How Britain changed under Margaret Thatcher, who died on April 8 2013? Simon Rogers gave a well documented answer in The Guardian in another demonstration of the increasing valuable use of data journalism. What kind of Britain did she leave behind?
Simon Rogers Monday 8 April 2013 14.57 BST guardian.co.uk
If the past is a foreign country (they do things differently there), there is nowhere more foreign than May 1979, when the Conservatives entered Downing Street. In fact, it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell – many of the datasets we rely on now weren’t compiled until the early 1990s. So what kind of Britain did the country’s first woman prime minister come to rule in 1979 – and how has it changed?
These are some of the datasets which actually go back that far – mostly from the Office for National Statistics, and some from the excellent British Political Facts.
She may or may not have caused it, but Britain under Thatcher saw huge economic, demographic and cultural change. These are just some of the facts.
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The variables taken into account in the report
Population | Families | Unemployment | The economy | The pay gap | Public spending | House prices and interest rates | The unions | Poverty and inequality
Michael Geary looks back at the legacy of Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Geary is a European Studies Fellow at the Wilson Center, in Washington. He is also Lecturer and Assistant Professor at Maastricht University in The Netherlands where his teaching and research focuses on Modern Europe and the European Union. After Geary, Latin American Program Director Cynthia Arnson provides context on the surprisingly close Venezuelan 2013 presidential election and thoughts on the Chavismo Movement post-Chavez. (Published on June 6, 2013)
More from the Guardian
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Margaret Thatcher obituary 08 Apr 2013
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Margaret Thatcher: a life in pictures 08 Apr 2013
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