Thatcher on Ice, a sober reflection on the Iron Lady

As divisive in death as she was in life the subsequent outpouring of hatred and praise following her departure leaves one left wondering who the iron lady really was and whether she destroyed the country or saved it from the abyss. It seems clear with such diametrically opposed positions both sides can’t be right at the same time, somebody can’t be both a saint and a devil and one side must be somewhat closer to the truth than the other. However as much as this author sides firmly on the side of saviour, it is important to recognise that both sides have indulged in a healthy measure of myth making as many have attempted the impossible task  of summing up the life and legacy of such a figure in only a few phrases and brief remarks. Indeed as Orwell warns in his essay on Ghandi we should be instinctively suspicious whenever the terms hero and villain are used to describe any fellow mammal or primate and seek to go beyond mere anecdote as much of the coverage of the last few days has been heavily centred around. After taking the time to analyse Thatcher’s life and legacy with one’s brain on ice the story of a remarkable, yet not mythic character emerges and perhaps one more remarkable for not being mythic. A politician whose success can be put down to chance and circumstance as much as her own personal qualities or strengths, as stern and impressive as they might have been. And a visionary who’s impact and legacy was constrained as much as any other politician who participates in the art of government which is the one of recognising the possible, although she certainly revealed the boundaries of the possible to be much wider than anyone had so far presumed.                  

To start with the economy, which has certainly been the mainstay topic of anecdotal assessments of the women who transformed the British economy, the raw stats in isolation might not be as overwhelmingly impressive as many on the right might perhaps hope or presume. Going by the figures produced by The Economist magazine post war growth in Britain had averaged 2.5% being much slower than its continental contemporaries and under Thatcher this was raised only to an average of 2.7%. Although this should be appreciated as being an increase in growth in a period in which most of Europe was slowing down as the Economist comments this was ‘an improvement but no renaissance’. Similarly productivity growth rose from 1% to 2% as large state own industries were privatised and inflation although brought under control and much reduced from previous unstable and rampant double figures was only truly tamed by the Major government. And even though a balanced budget was reached, this was only done by 1989.  And just as with inflation Thatcher’s most impressive accomplishment of reducing government spending as a percentage of GDP from nearing 50% to 35% was an achievement delivered just as much by the Major government as well as by the first term of Tony Blair’s New Labour, as little acknowledged as this may be and as shocking as the latter part might sound.

As deflating as they might seem these are the hard stats and are the real indicators of the success of an economy rather than indexes of rubbish collection or dead people buried against those who are not as the focus on 1979 winter of discontent would seem to suggest. However to quote Victor Serge the problem with economic stats is that they give precise data mirroring that of a coroner’s report, yet like the coroner’s report they don’t on their own always give sufficient appreciation to the fact that the body was once an alive and moving organism and not always the now passive object of examination. In this regard Thatcher’s economic stats can’t be accurately appraised without putting them into their correct context of a country transitioning out of a worn out and obsolete model of big government and social democracy to one of free markets and individualism. This was by no means a small task politically as well as economically. However and the greater and perhaps the most un-recognised aspect of the importance of Margret Thatcher’s premiership is the counter factual of what would have happened to the British economy and nation if such drastic reforms were not put in place at this particular cross road. What if instead the status quo was stuck to or the lunacy embodied in the socialist policies of Michael Foot’s Labour party had triumphed. This might now seem like a distant concern but against an exceptionally unpopular Conservative government it was only by the unwitting hand of circumstance and fortune that such a fate was evaded and Thatcher was not resigned to the dust bin of history alongside Edward Heath the previous unsuccessful reformer. If the Conservatives had been ousted from power quite plausibly like governments before them in an industrial dispute, like the one they backed down from in 1981, then the moribund patient of inefficient and loss making state industries such as steel and mining could have been kept on the life support of tax payer subsidies and their inevitable decline only made worse. Another decade of continued stagflation can be more than plausibly identified as the fate that Thatcher delivered us from and as much as disasters avoided never fair well against the force of popular amnesia hopefully this will be the success, although negative in its nature that will be recognised in annuals of history as Britain reversed its progress down the road to serfdom.

The first of these chance occurrences was by no doubt the splitting of the Labour party under Michael Foot by the forming of the social democratic party. Although one has to wonder how much this was a product of the excesses and eccentricity of Foot, which to an opposition who much like the government realised that the old order could no longer continue, recognising that a further increase in state control of the economy was not a plausible solution. But its occurrence at the vital time at which it did was fortune to say the least.

