The bronze lady

Marking yesterday's historic unveiling of the bronze statue to Margaret Thatcher in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons, the Daily Mail's Stephen Glover pays tribute to all that she achieved for Britain:

"Inflation over 20 per cent in some years; trades union power dominant; the stockmarket flat for many years; strikes everywhere; above all, despair. Britain really was a joke, and when one went abroad, in America or on the Continent, people would come up to express their sympathy. The idea of relentless economic decline was stamped into our national psyche. Many so-called intellectuals said that the only realistic objective of government was to 'manage decline'.  Margaret Thatcher rescued us from much of this. She took on the over-mighty trades unions and faced down the striking miners. She privatised many ludicrously inefficient nation-alised industries that were run solely for the benefit of their employees. She liberalised foreign exchange restrictions, and slashed income tax, so that almost for the first time since the war, entrepreneurs sprang up, and hard work and enterprise were rewarded. In the City, she presided over 'Big Bang,' as a result of which London is now overtaking New York — an inconceivable prospect 25 years ago — as the world's foremost financial centre...

She did revive Britain. She scrapped the language of economic decline. She made us believe that success was possible. Without the economic reforms of Thatcherism, there would have been no New Labour, and certainly no Gordon Brown presiding benignly over a golden economic period which, however, he threatens by ever-creeping taxation and rising public expenditure...

Her legacy is all around us; Tony Blair's is chiefly in Iraq. He may have stayed away last night, as the seven-and-a-half foot statue of Lady Thatcher was unveiled, but one day, if as a plain MP he should ever pass through the Members' Lobby, he will see the statue towering above him.  Here she has been placed in the company of Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and Clement Attlee — all, in their ways, great men, and all of them, like Margaret Thatcher, prime ministers who left a legacy to be proud of. With such people, at least, she has received her due."

Talking to one MP last night he noticed how her statue stands in front of a much smaller bust of Ted Heath.  He still lives in her shadow - even in death.  The Great Sulk can continue.

Related link: Iain Dale on the unveiling.

Comments

[Gospel of Enoch]

Wasn't "The Great Sulk" a character in "Alice in Downing Street", by Saki?

The statue is well deserved, but a pity she's in the wrong party: "U-KIP if you want to, the lady's not for floor-crossing?" :-)

[Bill]

Maggie and Dave. Compare and contrast.

[George Hinton]

Anybody opened a book yet as to whom will be the first ne'erdowell to attack/deface the statue.
There are still many of the old left dinosaurs at Westminster, who find Maggie an ogress of first class proportions.

[William Norton]

Our saintly Editor's sharp-eyed informant prompts a thought: Now that he's safely dead, where's the Ted Heath Reappraisal Campaign?

They used to do these things much better in the old days - surely at least The Independent could run to a few articles about how power cuts and taking baths in the dark brought the nation much closer together than it is now.

[Milton]

Ted Heath took us into Europe which is A Good Thing.

[Gospel of Enoch]

Paradise Lost, Milton.

[simon]

A BRONZE statue! Should have been made of Gold as far as i'm concerned! I read thet Kenneth Clarke attended the unveiling of the statue.Snake. He truly has no shame at all.

[jailhouselawyer]

Personally, I would give the Argentinian scrap dealers from the Malvinas a call to haul it away and any profits that might accrue from this to go to a charity.

[David Lindsay]

What, exactly, “Thatcherism” was? What did she ever actually do?

Well, she gave Britain the Single European Act, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Exchange Rate Mechanism, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the replacement of O-levels with GCSEs, and the destruction of paternal authority within working-class families and communities through the destruction of that authority’s economic basis in the stockades of working-class male employment.

No Prime Minister, ever, has done more in any one, never mind all, of the causes of European federalism, Irish Republicanism, sheer economic incompetence, Police inefficiency and ineffectiveness, collapsing educational standards, and everything that underlies or follows from the destruction of patriarchal authority.

Meanwhile (indeed, thereby), the middle classes were transformed from people like her father into people like her son. She told us that “there is no such thing as society”, in which case there cannot be any such thing as the society that is the family, or the society that is the nation. Correspondingly, she misdefined liberty as the “freedom” to behave in absolutely any way that one saw fit. All in all, she turned Britain into the country that Marxists had always said it was, even though, before her, it never actually had been.

Specifically, she sold off national assets at obscenely undervalued prices, while subjecting the rest of the public sector (forty per cent of the economy) to an unprecedented level of central government dirigisme. She presided over the rise of Political Correctness, that most 1980s of phenomena, and so much of piece with that decade’s massively increased welfare dependency and its moral chaos, both fully sponsored by the government, and especially by the Prime Minister, of the day.

