I don’t believe in celebrating when a political opponent dies. You celebrate when they lose power. Celebrate their political demise, not dehumanise them by celebrating their passing as a person.
So I celebrated as an 18-year-old student when Margaret Thatcher was deposed as prime minister in 1990, but when she passed away this week I just felt sadness for her as a person, sympathy for her supporters whose sense of loss is genuine, respect for her achievements as a politician and national leader, and sadness about the division and trauma and unnecessary suffering she had brought to Britain while I was a child.
Had I known in 1990 that her removal from power was actually the key to the Tories winning a fourth general election in 1992 I probably wouldn’t even have celebrated then.
Unless you were around in a tribally Labour family in the 1980s it is impossible to grasp the sheer hatred, fear and impotent rage that Thatcher induced. It felt like every time she came on the radio (we came very, very late to owning a TV in my family!) my dad would start shouting. I was brought up to (correctly) attribute the myriad failings of our local public services to her cuts and the tightness of our family budget to her stinginess with the benefits my family got because of low pay. I think in my child’s mind I held her responsible for my non-ownership of a Millennium Falcon toy or any Star Wars figures, the must-haves back then. In a highly political family it felt like every institution we held dear was being attacked by her, one after another. We weren’t directly affected by her economic and industrial wrecking campaign because my dad wasn’t a miner or industrial worker, but we lived near enough to what was then the Kent coalfield to know people and villages that were devastated by Thatcherism and also to know children of coppers who had revelled in the overtime money they got for being on the other side of the picket line.
The irony is that while I owe my life being saved twice to Labour’s NHS (as a premature baby and a cancer survivor) I owe my educational life chances to Thatcher’s assisted places scheme, which delivered me a free place at Kent College, a minor public school (also the alma mater of her policy adviser John Redwood), which if it didn’t iron out my Estuarian vowelled Kent accent did kit me out with a taste for public speaking and debating, reinforced centre-left values, and foolhardy levels of self-confidence.
But the tragedy was that high Thatcherism with its deeply ideological approach combining monetarism, deliberate promotion of unemployment (a ‘price worth paying’ chancellor Norman Lamont said as he presided over the second – post-Thatcher – Tory recession in 10 years), deindustrialisation, running down of public services, and privatisation (‘selling off the family silver’ as Harold Macmillan, a more compassionate generation of Tory prime minister put it), was not inevitable.
She may have implemented those policies and destroyed the postwar social democratic consensus, but Labour let her do it.
We did it in 1979 when the unions effectively destroyed Jim Callaghan’s, until then, rather good chances of re-election with the industrial chaos of the Winter of Discontent.
Then we took a situation where we could have quickly won back power – a 13 per cent swing in the 1979 Southend East by-election, gaining 35 councils in 1980, poll leads of up to 16 per cent, and threw it away. We self-destructed in an orgy of infighting. The Hard Left dragged our policies away from where the electorate was and an element of the right lacked the stomach to keep fighting and flounced out into the political dead-end of the SDP. Thank goodness that under Ed Miliband’s leadership we have not repeated that ghastly response to defeat.
The Labour party of 1983 presented voters with a choice that was no choice. We told people that if you wanted lower unemployment and less privatisation and to protect schools and the NHS you could only have this with an added dollop of unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the EEC, and effectively a siege economy, all to be presided over by the less-than-prime ministerial figure of Michael Foot. It is a miracle and a testament to the sheer pinch-your-nose loyalty of Labour’s core vote that we came away with the 209 seats we did, and survived as a party for long enough for Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair to slowly rebuild our credibility.
This was not even the worst we could have offered – another fraction of a percent in the deputy leadership contest in 1981 and Tony Benn, not Denis Healey, would have been in our leadership team – he inspired even more fear and hatred among centrist voters than Thatcher did on the left.
People talk about the divisiveness and conviction politics of the 1980s like it was a good thing. I think it was vile – the major parties presented voters with the electoral equivalent of choosing between plague and pestilence – the Tories won because it turned out Tory pestilence had a 40 per cent core vote and Labour plague only a 27 per cent one.
Some of what Thatcher did we should have been in power doing. We should have helped council tenants become homeowners. That is a leftwing idea. We should have made unions ballot before going on strike. That is a leftwing idea. We should have released companies like BT from state control. There is nothing particularly leftwing about state ownership of telephones, particularly when it is an incompetent service. We should have defended the Falklands from a fascist junta – and to Foot’s credit as opposition leader he backed Thatcher on this. We should have renewed Britain’s nuclear deterrent and stood up to the Soviet Union. There is nothing leftwing about being soft on defence or on dictatorships.
