" I Quite Like Being Prime Minister"

An assessment of Thatcher's first tough year in office

One year ago, Margaret Thatcher triumphantly moved into the Prime Minister's office at No. 10 Downing Street, promising "a new direction for Britain." She also cautioned: "It will not be easy." Right on both counts. Britain has undergone a sea change in government policies, and the British people, jolted by her stern conservative measures, consistently favor the Labor opposition in opinion polls. Last week TIME London Bureau Chief Bonnie Angelo cabled this assessment of Thatcher's first year in office:

Beyond the disapproving statistics there is widespread, if grudging, admiration for the audacious leadership of Britain's first woman Prime Minister. In a time when many political leaders have blurred images, Thatcher stands out in bold outline. "Even people who don't like her policies admire her," says a Cabinet minister who frequently differs with her, "because she says what she thinks and she knows what she stands for."

Thatcher flinches from no one. She has shaken a fist at Leonid Brezhnev, warning him against Soviet expansionism. She has served an ultimatum on her partners on the Continent, protesting the unfair financial burden imposed on Britain by the European Community. She has taken on Britain's powerful trade unions, reducing them from their self-appointed role as a partner in government to just another pressure group. With every hair and vowel in place, Thatcher may seem to be cut from the same bolt as the Queen, but she would rather be respected than loved.

Although she was a novice in world affairs, the triumph of her first year was a foreign policy feat. Britain, to great acclaim, ended the seven-year-old Rhodesian civil war and brought majority rule to Zimbabwe in free and surprisingly fair elections. Observes an acerbic old-line British diplomat: "In foreign policy she has proved to be very wise by leaving it to [Foreign Secretary Lord] Carrington. But he couldn't have done it without her backing." Not coincidentally, Thatcher's worst performance came when Carrington, preoccupied with Rhodesia, was away from her side. At the European Community's summit in Dublin last November, she alienated her Continental colleagues with strident demands for a full rebate of "my money," meaning the $2.5 billion that Britain contributes to the Community's budget.

The strains persist between Thatcher and her European counterparts, particularly French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. A little more subtlety might have served her better, but subtlety is not a Thatcher trait. "She recognizes that she is not one of nature's negotiators," says an adviser. Her forte is the daring act. After Lord Mountbatten's assassination last August, for example, she rejected the advice of some cautious Cabinet ministers and visited British troops in the heart of I.R.A. terrorist country in Northern Ireland. Pictures of a windblown Maggie in an oversized flak jacket were visual evidence that she would not give in to the gunmen either.

From the outset, it has been an article of faith with Thatcher that Britain, by exercising monetary discipline and confidence, can recapture its old place "in the first division." Not since the Suez fiasco of 1956 has Britain taken the lead in any major problems beyond its postcolonial concerns. Now Lord Carrington, backed by Thatcher, has proposed initiatives to neutralize Afghanistan and to bring Europe into Middle East negotiations if the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy bog down. When President Carter called for support from America's Western European allies for sanctions against Iran, Thatcher, who was the first among them to have supported the Olympic boycott, was again quick to rally round--despite her private doubts about the efficacy of sanctions.

In Britain, economic policy dominates all else, and Thatcher repeats her tenets like a mantra: curb inflation, increase productivity, cut spending, restore incentive. She pleads for time--at least two more years--to let her new "freedoms" work, but even among allies there is some skepticism. Complains a Tory newspaper publisher: "She didn't tell us it would be this bad." Her own Treasury ministers warn that much rougher tunes lie ahead, and some are queasy about the next election, even though it is probably four years away. The statistics of Thatcher's first year are grim. Inflation doubled, to 20%. Unemployment reached a postwar high of 1.5 million (6%) and is still rising. Interest rates soared to a record high of more than 20% to the average borrower. Bankruptcies multiplied as small firms were caught in world recession, 20% pay settlements and an overvalued North Sea-oil-based pound that made exports noncompetitive.

In recent polls, public dissatisfaction with Thatcher's performance has risen to 55%. Still, Political Analyst Robert Worcester contends that "she has come through this year reasonably well. She has taken on a tough assignment, squared up to it and bulled ahead." Surprisingly, the polls showed a gain for the government after the stringent March budget, which slashed public programs and upped excise taxes on prescription medicines and beer. The poll result suggested that Thatcher's message is getting through to the public.

Within her party, she faces problems. Her Cabinet is seriously split between her own brand of doctrinaire Tory ideologues and the more pragmatic traditional conservatives. Cabinet meetings are often prickly. Ministers who make a weak case or are deemed "wet" (spineless) are sharply chastised. In extreme irritation, Thatcher has a habit of slapping her palms against the green baize tabletop. In the House of Commons, her majority of 43 harbors rebellious, hard-line backbenchers who demand tougher restrictions on trade unions and more ruthless cuts in public spending.

Through this tempestuous first year, Prime Minister Thatcher has coolly stuck to her maxim: "You can only do what you feel and know to be right." Taking it all in all, she is ebullient. Says she: "I quite like being Prime Minister."

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