Tom Harris has written today about how he finds it rather incomprehensible that people like me still hold a candle for Margaret Thatcher. In 20 years time no doubt someone will say the same thing about him and Tony Blair. But there was one sentence in his post which sticks out like a sore thumb.The only reason the Conservatives won in 1992 was that they had had the very good sense to ditch a terminally unpopular leader who had lost her political instinct.Hmmm. Do you think that was a Chipmunkesque 'Youtube if you want to' moment? Surely he couldn't be hinting that the only chance Labour has of winning the next election is to have the "very good sense to ditch a terminally unpopular leader who had lost his political instinct"? No, of couse not. How silly of me...
His commenters seem to think so though...
22 comments:
Well Tom Harris is a complete twat!
Margaret Thather is an outstanding politician, someone I very much admire!
I can think of another reason the Conservatives won in 1992. Neil Kinnock.
They know Broon is dead man walking and they`d rather he walked off on his own, but none of the gutless wonders dare stand up and tell him so.....
They will get what they deserve......Mad Hattie hopefully!!
Iain,
I suppose I am not on"your" side, but, factually, is Tom correct here. Mrs. Thatcher was very unpopular because of the poll tax; Major was hailed as having won 1992 "on his own bat." Let's, for the sake of argument, admit Mrs. Thatcher had brought around a sea-change in British politics. Still, after ten years she was losing her moorings. Perhaps all PM's do after 8 years or so.
[BTW, for what it's worth, I think most politically minded people in the UK operate within fairly widely agreed parameters - some form of social liberalism is espoused by almost all political contenders. There are, for example, AFAIK, no eugenicists like Keith Joseph still around; and no-one thinks making Vauxhall into a co-op will solve it's problems. And all of us resist turning things like abortion, homosexuality, or capital punishment into party issues (as in the US).]
Tom Harris makes some valid points. There were large swathes of Thatcher's premiership where she was incredibly unpopular, that much is true. Yet people kept voting her back in. However, there is one large difference. Thatcher was a woman who was making the massive changes that this country needed. New Labour has done very little of that - it's done plenty of damage in the process.
Having said all this, it's worth remembering Tom Harris has never quite got over his sacking by his fellow Scot.
I had a laugh out loud moment today watching the Election 79 coverage.
The leaders of NUPE and NUR reckoned that their industrial action [grave digger and bin men strikes as an example] had 'nothing to do with Labour's defeat'
Delusional even then.
It serves them right for dumping on Tom Harris - Didn't IDS say 'beware the revenge of a quiet man' ? Or was that David 'SAS' Davis ?
Mind you, Maggie couldn't take a hint and 'go quietly' either...
Polls are temporary; class is permanent. Mrs T was a class act who 'dared to be unpopular' and won (until the Tory wets finally got her - and look what happened to them!).
Brown is just another mediocre thug in a long line of mediocre thugs of which there is seemingly an endless supply in Scottish Labour politics.
Harris apparently realises that. He should know, right.
The sooner we are rid of them the sooner the monumental damage they have done to the nation and to the Union in ever single thing they have touched can begin to be repaired.
Again.
I think, like a lot of people, he is forgetting memories of people with more and longer experience of life than himself - there was still, even that longer after the effect, a disinclination to go back to Labour - especially when there were two consecutive leaders such as that prat Kinnockio and the well-meaning but deluded Michael Foot.
The last "trueish" Labour man that may have destroyed the Tories on ideological grounds was the late John Smith - and how different the country may have been then than under Blair and Brown.
Remind me Tory rightwingers....who got rid of the Blessed Margaret Oh! silly me it was 'YOU' Tory’s and all her true loving supporters who with malice aforethought stuck the political dagger deep(and with great gusto) into her heart and then threw into the dustbin of history and sat upon the lid to make sure she did not get back out.
There was also the small matter of the Sheffield Rally where Kinnock managed to snatch destruction from the jaws of defeat.
Altogether now, "We're aaall riiiight".
Top 10 most embarassing political moments ever, anyone?
Dear Iain. A hat tip in my direction would have been courteous. I did, after all, let you know about Tom's Freudian slip.
Grumpy, don't be so grumpy. I don't remember anyone pointing it out to me. I read it on his blog!!!
Mrs Thatcher had her flaws as everyone has but was still one of our greatest prime ministers.
She effectively resurrected a failed nation.
Paul Halsall : I agree with you - having worked in various walks of life, engineering apprentice, serviceman, civil servant, in commercial business positions up to management level, a labourer on a building site or two and as a lorry driver (I was pretty good at them all, just easily bored (apart from the services)), the one thing that seems to escape the minds of politicians is the lack of difference between the labour voters and the conservative voters when it is the "man in the street".
Virtually the same beliefs on crime & punishment, immigration, taxation, the venality and self-interest of politicians, the welfare state - it proves how out of touch the political classes really are. It is an incestuous circle with the politicians and those who commentate.
This is why Mrs. Thatcher was popular and Blair so attractive (initially). And they still don't realise - it is that group of people who decide the next government, not the party faithful.
That and that we really don't care who's in as long as they do the best for country not party & career, let us keep our money and don't dominate us.
A wide section of the British public (excluding of course the 'rent a mob' poll tax rioters) have never quite forgiven the Tory Party for stabbing her in the back, which is one of the main reasons they've been in purdah ever since.
Labourites just don't get it do they? Who can say that Tony Blair, that other political 'genius', wouldn't have won them a fourth term if he hadn't have had the same treatment from his own side?
Do you think Gordon the Bogeyman would have stood up to the Argies?
Would he f..
Perhaps Tom would like to explain how Brown will deal with these stories? Or not?
More Brown Studies, or Labour in the News plus other random snippets
Didn't we ditch Blair on this basis? Some chap called Tom told us to do it and we did. So that's alright then.
David Hughes--You have it so right,the man (and woman) in the street,the ordinary voter just want the same sort of things on all the main topics ,regardless of the party.Unfortunately we don't have any politicians out there who are capable of working that out, and so we are left with a choice of an out of touch Labour party who have long outstayed their welcome,or a Tory party led by someone who seems unable to connect to what the people of the country want and will make PM simply because this current lot are so bad that the electorate would vote for just about anybody so long as means change.What the public wants is policies that actually work ,rather than cheap sound bites and headlines designed to make it look like they are doing things,when in reallity they are not.
A sad reflection on the quality of current politicians!!
The parallels are actually very strong. The other problem Mrs T had was that her cabinet were supine. That was partly of her own making but not just her fault. Quite simply the Party didn't renew itself in office. They were old and out of ideas by the end of Major's term.
That's exactly where Labour are now. Blair was the ideas man with a vision and drive. I deeply disagreed with a lot of what he did but admired the way he sometimes did it.
Brown on the other hand is a machine politician who has spent years in the background plotting and scheming. To gain power he ruthlessly eliminated or sidelined all the opposition. Now he towers alone....an intellectual collossus (in his view) dominating the Party.
Unfortunately the Party itself now resembles the old joke about why KGB Officers always went around in 3's - one to read (Alan Johnston), one who could write (Harriet Harman) and one to watch the intellectuals (Ed Balls).
My money is that it will be the watcher who will engineer the coup de grace - but at a time of political advantage
Iain.
I have just listened belatedly to you and Galloway having it out on the radio about Lady T.
What's this about 'apologist' being a derogatory word?
Was Newman rubbishing himself when he wrote Apologia Pro Vita Mea?
An apology is either saying sorry or defending a position, which was clearly Galloway's meaning.
You started on the wrong foot and it went downhill from there.
I remember your defense of humour with regard to Prescott. Physician, heal thyself.
Tony
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