ABSTRACT
With her election as Prime Minister of a Conservative Government in 1979, Margaret Thatcher helped initiate an individualistic ideology that permeates policy making even today. In this chapter, I look at the mediation of structural changes in the United Kingdom through the lens of discourse. Using narrative policy analysis, I examine the Conservative Party Conference Speeches delivered by Thatcher during her tenure, which chart a shift in political discourse in the direction of individualism. Narrative policy analysis involves the study of narrative creation as fundamental to framing policy solutions and insulating ideological perspectives from competing counter-narratives. The outlining of policy and the enactment of legislation based on narratives of self-reliance and personal responsibility therefore made individual initiative a reality in the everyday lives of British households by framing their understanding of economic crisis, as well as producing material changes to income, savings, and benefits that households relied upon to get by.
