Women, Home, Consumption, Lending, and Ill Repute

Abstract

Chapter 1 suggested that Thatcher’s revivalist politics drew strengths from moral principles that rooted the spirit of capitalism and deified self-reliance secured by hard work. But her rhetorical arsenal included the conjoined ‘thrift ethos’ that valorized provident investment and savings enabling people to purchase property and look after themselves. The thrift ethos became a favoured tool for attacking public debt. Thatcher saw the nation under siege by left wing politicians’ inability to live within their means. The ‘thrifty housewife’ became the talisman Thatcher used to badger her political opponents. Only a housewife could bring order to the government’s books, thrown into disarray by disorganized, childlike, spendthrift male state politicians. Drawing inspiration from her mother, Beatrice Roberts, dressmaking entrepreneur, who modelled the lessons of thrifty household (Thatcher, 1 August 1980), Thatcher regularly announced that government must be as mindful of the nation’s purse as her mother was of the household’s. ‘Everyone, whether it’s a housewife or a business, has to learn to live within a budget’ (Thatcher, 8 July 1985). As she explained, ‘You will never get a prosperous society unless you have people in power who manage well. Every prudent housewife plans the future, and it is similarly the job of the politician in economics to try to foresee and plan the future’ (Thatcher, 14 December 1974).