A Labour government led by Healey, perhaps succeeded by Roy Hattersley then John Smith could have done all these things. It could have modernised the British economy in a constructive way, investing in new industries, without destroying our industrial base or the communities that went with it. It could have safeguarded the essence of the social democratic consensus and with it a kinder, gentler, more compassionate Britain. It could have given a chance in life, a decent life worth living, to the people that Thatcherism threw on the scrapheap.
I am sorry for Thatcher’s life ending and I genuinely feel sympathy for her family and political supporters at their loss. But I mourn the Britain that could have been without her 11 years in power, and the lives that could have been better lived in that alternate Britain of tough but wise and compassionate Healey and Hattersley governments. And I don’t blame her for pursuing the Tory dream – that’s what Tories do – I blame us for letting her get away with it.
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Luke Akehurst is a councillor in the London borough of Hackney, writes regularly for Progress here and blogs here.
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Labour let Blairism happen. Blair and Brown (New Labour) let Cameronism happen. Political ideology is just a viscious circle.
The trouble with New Labour and the modern day career politician is that not many were “directly affected by her (Thatcher) economic and industrial wrecking campaign” Thats the problem.
Observing and experiencing Luke are two very different concepts.
Oxbridge educated, public school boys and girls and social engineering by gender and other characteristics are not what Labour need.
Choose on merit by local people not by top down shortlisting by an outdated and out of touch organisation committee.
Modern day councillors and politicians have far much time on their hands writing media articles, twittering, photoshoots, attending meetings, communicating with the face book generation and not enough time working and volunteering at grassroot level with local people organising, developing, socialising, fundraising. etc
The Labour Party will not be successfull in 2015 by assuming campaigning and leafleting is an alternative to real grassroot activism. Many career motivated councillors who attach themselves to MPs and CLPs do not actually do anything but attend meetings and twitter the good society. The Labour Party is full of individuals who know the content of life experience and knowledge through a university book….or through a Blarite thinktank.
Convicton. Belief. Boldness and being courageous are my qualities. What are the qualities of the new modern day career politician?
Amen – sadly, I one sees every month the curse of the SPAD and so called “activists” straight out of Uni and a couple of years with a minister being given safe Labour seats – Progress even runs classes on how to get selected. This is how the Labour Party dooms itself to irrelevancy, not aping the antics of the Conservatives or tailing whichever fad the latter day Philip Goulds tell Ed and co to underwrite.
wrong, wrong and thrice wrong.
The Labour Party did not lose office in 2010 because the electorate thought we had an insufficiency of conviction, or that our front bench comprised over-pampered members of a social elite.
If these were the valued qualities a majority of voters sought, then Tony Blair would have lost three elections by landslides; David Cameron and Nick Clegg would have also struggled to best Gordon Brown in 2010.
We lost in 2010 not because the electorate rejected technocratic managerialism, but because we got bad at it, and in previous elections we were better. Increasingly so, as voters’ adherence to class-based political ideologies declines and as the challenges facing Britain are fundamentally technical in their nature (how do we grow the economy, how can we pay for the state we want, etc), voters seek competence and reliability over ideological purity – on the left and on the right.
Is this an argument for a hollowed out party, devoid of moral compass, which is recognisable as ‘Labour’ only as a brand? Certainly not. I too took the unusual step of joining a political party and devoting my free time to it, and have deeply held reasons for doing so.
But the idea that all Labour needs is a dollop more conviction and a generous extra measure of ‘authenticity’? Utter rot, I’m afraid.
Unfortunately, it is listening to these siren voices that will keep Labour irrelevant and out of power.
David, the Labour Party lost office in 2010 because it continued to talk to itself. Factions at the heart of the machine, mainly Blairite created internal instability by offering to promote a stalking horse. The electorate do not forget the last few years of the Labour office. Immigration and its effect on public services and communities were felt and are still being felt in the present day. That is one area where the British people said “enough is enough”. 2015 will be won or lost on the immigration agenda.
What I do find strange is that a number of Blairites in office then, are still in positions of power now. Many associated with this website and thinktank. Byrne, Adonis, Twigg to name but a few.
The Labour party lost its way due to the way it used to sideline the wider membership in involvement at local, area and national level. It is still happening today. Real grassroot activism is borne out of hard graft, that is, work carried out in between election times. The only responsibility that Blair placed on members was to help secure his return to office by leafletting.
