Margaret Thatcher and the Thatcher Revolution Myth

            
             To what extent do you agree with this statement?.
            
             The relative failure of consensus that brought Margaret Thatcher into power in 1979 indisputably changed the face of Great Britain. Ten years after her election as Prime Minister, denationalisation and the state's position had changed. The quick reestablishment of its role shifted from a strong belief in collectivism brought by the war, to an increasing devotion to individualism. The "Big Government," from the years 1945 to her election in 1979, faded away, and the diminution of the trade unions' role as the Fifth Establishment' disappeared. However, these drastic changes cannot solely be attributed to an individual and primarily sprung from the gradual recognition that the political consensus had caused Britain to decline under Callaghan. The "Thatcher Revolution" can, therefore, not be discarded as a myth; however, the ideas she managed to put into place were not entirely new.
             The foundations of the Thatcher revolution were most importantly set by the government's objectives, whose policies no longer aimed to secure the workers' jobs, but to re-establish Britain as an economic power. Monetarism was at the heart of the political program and can be seen as "the cure to the sick man of Europe." By laying emphasis on the control of money supplies, John Biffen, Chief Secretary of the Treasury, was able to counter the growing problem of inflation caused by Keynesian economics. They encouraged high public spending to maintain full employment. Not only did it enable the fall of inflation rates from 22% in 1979 to 7.5% a little more than ten years later (which had been a growing problem during the political consensus), by decreasing government spending by 7%, it also led to the liberalisation of the economy. Callaghan's famous speech to the 1976 Labour party conference admitted that governments could not continue spending their way into full employment.