The second and by far the most important of these critical strokes of luck was the decision of a South American military junta to invade a set of miserable wind and rain swept islands in the South Atlantic. Even though Margret Thatcher’s judgement and determination in seizing the initiative in making the fateful and immensely difficult decision to risk sending a task force 8,000 miles across the globe to recapture the islands, certainly can’t be knocked, it equally cannot be pretended that such conflicts are regular occurrences by which we can test governments in a uniform fashion as we will never know how another leader would have fared in her shoes. Going by the absurd and irresponsible comments made by Neil Kinnock and others in the opposition about the decision to sink the Belgrano maybe the islands would in fact still be called las Malvinas if the Labour party had been in power. The political outcome of the success of the Falklands war was without doubt the single greatest factor in Thatcher’s re-election and the rebound in her government’s approval ratings and the legend could not have been born without this opening presented by chance. However temptations to regard the Falkland’s conflict as purely a cynical grab or manoeuvre in service of spin and public relations should be tempered. At the heart of the conflict and no doubt at the centre of Thatcher’s resolve to retrieve the islands were the more noble values of sovereignty and self-determination in the face of a group of fascist thugs, who if it were not for Mrs Thatcher, might well have continued their reign of terror in Argentina for many more years to come claiming many more thousands of victims. And as much as we should never forget the sacrifice and the memory of the men who died and were wounded in the conflict, the families of each and every one to whom Thatcher wrote to personally, like any just and successfully fought war it has added to the collective experience and narrative of the nation in an elusive yet definite fashion. It might be easy to kick or mock the value of such memories which become legends, but it is examples of courage and valour like those of 1982 which indelibly shape the character of a nation.

It is on this very point of the importance of symbols that the role Thatcher played in the ending of the cold war, and as a champion of both economic and political freedom on the international stage should be understood. It must be recognised if only begrudgingly that there is definitely truth in the criticism made by some that Mrs Thatcher played less than a superficial role in the defeat of the evil empire and that Michael Gorbachev was overwhelmingly the real and most decisive figure behind the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the cold war. Even though Reagan and Thatcher through military posturing put pressure on the Soviet Union in demonstrating without a shadow of a doubt that NATO was the military as well as the economic superior of the Warsaw Pact, the USSR was unquestionably already a crumbling edifice by the 1980s due primarily to internal and not external pressures. Consequently statements banded around along the lines of ‘Thatcher defeated communism’ are hard not to wince at for those with even a tiny bit of knowledge of the history of the cold war, and it would certainly be a wish come truth if those who proudly recycle such sound bites could only hear how they sound. However that which should not go overlooked is that Thatcher as well as Reagan, supported by the intellectual influence of figures such as Milton Freidman and Friedrich von Hayek, became the indisputable figures and symbols of the free market movement which had finally and unashamedly triumphed over its totalitarian enemies. Thatcher was one of the central figureheads of a change in the zeitgeist that occurred in 1989 which had truly global implications.                     

Like any great leader criticisms can most definitely be made of Mrs Thatcher and her government. As has already been said politics in practice is the art of the possible and those who try to present themselves as all things to all men are imposters who should be regarded as such. Even Tony Blair has publically recognised that ‘when you decided you divide’. However many of the criticisms which are popularly made of Thatcher and Thatcherism when analysed don’t really have as much power to them as might be presumed. Ken Livingstone unsurprisingly has been the major go to man for such criticisms during the last few days for major media broadcasters and the criticisms repeatedly listed by him are the following. First of all he claims, like many, that Thatcher destroyed the industrial output of the UK. This claim is simply untrue. The UK is still the world 7^th largest manufacturer and despite unfounded criticism and popular misconception has a manufacturing output in line with the OECD average. Myths surrounding de-industrialisation are explored and exploded in Evan Davis’s great book and documentary on the subject called ‘Made in Britain’ which explains how even though less workers are employed in the UK’s manufacturing sector the value of its output has continued to grow as the economy moves to more high end and technical areas of industry. The argument that suggests that unprofitable steel mills and coal mines should be re-opened at the tax payer’s expense is not only archaic but makes equally as much economic sense as a campaign to put the majority of the population back to pre-industrial state of farming the land. Those who berate Thatcher in this tone of having somehow destroyed the nation’s economy through shifting more people into service industries, seldom take the time to appreciate their higher standards of living which are the result of such measures. If only the woman interviewed on sky news standing on the high street clasping her carrier bags brimming with cheap and imported consumer goods only knew what she looked like before she started criticising Thatcher’s free market policies which have led Britain to integrate into and reap the full befits of the globalised economy.    

