Thursday 18 November 2010

A modern Boadicea


This is another of the essays I wrote for a multi-author site not long after I finished reading a biography of Edward Heath, prime minister of Britain in the early 1970s, a fairly disastrous time in our history. I think it worth preserving here, especially in the light of our present circumstances.

Having read Edward Heath-the Authorised Biography I could do with a jolly good antidote; I could do with Margaret Thatcher – the Authorised Biography. The commission was given some years ago to Charles Moore, one of my favourite columnists, and I suspect the exercise is largely complete.

There is only one small problem – it’s not scheduled for publication until after her death, something I would not advance, or wish to see advanced, by a single degree. The longer this great and wonderful lady is with us the better.

Looking back over the history of Britain since 1945 I see Margaret Thatcher standing like a political colossus, a refreshing contrast to every other prime minister, and I do not exempt Winston Churchill, whose peacetime ministry was little better than a disappointing postscript to his wartime days.

Reading the reviews of a newly published biography of Charles de Gaulle oddly enough it was Thatcher he brought to mind, because I think she occupies an analogous position in British history to his in the history of France.

Think about it; think about the position of our country in 1979. We hadn’t been defeated in war, that’s true, but objectively speaking we may very well have been, judging by the political and economic condition of the nation. Inflation was out of control; trade union barons, like medieval condottieri, were in the habit of marching in to Downing Street to dictate terms, the whole social fabric of the nation was in danger of unravelling in the face of continual political mismanagement, appalling under Labour, not that much better under some Conservative administrations.

The rot goes back to 1945. The nation was bankrupt; there needed to be a major period of economic retrenchment and renewal. Instead our capital was frittered away on ruinous welfare programmes, things we simply could not afford. So, our major competitors, who did not make the same mistake, had a march on us. The Germans emerged stronger in defeat than we had in victory. We had won the war only to lose the peace, a cliché, I know, but one that sums up the ensuing period so well.

By the time Labour left office in 1951 the damage had been done. A new orthodoxy emerged that welfarism and the mixed economy was a ‘good thing’, an orthodoxy that was to go by the name of Butskellism, combining the names of Rab Butler, a Tory Chancellor, with Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the Labour Party prior to Harold Wilson. Perhaps if Churchill had been in the vigour of life, perhaps if he had taken a greater interest in domestic economic management rather than foreign affairs, things might have been different. Unfortunately they were not.

Then came the age of the two Harolds, MacMillan and Wilson, a time when Butskellism reached its high tide, a bogus age, a dishonest age when underlying problems were simply ignored, problems like the ever increasing rate of inflation and poor productivity, only disguised by a favourable international situation. The whole illusion was sustained by the hocus-pocus of Keynesian economics, the belief that the state can regulate the economy for the benefit of all, forever, and ever, and ever. Well, it can’t.

For a time it looked as if Heath was set to change direction, to break this dreadful consensus, on the basis of the Selsdon Programme, but he turned out to be worse even than the Harolds; he turned out to be the greatest exponent of state management ever; the greatest socialist who was not a socialist.

By 1979 the lies and deceptions that had sustained the country through the previous three decades could no longer be ignored. What was needed was a revolution in economic and social policy; what was needed was a revolutionary; what was needed was Margaret Thatcher.

She swept away all of the illusions of the past, the thing I admire most about her. She was as courageous in the face of adversity, often coming from within her own party, as Heath was cowardly. She was no theoretician but her common-sense approach to economic questions harmonised very well with monetarism. Her belief in markets over the state gave new life to the economy. She broke the power of the union condottieri, broke the power of the enemy within as she broke the power of the enemy without. Once again Britain had standing in the world after years of declining prestige.

For all these reasons and more I believe her to be the greatest living Englishwoman, greater, by far, than all her male contemporaries. Her legacy will shine far into the future.

38 comments:

  1. And where's her successor? I see none.

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  5. Suciô, I have a hunch that leadership and dynamism like this comes in fairly long cycles, fifty years at least. So -and making no assumptions about your age - you may yet live to see one. :-)

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  7. The problem with party politics is that it deludes voters into imagining that all they must do to ensure utopia is elect the party with the best leader. It is a very convenient fiction - for the elites who control the parties. For everyone else it is a despicable deception.

    No party ever has, or ever will represent YOU. A single MP or congressman might . . . if you make it worth his while.

    One can sing of the 'success' or 'failure' of this leader or that in shaping the path of the nation, but the truth is all choices are constrained by influences seen and unseen. And leaders may talk all they like, but it is the people themselves who enact all change and to whom all credit is due. We focus our attention on the sequin-spangled acrobat who stands on the back of the tiger, but it is the tiger who really decides where to go - tempted, perhaps, by the bait in an unseen hand.

    Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher were not perfect. They made many errors; but they rode their tigers well, with poise.

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  8. Calvin, there is inevitably a degree of abstraction or abdication, possibly the better word, involved in modern party government. Pure representative democracy is impossible, and only fools believe in utopia or promises of utopia. We can, nevertheless, produce individuals, party leaders, who have an intuitive grasp of the great issues of the day, who are in tune with the general mood. Your last point is spot on.

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  9. The Oueen, the Rothchilds, the Bank of England are selling you out to the EU. just like the Federal reserve is selling America to the International Bankers and China . Nationalism is giving way to corporateism. Queen Victoria is long gone. Guess who knew this and tried to do something about it ?

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  10. As a student of history, Ana, do you envisage yourself always an observer, or are you tempted to become a player?

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  13. Adam, we will just have to take distance on this. I will have to respect your socialism, as you will have to respect my libertarianism.

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  14. Calvin, I already am, at least in a small way. :-)

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  16. State socialism is a disease, one that came close to destroying this country.

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  18. @ Sucio: Perhaps Ana will rise to the occasion.

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  19. As Churchill tartly observed about Clement "If it moves, nationalise it" Attlee; " A modest man, with much to be modest about."

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  20. @ anthony: the hurdle is much higher for a woman. They tend to polarize opinion far more. Take Palin & Hillary as examples - the only way either could win a presidential race is by running against the other. Palin is hated just as vehemently on the left as Clinton is on the right. (Whether either is any good is a separate issue.)

    Bss. Thatcher too roused quite irrational levels of antipathy: Mr. Garrie hasn't recovered yet. Would the mob have been anywhere near as exercised if a male education minister had tried to cut school milk?

    Are women politicians more abrasive, or do male pundits feel threatened by them somehow? Suciô thinks Freudian analysis is nonsense, but it seems that there's more than a cigar here.

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  22. I intend to have another bite at this, possibly later this week, in the light of Andrew Robert's excellent article in today's Sunday Telegraph. Thank goodness she dealt so effectively with the loss making minining industry and the frightful militants who set out to destroy this country.

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  26. Mining is a hazardous occupation. Hard on the respiratory system.

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  27. I'm really quite adept at 'Tory lies.' I've been practicing long enough. :-)

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  28. @ sucio:Many men feel threatened by aggressive women.

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  32. Anthony, you will have to forgive me, but I'm not publishing any more vote BNP exhortations. No educated person here would ever consider voting for that ghastly party, made up of the worst kind of low-lives, thugs and oddballs. You can go to Adam’s own page to urge him to vote BNP if you wish, but not here. And I won’t tolerate any more anti-Semitism.

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  34. Then, Adam, I am guilty of the same treason, for I would have done exactly the same. No, I would have gone further.

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  37. Understood, I will say no more on this. Your fate is in your hands.

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