Honesty Was Lady Thatcher’s Best Policy

MARGARET Thatcher was always an easy politician to dislike and the unions, the common man and woman in the street and, indeed, some in her own party enjoyed their hate-hate relationship with her.
I’ve always felt that Tony Blair did more harm to the country and out-Thatchered the Iron Lady, but his spin machine, like that of a Premiership footballer or Hollywood film star, made him popular.
Ironic, really.
Yes, Mrs Thatcher did huge damage to communities the length and breadth of the nation, not only coal-mining areas. As I wrote the other day, her use of the police as political pawns in the battle with the unions, and then her ‘vote of thanks’ by cutting police numbers and pay and conditions did not endear her to the very people who should have embraced her tenure.
Yes, she took Britain to an easily avoidable war in the Falklands, but let’s not forget that ‘Smiling Tony’ took us to five conflicts – more than any other prime minister in British history.
And despite being head of a party that favoured grammar schools, former Labour Education Secretary Shirley Williams admitted openly that ‘Thatcher The Milk Snatcher’ did more for comprehensive schools in her time in office than she did. Facts should not be forgotten, although there is still a strong myth around the grocer’s daughter, 23 years after she left office.
The country had finally had enough, at a time when fortunes were improving for many. Her party had had enough, too. The writing was on the wall.
I met Baroness Thatcher once and she struck me as honest, forthright, not caring a damn what I thought or what I would go on to write about her. I liked that. I admire that. I never felt that when I met Mr Blair.
No, for me, while I disagree with many of her policies and will argue that her legacy hurt Britain, she is up there in my estimation as an honest politician. There’s few of them, I can tell you.
Arthur Scargill, Ken Livingstone, Monsignor Bruce Kent, Tony Benn and Coventry’s own Dave Nellist, as well as former Rugby and Kenilworth Labour MP Andy King, are among the political beasts I’ve met and admired for their honesty, if not always their political stance.
Interestingly, she was the first non public school-educated prime minister post World War Two. She was also the last.
She knew Britain was in a desperate situation when she took office, after a disastrous decade. Her predecessor as Tory leader, Edward Heath, had struggled to cope with the oil crisis of the early 1970s, or the transition to membership in what was then called the European Economic Community. Harold Wilson’s tenure in the hung-Parliament that followed set the seeds of economic misery we are still suffering, while Jim Callaghan’s time at the top was marked by high inflation and perhaps the worst industrial unrest since the 1920s.
Political success saw the parties turning their back on the real problems to win votes. The UK needed a strong, determined leader and that’s what it got with Maggie.
No-one can doubt her patriotism, her devotion to the cause she believed in, not newspaper headlines and popular votes.
When she said ‘this Lady is not for turning’, she meant it. While the John Major government that followed, and then Our Tony seemed to chase media glory, with U-turns aplenty. Or just downright lies in the hope everyone would believe the hype and not dig further.
An honest politician is dead. Watch out for the hypocrisy of those who helped usher her out of the door of Number 10 and others who fought against her.