BUMPED into Margaret Thatcher once, almost literally. It was November 2004, and while pursuing my Master’s at the London School of Economics and Political Science, I was an intern in the British House of Lords for a crossbencher (a member not belonging to any political party). It was also around this time that I met the second Lord Cobbold, who showed me fascinating documents of the Cobbold Commission that his father headed.
There was an important vote in the chamber that day: the Hunting Bill that would ban foxhunting with hounds. The Lords rejected the legislation, but it became law under the provisions of the Parliament Acts that enable the House of Commons to override the House of Lords.
Anyway, that was also a busy day for me, the lowly intern, and I was asked to shuttle some important documents across the Palace of Westminster. To save time I sprinted through corridors and leapt down sets of stairs. At the bottom of one stairwell, I nearly crashed into an elderly woman. “So sorry, my lady,” I said, following the honorifics of the British Peerage. She gave me an imperious nod and went on her way. I then realised that it was Baroness Thatcher, in the House to cast her vote for the Hunting Bill, and pondered what sort of diplomatic incident might have been triggered if I had collided with the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at high velocity.
The diplomatic relationship between the United Kingdom and Malaysia was variable when she was Prime Minister. But in 1985, when Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir’s ‘Buy British Last’ campaign was softening, Margaret Thatcher told him at a dinner in Kuala Lumpur hosted in her honour: “Like you, we both agree on the advantages of the free enterprise system and the liberalisation of world trade, and I am delighted to find, Prime Minister, that you too are devotees of privatisation and reducing the role of the state.” It was early days, but it became clear that the approaches were different across the two countries.
Thatcher’s vision was ‘popular capitalism’, in which every citizen could own shares in previously state-owned industries, own their own homes, and, through merit, succeed in their chosen field. Policies to achieve this vision transformed, some say ultimately saved, Britain. Malaysia of the 80s and 90s embraced some of these elements, but there were deficiencies, and until today, privatisation and tenders for major projects lack the open, transparent competition that popular, rather than crony, capitalism requires.
After becoming leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, Thatcher declared: “I am not a consensus politician. I am a conviction politician.”
Some claim this made a dictator (and there are commentators who gleefully compare her to other leaders in an attempt to attack both). Certainly, her style was sometimes abrasive – her former ministerial colleagues attest to that. But the advantage of this is that everyone – including her enemies – knew what she believed in. The voters knew what they would get from an administration led by her, and the voters rewarded her in three consecutive general elections.
Her consistency in believing in things is why so many attempts to compare her to other political leaders fall flat. Authoritarian leaders elsewhere crave power for its own sake, but have a look at her debates in parliament – an institution she respected, unlike actual dictators – and it is clear that whether on socialism, Europe or the Falklands, she was there to win arguments.
This is quite different to politicians in our country. Veterans sing an entirely
different tune today than a decade or two ago, and when it comes to current or even aspiring politicians, the flip-flopping and inconsistencies are schizophrenic. On economic policy, we have politicians who oppose subsidies but support distortions elsewhere. On political rights, we have those who support expanding the rights of some but not of others. On social freedoms, it seems the same political parties can accommodate people who want to ban concerts as well as those who openly know how to have a good time.
In short, there is no underlying ideological backbone. Malaysians cannot know what to expect from these people because they do not really believe in anything. Everything is based on ‘pragmatism’.
That is what we at IDEAS have been trying to rectify. Though we admire many of Thatcher’s principles, we would much prefer for Malaysian politics to have classical liberals and
social democrats (or even some radical socialists) fighting each other, instead of racial and religious bigots.
And so, as our political parties now frantically rush to finalise their candidate lists ahead of nomination day on April 20, they would do well to include some individuals who do believe in things, who are conviction politicians.
Tunku Abidin Muhriz is president of IDEAS.