Thatcher
In a speech to the Conservative Women's Conference on 21 May 1980, Thatcher appealed to the notion saying, "We have to get our production and our earnings into balance. There's no easy popularity in what we are proposing but it is fundamentally sound. Yet I believe people accept there's no real alternative." Later in the speech, she returned to the theme: "What's the alternative? To go on as we were before? All that leads to is higher spending. And that means more taxes, more borrowing, higher interest rates more inflation, more unemployment."[10]
The slogan was often used by Thatcher.[citation needed][11] The phrase is used to signify Thatcher's claim that the market economy is the best, right and only system that works, and that debate about this is over. One critic characterized the meaning of the slogan as: "Globalised capitalism, so called free markets and free trade were the best ways to build wealth, distribute services and grow a society's economy. Deregulation's good, if not God."[12] By contrast, Thatcher described her support of markets as flowing from a more basic moral argument; specifically, she argued that the market-principle of choice flows from the moral principle that for human behavior to be moral requires free choice by people.[11]
Astrid Séville [de] notes the curious mix of Thatcher's use of neoliberal rhetoric of individual empowerment and the paternalistic tilt of TINA. Although Thatcher became – and remained for many years – a deeply polarizing politician, her legacy in Great Britain carried through both Third Way and New Labour periods, starting a "TINA era".
2010s austerity
Angela Merkel's use of the term alternativlos (literally "alternative-less"; without alternative) in relation to her responses to the European sovereign-debt crisis in 2010 led to the term becoming "un-word of the year".[14]
In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron resurrected the phrase, stating "If there was another way I would take it. But there is no alternative"—referring to austerity in the United Kingdom.[15] Christine Lagarde, then Managing Director of the IMF, declared in May 2013 that "there is no alternative to austerity", seconded by France's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in French: Il n’y a pas d’alternative à la politique menée.
The crisis had exposed a rift between the euro rescue packages and political realities: in 12 out of 15 cases the governments that implemented austerity measures were voted out, Eurosceptic and populist parties enjoyed a quick boost in popularity. In response, Eurozone turned to the "federalism of executive bodies", pushing the decision authority up to the European Commission, forming diverse coalitions united mostly by the pro-Euro stance of parties, squashing referendum proposals. TINA rhetoric was used as a "shielding mechanism" to depoliticize the discourse, yet it backfired spectacularly in Germany with many voters fleeing to Alternative for Germany in an attempt to re-politicize the euro area crisis.