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April 10, 2013
Thatcher is being reinvented by the conservative movement as the woman who saved Britain from the left , and a conviction politician who was a leader above politics. They are rewriting history in terms of them being the winners.
David Rowe
Winners because the power of the trade union bosses was broken; sold public housing to the tenants who occupied it; denationalized industries and utilities; established the primacy of the deregulated market and the ethos of individualism. This, the narrative goes, reversed Britain's long-term economic decline by restoring the power of capital and shifting the structure of the economy away from manufacturing --de-industrialisation---towards financial capital.
It's a narrative hard to maintain after the global financial crisis, the market inequality and the economic depression in the UK--the dominance of finance in the economy and the failure of bank regulation flowed from Thatcher's belief that markets should always be left to themselves. This was a capitalism of self-regulating markets, a strong but minimal central state that backed their rule and an antagonism to democracy.
The narrative is being reworked by current conservatives who are using the economic crisis as a chance to reshape everything--especially rolling back the welfare state. Like Thatcher they assume no responsibility to minimise social disruption or to create new jobs and industries.
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When I lived in the UK in the winter of 1976/77 there were no homeless people living in central London.
The horrifying stories of homeless people in London post Thatcher's election make the place sound Dickensian. I have not returned.