The left-wing commentariat seems to be using the argumentum ad nauseam against the Thatcher record. This consists of repeating an allegation, no matter how much evidence is produced against it, or how many times it has been shown to be false.
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Every time I read of drunken noisy celebrations from assorted people following Margaret Thatcher’s death… every time I read of someone spewing vitriol and spitting on her memory… every time I read “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead“… my smile grows ever so slightly wider. Why? Well I think I may have given a clue why I was likely to think this way a few days ago when I wrote this:
Before Margaret Thatcher took power, we had a Tory party lead by Edward Health… a man who was frankly so indistinguishable from the people he purported to oppose that his ‘conservative’ government nationalised several businesses. The broad statist political consensus amongst the Great and the Good (try not to spit when you read those words) was that the only thing to argue about was the rate at which the state took over, well, everything. The Flat Caps and Beer Party and the Champagne and Barbour Party carried on a wonderful pantomime show of how they disdained each other and how they were like chalk and cheese, much as they do now, but in truth, it disguised just how much they had in common. Free(er) Markets were a talking point amongst some Tories but in truth they loved to intervene “before breakfast, dinner and tea”. And then Maggie T started talking about free(er) markets and actually meaning it. She polarised the Party and the country and that was exactly what was needed. She smashed the cosy consensus, over and over and over again… and many people hated her for it, which means it actually did some good. And now, the late Margaret Hilda Thatcher is doing it again. What we have at the moment is a toxic political consensus. We are all the same, we are all in agreement and (whispered aside) don’t worry, those ‘cuts’ in state spending are really just cuts in the rate of increase. You can trust David Cameron with the regulatory welfare state. And indeed you can. Ok long suffering Middle England, just watch those people on the news and in the papers. And then look at that pallid ‘Conservative’ toad in Number 10 who has de facto nationalised Britain’s leading banks. Does he remind you of someone? There are still neo-Thatcherites in the Tory party (David Davies most prominently) and then there is always the Joker in the deck of British politics, Nigel Farage, whose admiration for Maggie T has always been obvious even if she dropped the ball on Europe (as did many of us). But there are few things better at flipping that switch in people’s heads than seeing unedifying hatred from people who reek of naked greed for the state extracted money of others. And so every time I see people pouring out their bile for Thatcher, I smile and hope there is a TV camera around or a journalist happy to write down what they say. By their own words, they shall be revealed. Oh Margaret, you really were the gift that just keeps on giving. April 14th, 2013 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
 No, this is not a posting about the European Central Bank. ECB, in Brian Micklethwait World, stands for E(ngland and Wales) C(ricket) B(oard). And IPL stands for Indian Premier League, the twenty overs each way cricket tournament, the 2013 version of which has just got under way in India and which will end near the end of May. I’m watching it now on my television, and very entertaining it is. What this posting is about, besides cricket, is the rise of India and the necessity for people in England who have dealings with India to acknowledge that India has risen. From Cricinfo earlier this week:
BCCI is B(oard of) C(ontrol for) C(ricket in) India, i.e. India’s cricket bosses.
I told you so. That earlier posting, about how England star batsman Kevin Pietersen wants to play both for England and in the IPL, still holds up very well. It isn’t just English players who are losing out here. Insofar as England’s own county cricket season involves, like the IPL, cricketers from around the world, the England season not clashing with the IPL would also make it easier for top overseas players to play in England over the summer. Playing in England is nothing like the financial windfall that an IPL contract is, but it can be a nice little earner, to say nothing of a nice little learner about the different playing conditions of England. Ricky Ponting, the former Australian captain, is now playing in the IPL, captaining one of the teams. Later this year, Ponting will be playing some English county cricket, for Surrey. England’s cricket bosses still have a way to go. They appear to have at last realised that they do indeed have a problem, and that this problem is not adequately described by being labelled “Kevin Pietersen”. This is progress. But, this Collier man is still going on about what he and his mates would like.
