Thatcher's Britain

Thatcher's Britain
Richard Vinen

Looking for a book that would either examine the intricacies of Thatcher's various governments, something that Andrew Rawnsley's superlative End of the Party did for Blair/Brown's cabinets, or a social commentary of a passed decade , like the excellent Andy Beckett's When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies, I tried Thatcher's Britain.

Which was a shame. This is an odd book.

For a start it isn't about Britain at all. The people and the events hardly get a mention. The Toxteth riots has a single line.And it isn't really about Thatcher either. Its about..well I'm not sure really. The idea of Thatcherism? Whether it was an idea, a doctrine, a religion or just a myth.

The book covers chunks of Thatcherism without going into much detail. Economics, Europe, Ireland Nato & the Unions. The book blurb says Thatcher's Britain tells the story of Thatcherism for a generation with no personal memories of the 80s"

But it doesn't. If you don't already know what happened and who was doing what then this book won't help you much. Ken Livingstone gets just two mentions. John Major, only five.
The person who does get the most mentions, with fifty five, or a reference every six pages, is Enoch Powell.

Now, I don't recall hearing much about Enoch during Thatcher's tenure. I wasn't paying a lot of attention in the 80's but I am fairly sure he rarely cropped up. Yet here he appears twice as regularly as Nigel Lawson, the long time chancellor. Michael Portillo only manages a Gordon Brown attending Parliament amount of appearances. Once.

I can only conclude that the author originally intended to write a biography of Powell, who is incredibly fascinating, but found no publishers were interested, so rather than bin the material he squeezed it into a book not really about Thatcher.

Well...I'm none the wiser. It seems that Thatcher may not have been very Thatcherite after all.

However, having persevered, I'm determined to take something from this book. And that is the conclusion.

1. Thatcher was NOT necessarily a reforming Prime Minister. The manifestos were not full of commitments to change society, despite what occurred later. They WERE full of talk about repairing the economy, tackling inflation {running at 10-20% Per annum} and paying down the debt.

2. Thatcher ended the state subsidies to the nationalised industries that had massively driven up public spending and allowed strong unions resistant to change and wage controls. Sectors that were entirely dependent on the government for cash become less bloated and more efficient.

3. Thatcher made the Labour party become centralists. She forced the old Foot/Kinnock heavy metal Labour party to be abandoned forever. That was a result of her most successful policies being demonstrably correct, even if at a high price. Labour could not go back to clause 4 . Thatcher privatised the 'native' CEGB
and even today, with the leader of the opposition calling for an end to high energy prices, he has no intention of renationalising the energy companies. Labour didn't dig a single extra shovelful of coal in their 13 years of power than a Tory government would have done.

There was another Maggie Factor. She was lucky.

Lucky in timing. Lucky with her ministers. Lucky that her opponents inside and outside the party were inept. Lucky with Scargill falling into the traps. Lucky in war. Lucky with the press. Lucky with Regan and Gorbachev. Lucky that the IRA missed.

Will Cameron be as lucky?

Conference season finally ends. Good, it was rubbish.

Conference season is over.

This underwhelming event is given great prominence in the media, making it appear a national issue rather than the local one which it really is. Parties have a conference for the same reason corporations do. To let different strands of the organisation meet each other. To woo backers and clients. To give a veneer of a voice to people who don't normally get one. To boost morale. To present some new ideas that may or not come to fruition. To set out the framework of the coming period and to let the leader make his/her speech about their vision. Like any conference the message is for the people who work there.
Only Cameron, being the actual CEO, has to really consider how its going to play with the shareholders.
And if you think of the last three in those terms, then they were better than they appeared to be.

The Liberals went for morale. They wanted to reassure their workers that they knew what they were doing and that they were in no one's pocket. So they were combative with everyone and behaved like an opposition without hope of gaining power. Which, is basically, what they are.
The Liberals are going to struggle much more than the other two parties to retain the votes from 2010. So Clegg & co decided to remind the troops that although they may well all get slaughtered come the next big push, it sure was worth it to stand up for one's ideals, eh chaps?

Miliband's party made some feeble excuses to get them out of the way. The Blair, "we've said sorry, now let's move on" strategy. Its important to get that done. It wasn't convincing but it doesn't need to be. Brown's people hated to say sorry for anything and he was bullied by the press at every opportunity to apologise for something. Mainly because they knew he wouldn't.
Miliband's speech was a disconnect of sound-bites. A speech of one liners for the 10 O'clock news. It was too long and I thought it very poor overall.
But, having seen Cameron's, I realise he had the same idea. Soundbites for the media but message for the faithful. 'We are here. We cocked up before. But I have a lot to offer. And as I'm not quite sure what that is I'll list everything I can think of and you pick out the bits you like and forget the rest." So, for who it was aimed at..those who were slightly worried by his leadership, it was good enough. Even if he did have to spend the next three days explaining across the networks what he'd said and what he meant.

Cameron went for Prime Ministerial. He has to. He's the PM. It was an OK, if dull speech. More for the country than the party. And that's his job. To tell us, what they are doing. It was a Keep Calm and Carry ON speech from the ministry .

