By Andrew Brons. It would not be quite true that I have nothing positive to say about Mrs. (later Baroness) Thatcher’s political record. I have two remarks about her that might be considered, at least, to be some mitigation.
She was followed by those who were even greater scoundrels: Major; Blair; Brown; and Cameron.
Secondly, there are reasons to think that her ‘Iron Lady’ image was, at the very least, misleading. She certainly acted aggressively towards those in her Cabinet, who, she had been persuaded, were her political enemies. However, the word ‘persuaded’ should not be forgotten. For all her apparent aggression, she was supremely capable of being manipulated. Those who knew how to manage her, controlled her. For all her academic prowess in the natural sciences, she was a babe in arms when it came to Realpolitik.
She had her favourites, who knew where they and their policies were leading: Sir Keith Joseph, who saw himself as the populariser of Milton Friedman’s ideas. Sir Keith had other (non-economic) ideas that were much sounder but that is another article for another day. She adopted ‘austerity policies’ before they were called ‘austerity policies’ and delighted in the prospect of workers being forced to lower the wages for which they were prepared (or forced) to work. Unemployment was a Grantham, non-conformist lesson in humility.
Her election victory in 1979 was largely fuelled by the strikes of the ‘Winter of Discontent’. There were pernicious Communists in the trade union movement, like Red Robbo who helped to destroy our car industry. However, the strikes of 1978/79 however disruptive and counter-productive, were against the ‘Social Contract’ agenda of wage restraint.
Her destruction of Britain’s manufacturing industry, and later our coal mining industry, were, by some quirk of reasoning, seen as positive. The National Union of Mineworkers was certainly led by the appalling Marxist, Scargill, but the other Non-Marxist leadership candidates were just as defensive of miners’ jobs – as they should have been. Coal is a lost British resource for the loss of which Thatcher is personally responsible. She was persuaded by shadowy political gangsters to refuse negotiation and to follow the failure of the strike with the destruction of the industry.
“But at least she was patriotic,” I hear you say.
She affected to be a Euro-Sceptic but one of her first acts as Conservative Leader was to campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in the 1975 referendum. In 1986, she embraced the Single European Act with its erosion of our sovereignty. In the late 1980s, she was apparently ‘unaware’ that her Chancellor, Lawson, was manipulating the value of the £ to shadow the Deutschmark. In 1990, in a last desperate attempt to remain Conservative leader and Prime Minister, she allowed her Chancellor, John Major, to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism – the fore-runner of the Euro. She rated the retention of her job as more important than her Nation’s sovereignty.
“Well,” I hear you say, “at least she was an inspirational war leader, during the Falklands War”. That cannot be denied; it helped her to win the 1983 (and perhaps 1987) General Election. However, she had been conniving for two years with her Foreign Office ministers to hand the Falklands to Argentina on a plate. It was those negotiations that emboldened the Argentines to invade. Her negotiations led to the invasion; the invasion led to the Falklands War, which led to the deaths of 253 British servicemen. Their blood is on their hands.
“On the most important issue of immigration, Mrs Thatcher must, at least be seen as sound,” I hear you suggest. She undoubtedly said a lot to create that impression. In 1978, she explained how she understood the fear of British people at being ‘swamped’ by immigrants of a different ‘culture’ (by which she meant ‘race’). In reality, no fewer unassimilable immigrants landed on our shores and at our airports after she was elected as did before she was elected. On immigration, as on everything else, she was a practised fraudster.
I must revise my earlier ‘commendation’ of her. I implied that her successors were worse than she was. They at least were (and are) openly Anti-British. Thatcher pretended to be a patriot. She was an unmitigated scoundrel.
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I agree with you every word. Thatcher was a reactionary Tory who put her backers and Tory Party funders first – every time. She betrayed the British people over immigration, kept them us in the EU and did whatever Washington told her to do. To give her a state funeral is a flaming disgrace. She did nothing much for this country and was responsible for wrecking the industrial north and selling off our state owned assets. The reason why our armed forces were in such bad shape back in the early 80’s was in no small part to her government’s neglect and her culpability in the Belgrano sinking affair was tantamount to a war crime. I for one will not lament her passing, I hope she rots in hell.
Great write up Andrew. I agree with everything you said. Nobody from the working class was fooled by her after she started destroying our valuble industrys and she was the first minister to be appointed the title of “career politician” after the Falklands. She even overtook Edward Heath’s backstabbing attitude towards this country. As I stated openly to friends yesterday, Satan has now took back his wife. Good riddance to her. She started the legacy that was to destroy Britains good old days into the disgusting “modern Britain” mayhem we see today. I’d rather see her body being used as landfill at a local tip. That is all.
