ABSTRACT
Margaret Thatcher hated what the civil service stood for. She considered public-sector employment a necessary evil and was determined to reduce its burden on the state. Thatcher determined to strip local authorities of many of their powers and to abolish the most troublesome ones. Thatcher's policies on local government represented her sharpest break with the ethos of traditional Conservatism. Historically, the Conservatives were the party of local interests and identities, particularly English ones. Thatcher was also anxious to spread the burden of local government more widely. Perhaps uniquely during her eleven years in power, her political instincts over the poll tax proved disastrously faulty. The resolution of the poll tax fiasco had to wait until after Thatcher's fall from power. The fact that she pressed ahead with a demonstrably unpopular policy is significant. The 1987 election victory was the watershed. It seems to have encouraged Thatcher to think that she was virtually indestructible.
