Margaret Thatcher – a very tarnished “heroine“

Iain Dale’s adoration for Margaret Thatcher in these books (above) takes him into a world where his normal political nous is buried by cultish hero worship. Mind you he’s not alone in this. How often do we hear the preposterous and ignorant claim that she was “the best thing that happened to this country” . It’s balderdash.

Thatcher got lucky in 1982 with the Falklands War without which she would be a footnote in history. Rightly. I say this not as an opponent of the decline of deep mining nor as a defender of excessive Trades Union power. No, I criticise the mindless and uncaring way she approached these necessary changes. 

And remember she was opposed by her last Cabinet over Europe. The faux-patriotism she union-flagged post Falklands turned her into a grotesque Little Englander when out of office. She sowed the seeds of first intellectually bereft Euroscepticism and then the Referendum “Leave” campaign. In no small measure Brexit is attributable to Thatcher.

It’s forgotten that Thatcher was influenced strongly by her Home Counties golf club bore of a husband. Denis was a middle class, well off bigot from central casting. When his wife called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” that was Denis speak.

After Thatcher her successor John Major cleverly unraveled his inheritance from her , where he could. But the disastrous privatisations she did were too much for him or even Blair/Brown to undue. Our filthy beaches, polluted rivers and chaotic railways are directly Thatcher’s legacy. Our gas and electricity services rewarding investors and Directors rather than serving customers are more of the same. As is our lone man of Europe isolation which makes us an outlier on the international stage.

Thatcher was no feminist either. Her politics had more Testosterone in them than Estrogen ! There were few female Ministers in her Governments and she did little for women’s Rights.

It is a political Age without heroes, an Age which started with Brexit which, as I say, has strong causal links to Thatcher. The irony is that people like Iain Dale, whilst acknowledging today’s lack of politicians of substance, look at Thatcher as a golden Age by comparison. The truth is that the Blessed Margaret was the original cause of our problems!