Hers was the war against the unions, which cannot have had anything to do with monetarism, since the unions have never controlled the money supply. For good or ill, but against all her stated principles, hers was the refusal (thank goodness, but then I am no “Thatcherite”) to privatise the Post Office, as her ostensible ideology would have required.And hers were the continuing public subsidies to fee-paying schools, to agriculture, to nuclear power, and to mortgage-holders. Without those public subsidies, the fourth would hardly have existed, and the other three (then as now) would not have existed at all. So much for “You can’t buck the market”. You can now, as you could then, and as she did then. You know this from experience if that experience extends to any one or more of fee-paying schools, agriculture (or, at least, land ownership), nuclear power, and mortgage holding. The issue is not whether these are good or bad things in themselves. It is whether “Thatcherism”, as ordinarily and noisily proclaimed (or derided), was compatible with their continuation by means of “market-bucking” public subsidies. It simply was not, as it simply is not.

Hers was the ludicrous pretence to have brought down the Soviet Union merely because she happened to be in office when that Union happened to collapse, as it would have done anyway, in accordance with the predictions of (among other people) Enoch Powell. But she did make a difference internationally where it was possible to do so, precisely by providing aid and succour to Pinochet’s Chile and to apartheid South Africa. I condemn the former as I condemn Castro, and I condemn the latter as I condemn Mugabe (or Ian Smith, for that matter). No doubt you do, too. But she did not, as she still does not.

And hers was what amounted to the open invitation to Argentina to invade the Falkland Islands, followed by the (starved) Royal Navy’s having to behave as if the hopelessly out-of-her-depth Prime Minister did not exist, a sort of coup without which those Islands would be Argentine to this day.

But then again, who cares these days? Or, rather, who really ought to care? When the next General Election is upon us, people will have the vote who were not born when she was removed from office in order to restore the public order that had broken down because of what, in her allegedly paradigmatic United States, would have been her unconstitutional Poll Tax. And by the time of the Election after that ... well, you can finish that sentence for yourself.

[Cllr Keith Standring]

Heartiest congratulations to Lady T. When she was Prime Minister she endeavoured to work to high ethical and moral standards. To the contrary, the present incumbent is to Truth what King Herod was to childcare. Little wonder then that he absented himself from the ceremony.

[changetowin]

A great tribute to a great lady.

[Alex Forsyth]

A great tribute to a great lady.

...and the Supreme Oscar for bare-faced insincerity is awarded to...

(Cue tearful speech in which Changetolose thanks his/her mum, Dave, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.)

[thatcherite]

A thoroughly deserved recognition of a brilliant prime minister.

[Margaret on the Gullotine]

Ed, even in something that should give you unalloyed joy, you (and Iain Dale) can't help a stupid, malevolent sneer at Heath. Rather unattractive, I must say.

[Yet Another Anon]

Far more people will see Margaret Thatcher's waxwork in Madame Tussaurds than will ever see all the statues in the Members Lobby, it's not really a great issue in the country generally and I'm sure most people would rather that they didn't bother errecting statues especially where hardly anyone will ever see them and rather either spent the money on something for the General Public or used it to pay off some national debt instead.

[Alex Forsyth]

a stupid, malevolent sneer at Heath. Rather unattractive, I must say.

Like the extremely nasty and unattractive "name" of the troll "Margaret on the Gullotine" isn't a stupid, malevolent sneer at Baroness Thatcher, eh?

I thought the last remaining Heathite had received a stake through the heart years ago.

Seems not.

[Scotty]

A wonderful honour for an amazing lady who did so much for Britain.
I thought it was great seeing Mrs Thatcher standing in the lobby next to all her old team (friends and foe's).
I am not usually a fan of Michael Martin, but last night I thought he was very dignified and performed his duties admirable. Mrs Thatcher's delight that he mentioned Dennis was very touching, they were such an amazing team together.

Then you come on here and read drivel like this, nasty and unwarranted and as usual untrue! David Cameron was there last night.
"To the contrary, the present incumbent is to Truth what King Herod was to childcare. Little wonder then that he absented himself from the ceremony."

[Cllr Keith Standring]

Scotty @ 20:29 "Then you come on here and read drivel like this, nasty and unwarranted and as usual untrue! David Cameron was there last night.
"To the contrary, the present incumbent is to Truth what King Herod was to childcare. Little wonder then that he absented himself from the ceremony."

Scotty, may I respectfully suggest you read my posting again - I was referring to Lady T's time as Prime Minister, "....the present incumbent...." clearly refers to the Prime Minister not Dave.