tell ME what to say!– Michael Foot MP, The Times, 1984PrologueThe broad aim of this book is to examine the interrelationshipbetween religion and politics in post-war Britain. It is thus a two prongedstory concerning the politicisation of Christianity on the onehand and the Christianisation of politics on the other. It thereforeseeks to demonstrate how the political class sought inspiration (andlegitimisation) from the Gospel for their political ideas and policiesand how the Established Church, to the same degree, viewed engagementin politics as part of its spiritual mission. The 1980's represent akey juncture in this narrative for two reasons. Firstly, in 1979, unbeknownstto most of the public at the time, Britain had elected its mostreligious prime minister since William Gladstone, one who from thevery first moment of her premiership referenced her spiritual motivationby reciting a prayer on the steps of No. 10. Margaret Thatcher,though, did not simply draw on Christianity for rhetorical ornamentationfor, as the daughter of a Methodist lay-preacher, she had a clearunderstanding of the religious basis of her political values. In fact, itwas no accident that Britain elected a Nonconformist woman preciselyat the time that its ‘Nonconformist conscience’ died; the convictionpolitics of the Iron Lady satisfied a thirst for certainty in an age ofprofound doubt. Just as the emergence of Thatcherism needs to beset within the context of Britain’s economic and industrial decline,so too does it need to be analysed within the context of the country’sreligious decline.Secondly, one of the most politically damaging and forceful challengesthat Margaret Thatcher faced throughout her premiership wasfrom the Church of England. While the Labour Party endured a periodof self-inflicted paralysis, it was the Established Church which, rathersurprisingly and often willingly, stepped up as the ‘unofficial opposition’to defend what they considered to be Britain’s Christian social democraticvalues. In the pulpit, at the picket line, on the Lords’ benchesand in the inner cities, the Anglican clergy routinely condemned neo-liberaltheory and practice as being fundamentally at odds with theChristian principles of fellowship, interdependence and peace. Howand why the Established Church sought and gained such prominenceat a time of declining faith is one of the central themes of this book.The Conservative Party and the once-dubbed ‘Tory Party at Prayer’became locked in a conflict that would have political, spiritual and,in some cases, personal consequences. For many, though, this was nota minor political spat; it reflected a serious theological gulf. Was thebiblical message principally about individual faith and liberty as MargaretThatcher enthusiastically proclaimed, or collective obligationand interdependence as the bishops preached? Of all the biblical referencesthat littered the sermons and speeches of politicians and clergyin the 1980s, it was the parable of the Good Samaritan that was mostfrequently evoked. For Margaret Thatcher, the story of a Samaritanhelping an unknown, battered man, who was lying helpless in theroad, demonstrated the supremacy of individual charitable virtue overenforced state taxation. In her uncompromising words: ‘No one wouldremember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; hehad money as well.’6 For the Anglican leadership, on the other hand,the parable meant something quite different, namely the universalityof human fellowship and the scriptural justification for the indiscriminateredistribution of wealth. As the Bishop of Stepney made clear:‘The point of the story is not that he had some money but that theothers passed by on the other side.’7 Behind these differing interpretationsof one parable lay contrasting conceptions of Christianity, ofpolitical values and, indeed, of the nation itself.It is, of course, possible to examine the 1980's not in terms of competingtheologies but in terms of ideologies, namely the polarisation betweenleft and right. If the contribution of the Labour Party is downplayedslightly it is because the left had abandoned the post-war consensus(to an even greater degree than the right) and was entangled in a civilwar, which had much to do with the decline of its traditional working classsupport base and very little to do with Christianity. This is abook chiefly about the conflict between the Established Church andthe Conservative Party, not about the various fortunes of Christiandenominations in post-war Britain. But, of course, it is impossible totell this story without reference to them and, in particular, to the riseof the ecumenical movement. Nor does this narrative deal sufficientlywith that province where the convergence between religion and politicswas most apparent and most damaging: Northern Ireland. Thisis in part because the Troubles were a sectarian conflict rather thana theological war of words on the rights and wrongs of capitalism. Ifanything, the toxic mix of the religious and the political in NorthernIreland revealed the tameness of the debate in Britain.Of course Christians can be found on both sides of the politicalspectrum and Christianity itself has been both a progressive and aconservative force throughout history. If there is one scriptural certainty,it is that biblical interpretation is elastic and can be mouldedto justify whatever one wishes to endorse, be it the ‘invisible hand’ ofthe market or the socialist utopia. In this specific case, the Church ofEngland shifted further leftwards while the Conservative Party tooka sharp turn to the right, causing an irrevocable breach between twoinstitutions that had been close allies for over 200 years or more. Cracksin this relationship could be dated back to the early 1900's but thefinal break would only come in the 1980's under Margaret Thatcher.It might be said that both the Church of England and the ConservativeParty have transformed more than any other British institutionsin the twentieth century. Paradoxically, for two organisations supposedlyconcerned with tradition and preservation, both have shown aremarkable ability to adapt in order to survive. That the Church ofEngland was not only able to maintain, but, in many ways, strengthenits role as the Established Church in a secular pluralised society mayhave been by default rather than explicit design. Arguably, it has provedremarkably successful. The Conservative Party has gone through asimilar process of reinvention. In the age of mass enfranchisement,the party of land and privilege gradually morphed into promotersof the free market and the upwardly mobile class, while maintainingits paternalistic tone and old establishment associations. It was not aneasy transition and, like the Church, it consistently faced complaintsfrom within its