The Tory conference media management was a disaster. The cock-up PM briefing was a big mistake. All the TV and radio had programs discussing what he had said in his speech many hours before he never said it. It was a Brown sort of cock-up. Tony Blair would not have had such sloppiness. And the moggy story!! Worthy of a Vince award for fastest fail.
And walking around with women MPs. Another patently transparent Brown style PR stunt that is so obviously a trick it just irritates the viewers. Cameron desperately needs a Campbell/Coulson.

The media did their usual trick too. They went in search of stories they wanted to report, instead of any that were there. So they were desperate to find coalition splits at the Liberal's do. Leadership challenges and dissatisfaction at the Labour one. And Euro anger, Liberal wets anger and women's anger at the Tory one. And they were frustrated in all as they { and if you saw any of Newsnight you'll know who was principally behind this} found bugger all worth reporting, despite the best and most provocative efforts to do so.

Which you could have predicted before the conference began. Nothing too controversial. No open splits. No spats. A score draw bore for everyone.

The leaders of all three parties must be delighted.

The Third Man

In special appreciation of the winner of the publishers wars.

The Third Man.

{Do you think Peter has ever actually seen the film?}


Fome the IMD reviews:
"..he has minimal screen time, though his dark presence and influence infiltrate proceedings like an insidious disease. .."

"The character of Harry S.Lime, alive or dead, on-screen or not, is one of cinema's most fascinating villains. Charming & deadly as any cobra, he attracts & repels at the same moment. "

".. A man who is supposed to be dead turns up alive, there are conspiracies, deceits, and double crosses… "

"we all remember that terrific scene where the cat meows, and suddenly he appears, an evil smirk on his face like a child who has gotten away with the cookie from the jar."

Our own tribute.

Sadly, due to the inherent oddities of multi format in WMV some scenes don't appear on youtube. Moving to a better video editing program soon.

Politics is lies - and no one cares.

A reader emailed..{the gist}

This is a question for Bill, or perhaps a suggestion for a post; why aren’t political parties more answerable for the promises they make in the run up to elections?
Mr X

Lots of reasons really.

1} The lack of any choice in alternative parties similar to a voters beliefs, means voters remain committed to a party even when the party does the opposite of what the voter wants.
So Cameron has had to admit to no Eu-referendum. The CWU union continues to fund Labour, despite Labour being committed to privatise them out of existence. But where can those unions go? Vote Tory? The Lib Dems won't win power for a decade or more even with the full support of all the unions.

2}Follows on that it is extremely difficult to create a new credible party in the UK, and even harder to gain any traction with it.
At a time of unprecedented immigration the BNP are a fringe party. Even with Lisbon and EU law precedent, UKIP has got nowhere. There has been a Green agenda since the CFC scares of the 'caring' 90', for 20 years reaching almost religious belief today. Green MP's -Zero.

3} The media rarely revisit. Gordon Brown as chancellor announced free laptops for the poorest in his 1999 budget. Where are they? He felt confident to announce it again in 2008 and yet again just a few weeks ago as an election bribe, knowing no one questions it. Even on a supposedly hard hitting program like Newsnight or the Today show, a Politico knows that if they can just hold their nerve for 5 miutes its off to another topic. 24 hour rolling news. It just rolls on.

4} Politicians lie. They deny complete U-turns until everyone gets bored with talking about them. Look at Lisbon. Labour categorically deny that they have done anything different to their manifesto promise to hold a referendum on the constitution. They maintain that today. And the Tories can't really keep on about it as its a difficult area for them also.

5} And, voters don't really care. By that I mean millions marched against the Iraq war - years later just hundreds turned up to heckle Mr Blair at Chilcot.

And a judge ruled that politicians can't be held to manifesto promises. Even ones printed on laminated cards and held up by John Prescott as some sort of success at every opportunity.
Or it may simply be that the dancing show is on the telly and that's more important.

There is some evidence in the polling of a government lying and not getting completely away with it. Labour have lost support from the middle classes for promising education/education/education yet kids can't read. Health service 'envy of the world', yet the dead pile up to meet targets. Students, unbelievably really, turn away from leftie causes when the economic cost of university lands on them. More 16-20's are polling for Dave than Gordon. But in the main Labour get a solid 30 -35% of votes whatever they do and the Tories a 30 - 38% and that is how its been for a long time. What happens when people disbelieve the garbage they are told is they don't vote at all. 80% turnouts now around 60%.

It was a good email and a very valid question. Why don't politicians face real scrutiny ?
So if you have any other reasons why we knowingly let the leaders get away with it please post them.

Friday Fun 19th Century style

If our great leaders were propelled back in time which particular style of mustache or beard would they adopt for that all important Punch cartoon sketch for the First Lord of the Treasury's pronouncements or posing in the churchyard remembering the Khartoum war dead.

This week fit the facial hair to the politician.

1. David Cameron
2. Peter Mandelson
3. Gordon Brown
4. Ed Miliband
5. Ken Clarke
6. Jack Straw
   
7. Alistair Darling
8. George Osborne
9. Boris Johnson
10. Nick Clegg
11. David Laws
12. Ed Balls

Jar of Cockburn's Fortitude Beard and Bristle Wax to the winner