PASSING THE THATCHER TEST

The death of Margaret Thatcher on 8 April has dominated the consciousness of Britain for the last two weeks. The comprehensive assessment of her achievements and legacy I leave to our eminent historians and politicians. Like thousands of others, last Wednesday I was a mere face in the crowd on Fleet Street as her coffin was borne solemnly to St Paul’s with its military escort and the band playing. We clapped in respectful appreciation, clear that we were witnessing an historic occasion, the departure of a remarkable person, a great leader, in many respects a revolutionary. The magnificent funeral at St Pauls seemed to me to be an entirely appropriate way to say farewell to our Iron Lady.

Margaret Thatcher honoured at St Paul's

Her career was of course controversial and while I am a great admirer some perfectly sensible people think otherwise. Please forget the malcontents who disgraced themselves in Glasgow, Easington and South Yorkshire by celebrating her demise: they belong to a reactionary and immobile tradition, given disproportionate air-time by the sad BBC whose own moral compass has long gone awry. The great majority of British people of all parties acknowledged her historic political dominance.

Margaret Thatcher always appreciated the power of ideas. She was driven by the Puritan Methodist values of Frugality, the Work Ethic and Self-Help; she was convinced to espouse Sound Money and Limits to State Influence; she approved of Nationalism and the Rule of Law. These were some of her principles. She left public life 23 years ago and we might do worse than measure our present and future policies on the pressing issues of the day by the extent they would pass the Thatcher Test.

Let us look at Europe, the Economy, Education and Welfare Benefits. Every day that passes our relationship with Europe deteriorates. We recoil with horror at the ludicrous and brutal squeeze imposed on the admittedly feckless Southern European countries within the disastrous Eurozone. Britain is not a Eurozone member but Brussels and the German-dominated Northern bloc keep up a chorus of hostility to British tax practices, British Banks, the City and British criticism of Euro-extravagance. As I have long maintained, Britain and Europe are incompatible bed-fellows. Charles de Gaulle had “a certain idea” of France and when he vetoed UK accession to the EEC in 1963 he set out his “certain idea” of Britain – and he knew us better than we knew ourselves: After describing the close-knit, like-minded continental consensus in the Six, he compared it with Britain

England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions.
In short, the nature, the structure, the very situation that are England’s differ profoundly from those of the continentals.

Mrs Thatcher warned against closer unity in her Bruges speech. She would not have tolerated the current drift and would have had many a swipe at the Europhile Foreign Office. We do not live, think, do business or govern ourselves like other Europeans. Let Cameron negotiate a new relationship if he can and hold a referendum. Let there be no fudge. If the outcome is not satisfactory Britain should set herself free from European entanglements.

The management of the economy is a very thorny current issue. A policy of austerity has been pursued since 2008, coupled with the rescue of two major banks and the provision of liquidity to City markets by the Bank of England. George Osborne has been criticised for not changing course after the agonisingly long wait for recovery. We can be sure that the “Lady who was not for turning” would urge no change this time round either. She would have been concerned that endless QE was inflationary and, while she may not have approved their rescue in the first place, she would warmly advocate the distribution of shares in RBS and HBOS on easy terms to the hard-pressed British taxpayer.

A tearful George Osborne at the Funeral

Education has become an increasingly central issue. The Education Secretary Michael Gove is an energetic reformer proposing changes in the curriculum, raising exam standards, building new schools more quickly and promoting the study of factual history. Most recently he has suggested that the annual terms should be lengthened and the school day made longer to enable Britain to compete globally. In all this he has been opposed by the militant teachers’ unions, an entrenched vested interest, the enemies of change, protectors of teachers’ privileges and indifferent to the fate of their pupils.

Michael Gove grasps the Nettles

Mrs Thatcher herself was an unremarkable Secretary for Education but she would have warmed to the articulate Gove’s programme, the emphasis on hard work and the rescue of wasted young national talent. She would have battled against obstructive unions, especially when long-term national issues were at stake.

Finally we come to Welfare Benefits. A good start has been made in rationalising the benefit system largely driven by Iain Duncan Smith, heir to and ally of Frank Field. It is an insult and affront to the working population to see large amounts of state payments supporting parasitical life-styles. Labour often denies or ignores the existence of a growing under-class of welfare “scroungers” but it does exist and the recent extreme case of father of 17 children and murderer Mick Philpott proves the point. Reduction in the Welfare budget is unlikely and maybe undesirable but it needs to be tightly managed and controlled.

Mrs Thatcher deplored a Dependency Culture: she wanted to help those in real need, the aged and the disabled and to help get the unemployed back in work. Work raises the morale and self-respect of the individual. This was a principle of Thatcherism. Her influence will live on and Passing the Thatcher Test may become a template for the future.

SMD
21.04.2013
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013