Originally Posted by
Dedworth
Interesting write up from Frederick Forsyth - the situation is like it was 30 years ago and it will take years of cuts and hardship to put right Liebours totally irresponsible and shameful period in Government
WHEN hitherto classified Cabinet documents are released under the Thirty Year Rule, reputations usually crash.
What these carefully and accurately taken minutes usually reveal is that behind the beams and waves of the politicos was a figure not only with feet of clay but mere putty right up to the torso. The new revelations about Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago reveal the opposite.
The country in 1980 was in some ways in worse straits than even now. The “sick man of Europe” was riddled by strikes, official and wildcat, on a daily basis. The most powerful man in the country was Jack Jones, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers. Vast, loss-making, over-manned nationalised industrial monsters were bleeding us dry.
Crypto-communist shop stewards and conveners made our lives a misery. And just about the entire Establishment, bar one woman, was adamant in the view that nothing could be done. Managing our final decline into national oblivion was the only task of government. That was why Edward Heath had tied us into the EEC, now the EU, on the worst terms even the French could impose on us.
The papers show Margaret Thatcher really was a woman standing alone. The near-dotard Macmillan was lecturing her to the effect our case was hopeless. As now, the trade unions threatened Armageddon if they were crossed. Most of the Cabinet was wetting its Y-fronts. All the double-first degrees were yelling at her to turn round and concede the case was hopeless.
Instead the grocer’s daughter retorted: “U-turn? You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” And she didn’t. But the country did. It took 10 years of pain and hardship to recover from 15 years of Labour mismanagement.
But we did it. We turned right round. We came back to prosperity, the respect of the world and national self-pride. And then she was destroyed, not by the people but quite deliberately by a cabal, still round today, whose primary loyalty I suspect is not to the Union Jack but to another emblem.