Yes, it would. But the IPL is now an established success. It has done wonders for Indian cricket, and for the comfort and excellence of India’s cricket grounds. It gives young Indian cricketers a marvellous stage to impress. It has transformed Indian fielding, once notoriously sluggish. Because twenty-twenty cricket only obliges bowlers to bowl four overs, it has also encouraged Indian fast bowling, which also was once upon a time a joke. (Fast bowlers from everywhere, come to that.) Whereas the typical Indian international cricketer used to a little man in the Sachin Tendulkar mould, of the sort who would have been a bank clerk had he not had the trick of playing cricket, the new Indian cricketer is more likely to be a towering alpha male with the physique of a super-hero, who either bowls like the wind or who hits the ball deep into the crowd with ease. When Indians think about the IPL now, that is the stuff they are thinking about, not the fact that all the IPL clashes with the frigid beginnings of the English season. Why on earth would India now rearrange the entire IPL timetable, just to suit the English? Would it not make more sense for the English to rearrange their season by starting that later? Like, after the increasingly cold and prolonged English winter has ended? (I would love to know what Britain’s Meteorological Office has been telling England’s cricket bosses about how the weather in April was going to get more cricket-friendly.) Why cannot the English season start in mid-May rather than mid-April, like it used to? (I can recall when a batsman getting a thousand runs in May in England was a huge deal, because he only had the fag end of May to do this in.) If England’s cricket season must start in the rain, wind and snow of April, then can it really not do without a few increasingly rebellious star players? It can, and it will, because it will have to. All the English cricket bosses have to do is acknowledge reality. All the Indian cricket bosses have to do is … nothing. If the Indians do decide to shorten the IPL season, this will be entirely for their own reasons, mostly to do with television. Happening to oblige the damn English would probably, for many of them, be a bug rather than a feature. The basic problem is that the English have for too long treated the IPL as just another foreign tournament, instead of what it clearly has been from the moment it started, namely the premier franchise cricket tournament in the world, based in the premier cricket-supporting nation in the world. Only now, prodded by England players who are becoming ever more desperate not to miss the IPL bus, are the England cricket hierarchy beginning to grasp this obvious fact. Even Wisden, in among having another moan about Kevin Pietersen, realises that the ECB has badly mishandled this issue. Now, about that European Central Bank, and its need to adjust to reality … April 11th, 2013 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Theodore Dalrymple, the doctor and essayist, is always well worth reading and this item about Mrs Thatcher (oh no not again! ed) is particularly insightful, and fair, if a touch arch in tone. He points out her flaws on domestic policy, such as an obsession with certain targets as well as the strengths. But his essay is not without its own flaws. Here is a key paragraph, which starts well, but ends with a bum note:
It seems nanny-statist to imagine that solicitors should not be allowed to advertise their services to the public. To be blunt, he’s arguing for censorship of a profession in terms of its ability to put forward its services. An absurdity. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that any supposedly important profession/trade should also be banned from the grubby business of making itself known to the public, lest the weak-minded public be led astray into bad habits. This is the sort of paternalistic approach that Mrs T. rightly pushed back against. If it encourages the odd frivolous lawsuit, well, freedom has its costs. Solicitors soliciting for business. Fancy that.
April 10th, 2013 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
Philip Booth, of the Institute of Economic Affairs (peace be upon him), has this excellent article about the mix of reforms enacted in the 1980s, which have come in for some criticism from those who claim it contributed to the late unpleasantness in 2008. He refers, in particular, to the “Big Bang” reform changes to the City of London.
As always, whether looking at the Cold War, or financial crisis of 2008, or other issues, it is crucial to see how certain groups are trying to “shape the narrative”. The reactions to the death of Mrs T. are a textbook example of how these sort of things play out. Someone should make a film about it.
