When the Labour party came into office in 1997, government was already vast. Mr Major, the Conservative Prime Minister, had allowed government Welfare State spending to greatly increase, “we have spent more money than Labour promised to spend” was his boast, and the tide of European Union required regulations was in full flood.
Since 1997. after an initial lull, government Welfare State spending has continued to increase at a tremendous rate, taxes have greatly increased (and become vastly more complicated ) and most of the few limitations (the so-called “opt outs”) that Mr Major put on the flood of EU required regulations have been removed. There were also “little” things under the Labour government – like the looting of the private pension funds via a tax increase first considered by the ‘conservative’ government headed by Mr Major, the re-nationalization of the railways (most British people do not seem to know that “Network Rail” is 100% government owned) and the selling off of most of the nation’s gold reserves for fire sale prices.
Mr Brown.the current Prime Minister, has been in charge of the Labour government’s economic policies over the last ten years and his policy has been to have vastly more government spending, much higher and greatly more complex taxes, and more power for the EU, and so on. And so Mr Brown has been called a ‘Thatcherite’ by this week’s issue of The Economist. Now if you have read the above paragraphs you will understand why I find this… odd.
However, I suppose one could make a case.
After all, between 1979 and 1982 both taxes and government spending vastly increased in the United Kingdom (that was one reason why the world recession was worse here than in other lands – although the BBC broadcast about ‘cuts’ every day of this period of out-of-control government growth. Also in 1986 Mrs Thatcher agreed to the EU ‘Single Market’ which the EU used to require the tide of regulations that has flooded us since then.
However, Mrs Thatcher moved Chancellor Howe and replaced him with Chancellor Lawson. Nigel Lawson, for all his lack of understanding of monetary policy (he greatly expanded the money supply in the late 1980s as part of a scheme to rig the exchange rate between the British Pound and the German Mark, thus creating a boom-bust), at least believed in reducing, and making less complicated, taxes and controlling government spending. The fiscal policy of Mr Lawson, supported by Mrs Thatcher, of lower and less complicated taxes and controlling government spending is the exact opposite of the economic policy Mr Brown has followed. Although Mr Brown, via the “independent Bank of England” controlled by its government appointed board, has, like Mr Lawson before him, vastly increased the money supply in recent years – in spite of his claim not to want to create “boom and bust” (perhaps Mr Brown shares the demented notion, spread by the media and the “education system”, that boom-bust under Mr Lawson was caused by tax cuts).
So either Mr Lawson and Mrs Thatcher were ‘Thatcherites’ or Mr Brown is – Mr Brown and Mrs Thatcher can not both be Thatcherites.
There is also the point that Mrs Thatcher returned to private enterprise many state owned companies – whereas the Labour government has, as I pointed out above, re-nationalized the railways – network rail. Mrs Thatcher also regretted the flood of EU required regulations, feeling that she had been tricked, whereas there is no such regret from the current government. There are also other things, such as the PC policies of the present government (“diversity” and so on), but The Economist may have covered itself here by saying that Labour had “humanized “Thatcherism” by adding “social liberalism” to it – I suppose all this politically correct stuff could be what they mean by “social liberalism”.
However, there was also another part to The Economist article – this was the implication that “Thatcherism” was too free market and, therefore, bad. It was claimed that those Conservatives who wish to return to the principles of limited government and national independence that Mrs Thatcher believed in are fools – who did not understand that the lady won three landslide election victories for quite different reasons.
“Thatcherism”, we were told by The Economist, is understood by the British people to mean wicked “greed” and other such (the vast salary increases for certain people connected with central and local government under Mr Brown, and the vast increases in income for top people in certain politically connected companies and “charities” is somehow not “greed” – perhaps because of their PC “social liberalism”). So the Conservatives would be mad to return to it. The fact that millions of Conservative voters simply stayed at home, and have continued to stay at home, after Mr Major abandoned the principles of Mrs Thatcher was not even mentioned. This is more than a minor oversight.
So, according to The Economist, Mr Brown is a “Thatcherite” (although with a bit of PC “social liberalism” on top), but it would be very silly and wrong for the Conservatives to return to “Thatcherism”.
All very odd.