membership. But, by doing so, the Conservatives wereable to become the most successful political party of the twentiethcentury. Collectively, what it does suggest is that all the heated debateover what is ‘true’ Conservatism or ‘true’ Anglicanism – a favouritenavel-gazing pastime of both Anglicans and Conservatives – ultimatelyreflects a wilful misreading of their complex histories.Margaret Thatcher, however, stands apart from this narrative. Thisis due to the fact that both the left and the right (for different reasons)have chosen to grant her an almost mythical-like status. Youropinion of Margaret Thatcher is immediately given away by how yourefer to her; some literally spit out her surname with an emphasis onthe first syllable, others prefer the overly familiar ‘Maggie’. Even afterher death, the political class and the public still struggle to speak ofthe former Prime Minister as a part of history, consumed as they are ina seemingly exhaustive debate over whether her time in power offersthe cause or the remedy for today’s problems. This hints at one of themain motivations of this book: a wish to consign Margaret Thatcherto the past and locate her place within it rather than see her as ana historical phenomenon of either saintly or devilish proportions.By and large, the British prefer their prime ministers to be pedestrianrather than charismatic characters. One need only compare thepalatial grandeur of the White House to the poky flat above No. 10to illustrate this point. The post of prime minister, curtailed as it isby a parliamentary chamber and constitutional monarch, facilitatesthe British dislike and distrust of strong leadership. Yet MargaretThatcher is one of the few occupiers of No. 10 to have subvertedthis tradition.The legend of the Iron Lady is well known and remains remarkablyintact. Margaret Thatcher, it appears, was gifted with superhumancapabilities. She was a woman from humble origins whose great mentaland physical resilience made her the ‘best man for the job’. Sheemerged unscathed without a hair out of place from the ashes of thebombed-out Grand Hotel in Brighton and successfully crushed theenemies within as well as threats beyond our shores. She was Boudicca,beating the bureaucrats in Brussels; she was Elizabeth I, alwaysflirtatious but firm with her ministers; and in the end she was sacrificialSt Joan, burnt at the stake having been betrayed by her own party.Margaret Thatcher has now been accorded a place at the dinner tablewith these high priestesses of history. She bulldozed her way throughthe New Jerusalem, unleashed Britons from the chains of socialismand set the people free.Recent biographers and historians have quite rightly put a dent inthis mythology as Richard Vinen, John Campbell and others havereminded us that Thatcher was in fact an incredibly pragmatic andcanny politician and that the ‘ism’ she spawned was not as coherent anideology as she herself liked to proclaim nor as the left liked to presume.Charles Moore’s highly illuminating and balanced official biographyoffers a detailed portrait of her character and time in Downing Streetthat is never likely to be surpassed. God and Mrs Thatcher is not strictlya biography, rather Margaret Thatcher’s life and times are used asnarrative hinges to explain the fundamental shifts that took place inBritain’s political and religious values in the second half of the twentiethcentury, and the ensuing debate in the 1980s (chiefly betweenthe Established Church and the Tory Party) about those values. Inshort, the aim is not only to show how Margaret Thatcher recreatedBritain, but also to address a much more intriguing question: how didBritain create Margaret Thatcher?Margaret Thatcher was very much a product of provincial interwarEngland. But, crucially, she escaped and then benefited from theopportunities that were opening up to women. In one sense, her storyis a classic tale of mid-twentieth-century social embourgeouisement:a grammar school girl ‘done good’, although marrying a millionairecertainly eased the journey. She was not a throwback to Britain’s Victorianpast, but most definitely a twentieth-century woman: one whowitnessed Britain’s imperial decline and accepted the new Americanempire, indeed more readily than some of her contemporaries.The two defining moments that shaped the politicians of her generation– the Depression of the 1930's and the Second World War – sheexperienced from a distance. What Margaret Thatcher did experience(albeit via her father) was the collapse of Nonconformity andthe decline of the Liberal Party as its central mouthpiece. She was aproduct of Britain’s changing religio-political landscape and it is this,possibly more than any other factor, which explains why a lower middle-class girl of Nonconformist origins was able to become theleader of the male-dominated party of the establishment.Margaret Thatcher would often indulge in the fact that she was anoutsider in her party, and it is true she was. Although she respected andoften displayed an embarrassing reverence for the old establishment, itwas always an admiration she felt from a distance. She married intoit, she worked for it, adopted its habits, tastes and values more than shecared to admit, but throughout her life she always understood thatshe was never truly a member of the club. Much like Methodist founderJohn Wesley’s semi-attachment to the Church of England, MargaretThatcher always had one foot in and one foot out of the British establishment.On the surface, it was her gender that marked her out, butin fact it was her Nonconformist class-consciousness, formed at a timewhen such distinctions still held sway, which was the source of heranti-establishmentarianism.The religious faith of leaders is not to be underestimated. It candrive some to war, others to peace; some left, others right. One’s faithand religious heritage is not something that is confined to the heador the heart, it manifests in different ways: in personality, outlook,style and language. When speaking of Margaret Thatcher’s Nonconformity,one cannot simply consider personal faith, but also herclass and principles. If Thatcher was a conviction politician, thenat the root of her politics were her religio-political values. Thesewere assumed and accepted precepts about God and man applied tothe political sphere. This is not a book about policies, but ideas. Itis less about what Margaret Thatcher and her contemporaries did,more about what they believed.
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. English History after Churchill By Grandma As the author explains, this book is more about shifting religious, social and political trends in England of the '80's with reference to Margaret Thatcher's influence amidst those dramatic times.
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