April 10th, 2013 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
From the Daily Mail website:
The article, which chronicles the outbreaks of violence and antics of – mostly – young people following the death of Margaret Thatcher, does not inform us as to whether Mr Styles has been permanently out of work since 1984, a period of 29 years. It may be that he has worked for periods, no doubt adding his magnificent skills, charm and knowledge to the global economy. On the other hand, I suppose it is possible that this individual has spent the last, entire 29-year period living off the benefits provided by fellow taxpayers. I hope he has managed to cope. He sounds as if he certainly will be able to drown his sorrows with plenty of drink. Forgive my sarcastic tone, but while I certainly do sympathise with anyone made redundant – I have been through that experience and I know what it feels like – it seems to be stretching one’s natural compassion to the limit to feel much sympathy for a person who might have been out of work, or at least some form of productive activity, for almost three decades, even while remaining an able-bodied citizen. (The article does not say if he is disabled.) Among the many things that the late Margaret Thatcher strived against was what she thought of as an “entitlement mentality”: the idea that we are, simply by virtue of being alive, entitled to coerce our fellow man into providing us with things or services. The assertion of such “rights” is impossible without stipulating that others have some duty to provide these things. But how much of a right does one have? To one job? To a permanent job? A highly paid one? A moderately paid one? In your home town? Globally? To pose such questions is to cut to the heart of the incoherence and contradictory nature of such bogus “rights”. A right is, by definition, an assertion that one has a personal space that cannot be invaded, which is why property rights are an essential component of the idea, and why socialist “rights” are a hopeless muddle. I suppose all this philosophy might be a bit of a stretch for this ex-coal miner and his fellows, but it might be nice to think that in contemplating some of the sentiments of recent days, one might also reflect on the principles that are highlighted by Margaret Thatcher’s 11 momentous years in power. April 10th, 2013 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
“In 1978, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt declared: “England is no longer a developed country.” Just as Spain had, in its decline from Empire, ceased to be part of the developed world, and Argentina followed in the mid-twentieth century, many expected that Britain would go the same way.” Of course, in 1979, when I was a mere 13-year-old Suffolk farmer’s son, some blonde lady by the name of Maggie changed Herr Schmidt’s assessment rather drastically. And by the way, since one of the urban myths is how Mrs Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing while Germany encouraged its own, ponder the fact that the value of manufacturing output in this country has scarcely been higher. I just thought I should mention that as part of a daily service. April 9th, 2013 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am a child of the Cold War. Nostalgia for me involves talk of the Fulda Gap, the Three Day Week and rats in London streets due to uncollected garbage, Genesis (the group not the Biblical one), Deep Purple, terrifying flairs and garish wide ties, Nationalisation, Arthur Scargill, Bloody Sunday … followed by Adam Ant, Ultravox and New Romantic shirts, Frankie says RELAX, Privatisation and… Margaret Thatcher. I would not have described myself as a libertarian back then even though I more or less was (and indeed I was only vaguely aware of the term, preferring ‘Classical Liberal’ in the non-debased non-US sense). And I still do not call myself one really, even though I more or less am. But for more than a decade I did indeed take delight in calling myself a Thatcherite (even though I only ‘kinda’ was), primarily because it was a wonderful shortcut for discovering all I needed to know about whoever I was speaking to at that time, just by watching their reactions. I fully expected the Cold War to end in either a global Götterdämmerung or at least with ‘us’ and ‘them’ killing each other in the streets of Britain as our utterly worthless political class (plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose) finally imploded and the decades of animosities boiled over. No one was going to change the fundamental direction things were headed and I did not just expect to have Molotovs thrown in my direction, I was expecting to be throwing them myself because I hated ‘them’ as much as they hated ‘us’. And I still do. And then… Thatcher happened. She was the leader of the The more I listened, the more I could hardly believe my ears. We needed a whole lost less state domestically and rather more state pointed Eastwards, because if you did not like the state we had now, you really would not like the one those guys (and assorted domestic traitors) wanted for us. This was only… sort of, kind of… what happened but there was no disguising that this was very clearly not the future the All this and all Thatcher did needs to be understood within the context of the Cold War (and winning thereof, against both the Soviets directly and their domestic UK stooges). Even back then I knew she was not even nearly radical enough but the important thing was she actually talked openly and eloquently about