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Britain 'got happier' after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister

Thatcher entered Downing Street following years of turmoil  - HULTON ARCHIVE
Thatcher entered Downing Street following years of turmoil - HULTON ARCHIVE

Britain began to get happier after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, scientists have found.

A new project which computer-analysed vast numbers of books and newspaper articles over 200 years reveals Britain’s low-point was the so-called “Winter of Discontent” in 1978/9.

The UK’s first female prime minister came to power in May 1979, quoting St Francis of Assisi -  “Where there is hatred, let me sow love” - on her way into 10 Downing Street.

Although the early years of Thatcher’s premiership are often characterised as a time of rancorous division, the new “national happiness” data reveals the mood of the country improved.

Scientists at Warwick and Glasgow universities and the Alan Turing Institute electronically scanned more than four million books published in the UK, US, Germany and Italy, as well as tens of millions of newspaper articles.

They devised a system of word recognition to establish “psychological valence norms”.

These were validated against against modern national happiness surveys and found to be accurate.

The data showed that Britain’s happiest period was in the 1880s, at the height of its imperial power.

The Twentieth century was generally less happy, with the Winter of Discontent scoring even lower in the National Valence Index than the darkest days of the Second World War.

Professor Daniel Sgroi, from Warwick, said: 'Aspirations seem to matter a lot: after the end of rationing in the 1950s national happiness was very high as were expectations for the future, but unfortunately things did not pan out as people might have hoped and national happiness fell for many years until the low-point of the Winter of Discontent.'

The study is published in the journal Nature human behaviour.