Look at the main players in the Labour cabinet under Blair. Many were from oxbridge and public schools. It is well known that Blair did not like Ms Harman and the like, as this is evident of her few appearances in key positions.
Privatisation of public services whether it be arms length or independent was still some distance from the state. particularly education. The whole PFI process, charities, voluntary, church, community sector involvement in running public services was rotten to the core.
Returning to Thatcher
The long term agenda of Thatcher was to curb the power of the trade unions, privatise nationalised industry and restore the supremacy of market forces. This sounds familiar. Was this not the long term agenda of Blair.
Her hatred of collectivisation and her determination to exchange this concept for
individualism, made in particular, the defeat of the coal miners, an attractive option, thus ultimately breaking union left wing pragmatism. Had Luke lived in a community experiencing the impact of Marxism through Scargill, it would have provided him with a more attractive article to read. The key to her transforming a capitalist society like Great Britain, lay with the successful defeat of the miners in 1984 -85.
Will Hutton once said that Thatcher wished to fragment the labour market into powerless, divided units, by removing union power at source, hence followed the abolishment of Keynesian economics. Well yet again we have a connection with Blairism who wished to divide public services into tiny units.
The break up of the mining unions into separate entity’s and the closure of coal mines, certainly divided communities and dampened the collective spirit. The End of New Labour rule certainly left members, supporters and the electorate with a dampened collective spirit. The impact and legacy of Blairism…again
We can talk about the Thatcher legacy more if you wish?
You make some interesting points. To me, Thatcher’s first aim was to release industry from the grip of the unions. Why? Because under their restrictive control some nationalized industries couldn’t re-configure and that they would die if they didn’t.
If only the unions took into account the bigger picture and not just what was right for their members in the short term. In the war people put up with all kinds of daily abuse because they knew it would be worth it in the end. The unions did start to think this way but couldn’t hold back in the face of individual greed, which is an issue for all parties, all classes, all people.
Look at Germany’s economy, the way they make their system work benefits workers, companies and the country. A lesson for us?
On the other hand, whilst she closed down our steel industry for being uncompetitive the German steel industry ploughed successfully on. This happened because British Steel had to pay the real price of coal and the Germans steel industry paid only 20% of the real price. Stupid, but without logical decisions from the unions Thatcher was trapped – just like Wilson and Heath had been. So she cut and run!
Milan, you criticise Oxbridge educated career politicians who hadn’t a proper job, do you include Tony Benn, and Diane Abbott in that field, also I feel that Andy Burnham doesn’t fall into that category, as for Oxbridge types, it didn’t do Tony Blair any harm
I criticise ANYONE who falls into this field – particularly the faux left antics of whining hypocrite Diane “Hackneys Schools are too Urban for my son” Abbott.
Logic will never defeat belief, but thanks for trying.
Even with the death of Mrs Thatcher, Akehurst manages to place the blame of 19 years of Thatcherism on the left. Is there no situation where Luke cannot find the left’s responsibility for all that has gone wrong with the Labour Party ?
One wonders had they not existed, Progress would need to invent them as an enemy.
So are you saying that the success of Thatcher had nothing to do with the fact that policies of “the left” and the unions were economically unsustainable and leading us towards bankruptcy? The ordinary British public knew it. Why didn’t we? Or did we have too much self-interest?
Remember the unburied bodies on the streets?
That’s your own neo-Thatcherite (and very Progress) slant on things. Yes, I am old enough to remember the Winter of Discontent, and then, as in 2010, we had a rightwing Labour government failing to deliver on the ground for its supporters and voters.
Maybe you missed the prequel: “failure to earn the money”, leading to “failure to deliver”. Surely? Remember Callaghan and the IMF.
Simple question for the hard-left: “How can be buy services when we haven’t earned the money?
I remember Callaghan and the IMF! I’m not sure you do. Callaghan had to go to the IMF because the Treasury ran out of funds to keep buying Stirling in order to prop-up the value of the pound. The government did not spend any money on services that it had not earned – it spent the money on trying to avoid currency devaluation. Defending the value of the pound was a huge mistake, but one that most governments have made and always to their cost.
John: you simply get everything wrong or are repeating like a parrot what the Tories tell you to think.
GS spelled out the exact position, our currency was under threat from speculators and the IMF were called in to prop up the currency, which has absolutely nothing to do with public spending.