A conman,fraudster,cheat and liar she did much to erode what bit of National pride we had left,she oversaw the destruction of huge swathes of our manufacturing industries already struggling to cope with third world competition,it is fair to say the North of the Country has never recovered from her spiteful actions.
Her comments did not however ruin the 1979 General election for the National Front as is often stated, that was down to inexperience and inept leadership.
Agreed. For those nationalists and others (mainly Tories) who praise her for the Falklands, I would suggest they look a lot more deeply into the matter. Her government was preparing to butcher our armed forces the year or so before (particularly the most crucial of the services for this country ie the Royal Navy), her junior foreign office minister Nick Ridley proposed a disgraceful ‘leaseback’ agreement ie like Hong Kong WITHOUT the prior CONSENT of the Islanders in 1980/1981 so it is no wonder the Argentines thought we were no longer interested in the islands and they could invade them without consequences.
Her government also presided over the real beginnings of virulent political correctness with the Public Order Act of 1986. The police were politicised under her government and she gave away national sovereignty by signing the Single European Act in the mid 80’s.
As others have alluded to, she oversaw the destruction of BRITISH-OWNED industry and thus created the conditions for the ‘benefits culture’ of today.
The destruction of industry was partly based on a then plausible idea in economics.
Why not let countries with a huge reservoir of unskilled labour do the ‘metal bashing’ basic manufacturing so that we obtained cheap imports? We, on the other hand, would export skilled services.
Several disasters arose from this intoxicating idea.
It lowered wages at the bottom end and also created mass unemployment. The idea that the skilled services could be separated from the bashing and retained was a mirage. Lose one you lose the other. But for big business it boosted profits and big business is influential.
Worse, the lowered bottom end wages encouraged a growing client class of benefit claimants often encouraged to be ‘sick’ in order to massage the unemployment figures. The call for more ‘hard working immigrants’ then seemed to some to be rational in tone.
Add on an addiction to debt fuelled by deregulation and a veneer of shoddy services like takeaway shops and you have the devil’s own brew of temporary joy and longer term hollowing out of the productive economy.
We are now in the most enormous mess in our modern history.
Whilst she did have a few minor good points, I think history in the fullness of time won’t be that kind to her. As an example of this, our country could break-apart next year due in some ways to the policies she set in train. What a legacy that would be for a PM of a party that still calls itself the Conservative AND UNIONIST PARTY.
She was above all lucky.
The Labour Party the official opposition to her, first had the unelectable ”intellectual” scruffy windbag Michael Foot as leader.
To be followed by thick as two short planks and equally unelectable Neil Kinnock.
In the Falklands war luck was with her again.
If the Argentinian bombs which hit ships and did not explode but would have done so.
And the Argentinians had concentrated more on bombing the transport ships with the men and supplies in them.
Then the task force would have become stranded and forced to surrender, and Thatcher would have gone over night.
She was lucky when the Brighton hotel bomb went off, just another couple of pounds of explosive she would have been killed.
When she decided to take on the then most powerful Trade Union the NUM she again was blessed with luck.
A proper organised miners strike with all miners united would have defeated Thatcher.
Instead the NUM led by the Marxist clown Scargill blew it when the first actions of striking miners was to get in physical confrontations with other miners who wanted a ballot before going on strike, a ballot which there would have been a majority vote yes for the strike.
The miners strike was lost because of the working pits in Nottinghamshire, all because of the tactics of the Marxist clown Scargill.
Ironic that she was the author of her own political fall by the introduction of the poll tax.
When the Tories dumped her, it was not because of poll tax riots, but because opinion polls in key seats were showing the Tories would lose the next election because of the poll tax.
She had to go.
And the Tories went on to win the next general election.
She was a remarkable fascinating political leader(one who I always opposed for reasons highlighted by Andrew), but more than anything she had the most incredible luck.
Thatcher’s vaguely worded Public Order Act certainly introduced the reign of PC terror. Ever since people have been frightened to speak out about controversial subjects. ‘Insulting’ and ‘abusive’ are concepts of infinite elasticity. Few prosecutions were brought. Not necessary. The climate of fear did the job.
Don’t let us forget also that ‘multicultural education’ began during Mrs Thatcher’s reign.
To quote the 1985 Swann Committee Report:
‘Britain is a multiracial and multicultural society and all pupils must be enabled to understand what this means.’
Well we know what it means now don’t we? British identity and culture are no longer seen as fundamentals to be retained within our country and into which immigrants are encouraged to merge.
To my mind it was the educational sell-out of Britain which is Thatcher’s worst legacy. Most of the other things complained of can be argued several ways. That one is sheer treachery.