Saturday, 13 April 2013
Full Council on Tuesday
One of the tasks allotted to me as Leader is to answer questions put to full Council from the public or members. As to be expected, I have been asked to respond to a question about the recently departed ex Prime Minister Thatcher. In view of the rather unnecessary and unpleasant reaction from the left of centre politics I decided to spend some considerable time in researching her legacy to the nation and, as asked specifically Christchurch. This has turned out to be a quite fascinating experience as I was quite deeply involved in industry in the pre Thatcher days and started my own business during her time in office. I was also in the Houses of Parliament on the night of her demise! So the memories came flooding back as I penned the words which I am sure will not do justice to such an icon of recent political history. There is one anecdote I might repeat which was part of Chris Chope's excellent speech in the house this week. When she visited Christchurch in 1997 she was asked about a conservative colleague who had got himself into a bit of a scrape she immediately retorted 'well nobody is perfect'. The questioner could go no further.
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6 comments:
Thatcherism, Ray, may have been good for the south, and she made many people of the south quite wealthy, and yes, I agree the unions of the day needed a good slap. But what she did to the north of England is unforgivable.
She put 3.5 million people on the dole, and unemployment was running at around 26%. She decimated the north of England not only by putting people out of work, but making a good number of them homeless as well. She sold off all the social housing, and the local authorities never replaced the stock, and this is one reason why there is a great deal of need for social housing. Having taken workplace representation away from workers, employers were given the power to do what they wanted to do with their staff. In the current climate employees are expected to work far more than their contract of employment states. I know this is true Ray, because I have been there.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher will certainly be remembered for her time as Prime Minister. She allegedly did more damage to the north of England than the Luftwaffe, and the German Army.
Thanks for this, I was also there I do remember one thing though and that is tha Prime minister Wilson oversaw the demise of more pits and therefore miners than Thatcher. History has a habit of being media lead this days!
I couldn't agree with you more where Wilson or Callaghan are concerned.
It was not only the north that saw its industrial base decimated during the Thatcher years. Think of some of the major employers that Christchurch lost during her period in office, SRDE, Shand Kydd, MEXE, BAE. Then there were smaller companies such as Price and Tarling, Grice and Young and Scintellex. Hundreds, even thousands of jobs that were never replaced. That is some legacy! Christchurch still hasn't recovered to this day.
Interesting, Barry. You say, re Luftwaffe, 'allegedly'. Searched online for this, there are lots of references. but is there actually any EVIDENCE? All I've found seem just to quote each other! Don't know about Christchurch, this part before my time. I suspect that the companies were losing money and being supported by the state. Remember inflation -and pay - going up by 20 percent or so. Lots of new companies and trading estates now.
You suspect wrong. Both SRDE and MEXE were reseach establishments connected to the Ministry Of Defence. BAE (previously B.A.C.) was only nationalised in 1977. All the rest were privately owned light engineering companies or manufacturers that, like so many others around the country, fell victim to the economic policies being persued at the time.
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