John Major won the resultant leadership contest and immediately abolished the Community Charge. It was based on the essentially identical Rates system used prior to the Community Charge.
Such is the strength of feeling still felt in Britain about the Community Charge, politicians have consistently steered clear of adjusting it for over 20 years, save for minor alterations aimed primarily at increasing discounts for certain households and individuals.
As ever, things are more subtle. The Labour Party initially campaigned against the internal market, claiming it had fragmented the NHS and distorted incentives.
GP fundholding was abolished, and primary care groups later primary care trusts were established as the new commissioning bodies, but with a greater focus on needs assessment and accountability to the local community. Although they initially helped primary care groups with needs assessment, they were to ultimately take on a more managerial role, determining local targets and standards.
The sentiment is more rightly directed at the Conservative Party as a whole. Section 28 refers to Section 28 of the Local Government Act which stated:. Nonetheless, such legislation reflects the generally held beliefs of the Conservative traditionalists that Homosexuality, though no longer illegal, should not be promoted. Modernists, including current Prime Minister David Cameron , no longer support such sentiment. Cameron even went so far as to issue a much needed and long overdue apology in July , despite he himself having voted for a retention of the Section in He stated:.
This highly complex topic developed over months and you should take the time to read the background , particularly the testimony of Jill Knight excerpt below , who introduced Section What it did do was serve to highlight and ostracise the Gay and Lesbian community, legislating for separate treatment and restriction of teaching that many LGBT supports legitimately felt discriminated against them. It perpetuated a feeling of resentment and distrust of the LGBT community, serving as a clear example of homophobia and prejudice within the institution of Government.
The feeling of vilification felt by many in the Gay Community can therefore, understandably, explain their dislike of Thatcher and her government.
The Irish Hunger Strike in were an extraordinary development in the history of the Northern Ireland troubles and set the tone for decades to come. Specifically their goals included:. A complex timeline of events ultimately led to the the deaths of 10 prisoners. But that was not before an incredible development — the leader of the Hunger Strike, and one of those who would later go on to die, Bobby Sands was elected, from his prison cell , to the British House of Commons following a By-Election in But hopes that the situation could be resolved diminished with Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Humphrey Atkins stating:.
Sands persisted in his wish to commit suicide, that was his choice. Following Sands death, , people attended his funeral and such was the international feeling over the situation, the cities of Paris and Tehran even named streets in Sands honour. Throughout the crisis, Thatcher remain absolutely resolute in the face of extraordinary national and international political and moral pressure. Her tone in May was at times morbid, even as the Hunger Strikers began to die one after another:.
Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. The introduction of the Community Charge - that is, the Poll Tax - would likely have proved disastrous however it was done but it was implemented in ways that could scarcely have been better designed to destroy the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland.
The Scottish Tories cut their own throats without even realising what they were doing. The Prime Minister had thought it best to introduce the Community Charge in one go.
The Scottish Tories persuaded her otherwise. A rates revaluation was looming in Scotland. This was bound to be unpopular and likely to provoke a backlash against the party in power. So please, please, please, Margaret, can you no speed these boats and introduce the Community Charge in Scotland a year before it is levied elsewhere?
As well-intentioned blunders go, this takes some beating. The rest, as they say, is history. The Can Pay, Won't Pay campaign for civil disobedience enthusiastically backed by a number of Labour MPs took a hold upon the public's imagination.
The idea that the Duke of Buccleuch should pay the same local taxes as his dustman proved a tough proposition to defend. Worse than this, however, was the suspicion - mistaken but widespread - that Thatcher was using Scotland as an experimental policy guinea pig.
The effrontery of it insulted us. Who did she think we were? Who did she think she was? How dare she. The truth was more complicated but the legend proved irresistible.
And that was that. Civic Scotland - whatever that is, as the Lady might have put it - united in morally-superior opposition to Thatcherism and all its works. Though John Major won a reprieve for Toryism north of the border it was but a minor flickering of a once great party.
The Poll Tax plus the party's principled but doomed opposition to devolution destroyed Toryism in Scotland. The biggest beneficiary proved, in time, to be the SNP. Alex Salmond first entered parliament in but he lives, like every other leading politician in Britain today, in Thatcher's shadow. As he said today, Thatcherism helped conceive the Scottish parliament. More than that, the gathering sense that Conservatives were somehow profoundly, inescapably, "anti-Scottish" helped foster conditions in which the SNP could thrive.
The rise of the nationalists was not immediate but it is telling that the SNP's first permanent breakthroughs were in Aberdeenshire, Angus and Perthshire. None of these were or are hotbeds of socialism. They were, and remain, small-c conservative places.
She clashed with the miners and became a hate figure in working class communities, not just in Scotland but across the UK. The introduction of the "poll tax" in Scotland was supposedly well-intentioned to avoid a disastrous revaluation of domestic rates - but Conservatives paid the price. James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University's Academy of Government, said: "The perception was, and is, that Margaret Thatcher was anti-Scottish.
I'm not convinced she was but perceptions are all important in politics and once that perception started to take hold it's very difficult for the Conservatives.
I think the Tories in Scotland are still seen as toxic and it's still to do with Mrs Thatcher, whereas in England I think the Conservatives have walked out of the shadow of Mrs Thatcher - that hasn't yet happened in Scotland.
I've been to the site of the former Ravenscraig steel works near Motherwell. Steven Miller, the sales and marketing manager from NL Leisure, said: "The response has been fantastic from locals. A fresh start for the site - but don't go blaming Mrs T for what happened there, according to one commentator. Alan Cochrane, the Scottish editor of The Daily Telegraph, is keen to bust what he sees as common myths surrounding the Thatcher legacy.
He also disagrees with Prof Mitchell about the legacy left to the Scottish Tories. Thatcher's opponents believed this speech was showing her contempt for the working class and this causes criticism of her to this day. At the end of the strike Thatcher said that "if anyone has won" it was "the miners who stayed at work" and all those "that have kept Britain going". In the first half of the 20th century the UK had more than 1, collieries - but by there were just
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