The accusation that Thatcher is somehow to blame for the financial crisis that occurred 17 years after she left office is then usually the second and more bemusing critique made of the former prime minister. Not only are the 13 years of New Labour simply removed from history to perform this calculation but Mrs Thatcher is then accused of being the source of all human greed and material desire. Not only is this a perpetuation of the now old and tired myth that an unexplained and excessive pollution of greed suddenly infected the banking system in 2007 thus somehow completely discrediting the dogma of free markets, but it also an argument that fails to understand that it was exactly the detraction from Mrs Thatcher’s beloved free markets through government manipulations of the money supply and the guaranteeing of subprime mortgages by the tax payer that produced the crisis we now find ourselves in. And unless this is understood then we have little hope of getting out of our current economic predicament.

However it is true to say that Thatcher is partly to blame for our current short fall in housing, although this is not true for the reasons that Mr Livingstone espouses. Not only was Thatcher’s decision to allow council house tenants the right to buy their own homes, instead of resigning them to remain rent payers for the rest of their lives without the opportunity to develop any real savings or assets the right one, but her realisation that it was also not the governments job to take control of the housing supply by building new council housing was also correct. However as Professor Mark Pennington has pointed out this move towards the free market was unwittingly sabotaged by the Thatcher government under whom green belt land quadrupled in size meaning that the supply of land for new housing was severely curtailed meaning as the Institute for Economic Affairs has similarly pointed out that illiberal planning laws are instead at the root of the current crisis. Not only does this argument put forward by Livingston and others overlook this burgeoning reality as well as once again omitting the subsequent 13 years of Labour governance, but it also stinks of the poor and backward understanding of economics that Thatcher spent her life fighting against. All too often one can hear Livingston as well as Owen Jones and others in the media blaming current housing prices and rents on greedy landlords, at no point ever entertaining the idea that there might be an underlying economic reality to house prices, as with any other good in a free market economy. A fact that even Karl Marx readily understood.

So it turns out that the real concerns that can be levelled at Thatcher on the point of land policy as well as not curbing the expansion of the welfare state especially in not addressing the ever expanding and unsustainable bill for state pensions or the need for privatisation in the NHS, as was successfully introduced to nearly every other state owned industry are not ones that the left would ever dream of associating themselves with.

However instead of efforts to make or discuss possible constructive criticisms of Mrs Thatcher and her legacy it seems a lot more effort has gone into glib and quite sickening displays of hatred and vitriol which have met the death of the former prime minister.  Even though it must be freely admitted that Mr Livingstone as well as the current Labour leadership have been respectful in their response to the news of Mrs Thatcher’s passing, as should be expect at the death of any human being, there have been those like Mr Galloway who have responded to the news quite shamelessly, though no less shamelessly then one has come to expect. Being the pious and morally righteous man he is Galloway has undoubtedly echoed others in tweeting ‘May she burn in the hellfires’, which only makes this author upset that he doesn’t believe that there is such a hell fire for Mr Galloway to go to. What's more is that these outburst of public celebration are coming from the same people who riled at the scenes of crowds gathering outside the White House to celbraite the death of Osama Bin Laden, a double standard is at work that isn't just lazy but boardering on the obscene. As much as the non-too serious drinks that everyone knew and expected would be had in celebration by Mrs Thatcher’s enemies on the day of her death the utter visceral and neurotic public outpourings have been disgusting to say the least. Though best not engaged with, the thought that does come to mind however is the un-served sentence and guilt, not of those like Margret Thatcher and her government, who had the less than glorious task of dismantling a bankrupt and failing set of state industries dominated by militant unions in order to secure the long term economic health of the nation but of those names and faces who have disappeared from history unnoticed. Namely those who set up and maintained well beyond their sell by date such industries and state concerns which Thatcher now carries the can in many people’s minds for calling to an end. Those who lied and made promises that they could never keep to industrial workers and their families, thus making it more painful for all those concerned by putting off the inevitable dismantling of those industries. Those really at fault will never be put on trial in the court of public opinion or their deaths celebrated. Why? Because they never had the courage to take unpopular decisions. And it is this ignorance and injustice that lies at the heart of the bankruptcy of so many of Thatcher’s fair weather critics.

Not that it should be forgotten however that it was such political confrontation that was the life blood of Mrs Thatcher’s existence, a woman who relished such political dispute and somebody who people loved disagreeing with, though only when she wasn’t in the room. It was this impermeable conviction that allowed Mrs Thatcher to do more for feminism in British politics than any woman before or since. As Christopher Hitchens put it, she one by one outmanoeuvred and put back into the box each one of her male adversaries in her own party in the most inimitable fashion before then going onto those in the opposition. Perhaps the hatred of her by her political opponents is the only too natural response to the reality that there is no other comparable figure in British political history on the left who could seek to claim such adoration or such abhorrence or who’s funeral anyone would care to picket.

Hopefully this is, although another of many positive appraisals of Mrs Thatcher’s legacy, one that is a measure more sober in its analysis. May she rest in peace and may the day be not too distant when we see another Iron Lady on the right of British politics. God knows we need one.