the limits of state power. And she did perhaps the most masterful and subversive single act of any modern politician I can think of: right to buy… turning recipients of state largess into private property owners, permanently removing a valuable asset from state ownership. Maggie Thatcher pissed off all the right people and I swung her name around like a handbag with a brick in it. And of course ever since the day she was brought low by her own party, I have been looking for the next Thatcher, someone who can pick up the pieces and tie off the contradictions and replace that succession of worthless dissembling jackanapes from Major (the Grey Man) to Cameron (Heath-lite). Portillo had promise but proved to have feet of clay… David Davies had (and indeed still has) real promise and actually believes in civil society and the notion that Conservatives should be (gasp) conservative. But as a result the Stupid Party hate him and instead of Nigel Lawson, we have a moron like Osborn who five years after what happened in 2008, wants it all to happen again. There is no new Thatcher on the horizon that I can see, unless by some improbable miracle Nigel Farage manages a 1922 style permanent reordering of the current dire political order of things. But then I could scarcely believe the likes of Margaret Hilda Thatcher could have happened either. April 8th, 2013 | 82 comments - (Comments are closed)
When I saw this in my favourite newspaper…
My reaction was… Awesome! Perhaps they could be induced to extend their strike for even longer and when the world keeps turning without them, maybe more people will wonder why they were being taxed to hell and back to pay for them in the first place. My only worry is the strike will come and go without very many people actually noticing. April 5th, 2013 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was struck by a particular contrast between two opinion columns that appeared in today’s Guardian. Both made reference to crimes in which many children were killed. The first column I would like to look at, written by Zoe Williams, refers to the crime described here. Mick Philpott had lived in a ménage à trois with his wife, Mairead, his mistress Lisa Willis and the eleven children the two women had bore him. When Lisa Willis walked out on this arrangement, taking her five children – and their welfare benefits – with her, the Philpotts and another man set a fire at the Philpott house with the aim of framing Ms Willis for it, which would help him regain custody of their children and the income stream that came with them, and also so that Philpott could be seen to rescue the other six children who still lived in that house. It would also aid him in his custody battle to be hailed a hero. As it turned out, he could not rescue them. All six died in the fire. The three conspirators have been jailed for multiple manslaughter, with Mick Philpott receiving the longest sentence as the dominant figure in the group. The Daily Mail published an article headed “Vile product of Welfare UK: Man who bred 17 babies by five women to milk benefits system is guilty of killing six of them.” Zoe Williams of the Guardian was deeply angered by this. Her Guardian column has the title “Don’t get mad about the Mail’s use of the Philpotts to tarnish the poor – get even.” Ms Williams writes,
The readers’ comments share Ms Goodman’s outrage, as does a similar comment piece about the same crime by Graeme Cooke which says,
The second, contrasting Guardian column, by Amy Goodman, referred to the gun massacre of twenty children and six adults carried out by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. That crime and its legal and moral implications were discussed at length in this blog at the time it occurred. Amy Goodman’s column has the title “It’s time for the majority to move on gun control” and includes the words:
I do not wish to simply jeer at the inconsistency of the reaction of the Guardian’s writers and readers. They could quite fairly throw the same jibe back at us – I assume that most readers of this blog oppose gun control and objected to the demonisation of American gun owners because of one grotesque crime on much the same grounds as Ms Williams objects to the demonisation of British welfare claimants for one grotesque crime. I post this to ask, not answer, the question, when is it offensive and when is it a moral necessity to make political capital over the bodies of dead children? April 4th, 2013 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is only one question that needs to be asked in the debate about Welfare Benefits…and that is ‘What can we afford?’. When there is ‘no money left’ what can we afford? That seems to have escaped the BBC who continue to question Coalition welfare reforms and the need for them on the basis that we have an endless supply of money. The BBC et al ask only ‘What do they need?’ with no requirement as to answer how to pay for those ‘needs’. That may seem easy for an organisation that doesn’t have to work for its funding but in the real world that’s a model that is the stuff of dreams… imagine being able to force your customers to pay for your goods even if they don’t use them…and in advance as well. April 3rd, 2013 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
“William Shakespeare evaded tax and illegally stockpiled food during times of shortage so he could sell it at high prices, academics have claimed“. April 1st, 2013 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
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