David Cameron has pledged to mend our broken society. That's interesting because Margaret Thatcher claimed that "There is no such thing as society". So very clearly David Cameron is taking a different line from Thatcher, and that is no bad thing for the Tories.
Margaret Thatcher, for all the good things she did (and I don't doubt she halted what seemed like terminal decline of the economy), also did a great deal many awful things, be they stopping school milk, Clause 28, destroying our manufacturing industry, selling off nationalised industries for too little money, the Poll Tax, laying waste to large parts of the country, centralising too much power in Westminster, and with each and every one of these things she created a new political activist who wanted to campaign against the Tories.
I was bought up in the Thatcher era and everything she stood for, everything the Conservative party was about, was the antithesis of what I thought was right and good. The Conservatives stood for selfishness, they stood for greed, they fought for themselves and not for the masses, and Margaret Thatcher's comments about society (which many Tories deny she ever said, but even the Margaret Thatcher foundation are happy to list the source of her quote) spoke volumes about the way she wanted our country to be.
So I welcome Cameron's denunciation of Thatcher's views on society, because it does exist and it does need fixing.
4 comments:
"It's dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime, and the problems that we see in too many of our communities."
But how will he do the first (outlaw divorce?). Second,third and fourth could sound quite a lot like Thatcherism in practice. Not sure who the opponents are who are supposed to be in favour of dependency, crime, and failing schools.
Anyone could say most of this: the interesting point is not "what?" but "how".
Well, he won't do it by being an anti-English/England.
And Thatcher was fine as a politician. At least she wasn't a lying hypocrite.
'I was bought up in the Thatcher era?' You were still sucking on a Jubbly when Thatcher came to power. Who on earth are 'the masses?'
Thatcher saved the country economically from the ruin of the 70's.
We are a better country today by far for her work, just look at any historical view of our economy to see that, unbiased too.
Not to say she did not make mistakes.
Sadly, Cameron is going to have the same tasks in trying to right an economy sunk by Labour's vote buying government.
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