25th anniversary.
May. 4th, 2004 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zotzWell, various people are commemorating the fact that it's 25 years since Thaggie came to power. Unsurprisingly, most of these people are peddling the view that she was a great PM and did the country a power of good even if a lot of it was very harsh. Some of the latter are even people who ought to know better.
If you look at the economic record of her time on office, you'll see that the growth rate was roughly the same as that of the previous government, which few people describe as successful. Indeed, her first term saw the economy as a whole contract, and was in fact the only governmental term in the last sixty years that that happened in. Industrial investment? It collapsed. Maintenance of public services? Don't make me laugh. And all that oil revenue? Where did it all go?
Margaret Thatcher's public image was that very Eighties phenomenon, a triumph of style over substance. Wilson and Callaghan did at least as good a job under harsher economic circumstances, and Major and Blair both did a better job by abandoning the kneejerk monetarism. Although far more rightwing than most people realised (he exploited the grey-man persona very well), Major was a far better PM than Thatcher, but the Tory party to its shame gave him the same level of support the Labour party had given to Michael Foot ten years earlier. His government made definite moves away from the deregulated boom/bust cycle the Thatcherites promoted, and Irn Broon has moved things still further. This isn't too surprising, of course - even Milton Friedman has recanted his monetarism now.
That was all, of course, inspired by this article by Larry Elliott from about a month ago. There was a lovely graph I saw around the same time - it may even have illustrated the print version of that article - which showed the relative rise and fall of income of the rich and poor in society under Thatch and Blair. I'm afraid I can't reproduce it for you here, but I can give you an executive summary:
If you've ever said that there's no difference between Thatcher and Blair,
If you look at the economic record of her time on office, you'll see that the growth rate was roughly the same as that of the previous government, which few people describe as successful. Indeed, her first term saw the economy as a whole contract, and was in fact the only governmental term in the last sixty years that that happened in. Industrial investment? It collapsed. Maintenance of public services? Don't make me laugh. And all that oil revenue? Where did it all go?
Margaret Thatcher's public image was that very Eighties phenomenon, a triumph of style over substance. Wilson and Callaghan did at least as good a job under harsher economic circumstances, and Major and Blair both did a better job by abandoning the kneejerk monetarism. Although far more rightwing than most people realised (he exploited the grey-man persona very well), Major was a far better PM than Thatcher, but the Tory party to its shame gave him the same level of support the Labour party had given to Michael Foot ten years earlier. His government made definite moves away from the deregulated boom/bust cycle the Thatcherites promoted, and Irn Broon has moved things still further. This isn't too surprising, of course - even Milton Friedman has recanted his monetarism now.
That was all, of course, inspired by this article by Larry Elliott from about a month ago. There was a lovely graph I saw around the same time - it may even have illustrated the print version of that article - which showed the relative rise and fall of income of the rich and poor in society under Thatch and Blair. I'm afraid I can't reproduce it for you here, but I can give you an executive summary:
If you've ever said that there's no difference between Thatcher and Blair,
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Date: 2004-05-04 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 05:33 am (UTC)I must remember to get hold of a copy of "Ding dong, the witch is dead". I may need it at some point.
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Date: 2004-05-04 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 05:33 am (UTC)Don't forget to watch the lunar eclipse, though!
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Date: 2004-05-04 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 05:41 am (UTC)The most important difference was that when Thatcher was in power you could hope the oppostion would be better if they would get in.
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Date: 2004-05-04 05:45 am (UTC)I'm going to have to go find that bloody graph, aren't I?
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Date: 2004-05-04 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 06:04 am (UTC)It may cheer you slightly to hear that the young students and I were discussing this last night and they seemed to agree that when she dies they'll be getting the wellies out and joining the queue for her grave just behind Iain Banks.
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Date: 2004-05-04 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-05 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
There is more to say, much more but I'll be damned if I waste it on a worthless waste of flesh and bone like her.
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Date: 2004-05-04 06:41 am (UTC)