But in case you need educating a little further this little video explains in detail why you don’t understand the real economics involved.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=you+tube+mmt+economics+for+dummies&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=DB03AB9359271CF67FDEDB03AB9359271CF67FDE
Our country doesn’t need to borrow money from anyone or anywhere to pay for our public services, money that only the Bank of England can create.
“Remember the unburied bodies on the streets?”
I’m assuming this is meant to be an ironic comment on the way the Tory PR machine mythologised the Winter of Discontent into some sort of Gotterdammerung. But just in case: There were no unburied bodies on streets in 1979. I think you’d probably have to go back to the 1660s to find unburied bodies left on the street. There were unburied bodies in morturaries in one ward of one city; there was rubbish on the street in a number of locations.
In hindsight, yes workers were stupid to do it; but Callaghan was stupid for trying to extend the social contract another year, despite previous promises and despite the economy having recovered and inflation come well down. What’s often forgotten, though, is that the Tories also played a part, by defeating the government over using sanctions to enforce pay restraint in the private sector – Thatcher was on the same side as the unions during the Winter of Discontent!
Yes you are repeating what happened in Liverpool, and hyped up to maximise it’s propaganda value but that wasn’t happening everywhere else in the country as you apparently want us to believe.
But what did happen in every city in the country was Thatcher’s economic disaster, she wiped out 25% of Britain’s manufacturing base in just two years, she increased unemployment from 1 million to over 3 million, when she came to power to reduce it.
I can take you to Bristol road in Gloucester and show you where industries that had been there for generations were wiped out completely and are now only housing estates or warehouses. You talk about unions wreaking havoc but show your ignorance or disregard to the real devastation caused by Neo-Liberal theology and the transfer of economic power from people to the financial sector; and Neo liberal politics that people like you support.
“Is there no situation where Luke cannot find the left’s responsibility for all that has gone wrong with the Labour Party ?” As someone who is on the Right of the Party, isn’t it obvious that if you let the Hard Left take control it = Out of Touch with electorate and political exile!
Yes, and when the centre-right of the Party take control, that’s REALLY effective isn’t it – Ken and the Mayor of London, Alun Michael and the Welsh Assembly, the locals 2009-10, the national Elections 2010 showed JUST how in touch the Blairites were. Oh, I forgot, we lost those due to the ‘hard left’ as well.
Blair wasn’t in charge in 2010 and the Tories didn’t win, as for ken he won with 880,000 on second preferences in 2000′ and some people who voted for him were Tories to annoy tony Blair, he lost in 2008 with 103,000 tp Boris winning with 1.500,000
Luke, I agree with much of what you say and applaud you for saying it. I like the way you accepted good policies, regardless of their origin. Such an obvious thing to do! Too often our supporters use only the “broad brush” and we end up with daft policies in manifestos that are bad for Britain.
Tony Benn is a wonderfully interesting and insightful person and may have many brilliant ideas but he may have been disastrous for the economy.
Maggie Thatcher also had brilliant ideas on what needed to be done to change our economy, from one with no future to one that released the entrepreneurial energies of Britons. But, her ideas were implemented too quickly without regard to the consequences. I wonder if, with the unions finally in retreat (after successes against Wilson and Heath), maybe she thought it was all or nothing now. So the blame must be shared.
What might have happened, I wonder, if our unions had seen the bigger picture and thought about where we had to go as a country, and how to shape that, and not fight the whole fight about some lesser issues often fought in undemocratic ways (Scargill).
When the unions can see past their primary responsibilities we can expect more of them. The big issue is education. Didn’t Blair say something about that?
Indeed, Labour should have got in there to destroy public housing, homeless provision, widen the poverty gap, and start wars first. We have much to learn from her.
I wrote a little about it here http://idelology.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/a-christmas-varol/
I lived on a new council estate in London. After 15 years the window sills went rotten and then the holes got bigger and bigger. When my mother bought the house the first thing she did was to fix those sills. What should she have done? (a) Insist on paying the council more rent and trust to luck they would fix them properly? (b) Steal some money and buy a house elsewhere? (c) Save the house? Which auto-reaction-pigeon-hole can you fit that into?
Totally agree with Luke here. My argument to any Hard Left member of the Labour Party comes down to this. Past evidence shows that when you lot are in the ascendancy you lose elections and badly. When Labour is governed from the Right, by Social Democrats, it can and does win elections. Simples!
I agree with most of what you say – the focus should be the electorate and we lost touch with that and deserved the consequences we received as a party