David Cameron will – according to extracts from a biography published today and carried in just about every newspaper – be ‘as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer’.
He tells author Dylan Jones: ‘[J]ust as Margaret Thatcher mended the broken economy in the 1980s, so we want to mend Britain’s broken society.’ You have to laugh, don’t you?
For starters, I’m not sure where the idea that the 1980s Tories were somehow economically competent came from in the first place. As someone who lived through the last 18 years that party spent in government, I seem to remember the two deepest recessions of the entire post-war period, interspersed by an artificial inflationary boom, with high unemployment that Britain has yet to overcome one of the few constants of the period.
Rather than ‘mend a broken economy’, Thatcher took a social democratic Britain that functioned, albeit with undeniable difficulties, and injected a lethal dose of neoliberalism that smashed it to pieces.
The roots of the problems we face now can almost without exception be traced back to the 'no such thing as society' decade, when all the emphasis was on individualism rather than social responsability.
If exploitation in the workplace has increased massively, yet millions of workers are too cowed to organise collectively to improve their lot, that is because of the systematic weakening of trade unionism that was a core aspect of the Thatcher platform.
If there is intractable poverty in the face of sharply rising inequality, that is because of the continued roll-back of the welfare state that started under Thatcherism.
Homelessness was not a major feature of our towns and cities before the mass sale of council housing, while pockets of intractable long-term unemployment were few prior to the deliberate deindustrialisation of the Midlands and the North.
Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. Or something like that; BoJo can tell you what it means. Alternatively, if you prefer your aphorisms in English rather than Latin, a sign frequently displayed in china shops often tells punters: ‘you broke it, you own it’. Perhaps Cameron’s words unwittingly reflect that maxim?
Posted at 13:19, 18 August 2008
Comments (12)
"Homelessness was not a major feature of our towns and cities before the mass sale of council housing"...
But also due to the changes in the benefits system from the late 1980s onwards that saw an increase in homelessness.
Another aspect of this "broken society" malarky from Cameron and co. is an emphasis on traditional family values. Mmmm. Now where have I heard that before....
Good post Dave! I also remember the 1980's with great bitterness, i got made redundant twice under Thatcher.
I also believe most of todays problems stem from that period. When Cameron says he wants to mend this ''broken society'', he should be reminded that Thatcher said '' There is no such thing as society''.
It will be interesting if ''letter from a tory'' comments on this post.
It reminds me of a Kenny Everett sketch from the 80s where, dressed as a thug, to camera he says: I come from a broken home, I should know I broke it.
The tories are uniquely positioned to lead a debate on the `broken society' as it was indeed they what broke it.
Great post Dave.
If anybody needs reminding of the tories' neo-liberalisation of the 1980's I'd recommend watching episode 4 of the "Mayfair Set" if you haven't done so already:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+mayfair+set+4&emb=1#
This is a very reassuring thread. Even Polly is beginning to show some signs of realising the mess you socialists have made of this country, but you lot are still living in a dreamland. My most fervent hope is that socialism ceases to exist as a viable political force in this Country, and with chumps like you in the Liebour Party, my hopes will be fulfilled. I was in the Armed Services when Baroness Thatcher took over. We had a living wage and a Minister who didn't fall asleep during a Harrier display 50 yards in front of him. All of a sudden, it was cheaper to save up for a purchase instead of taking out a Hire Purchase agreement 'cos the credit interest was more than the rate of inflation. We didn't have the IMF telling us how to run our finances. I doubt that would worry you, as you've spent the last 11 years getting another country to run my country anyway. I grew up in a mining town - Fencehouses in Co. Durham. "Brassed Off" it wasn't. My Mum couldn't hang the washing outside because it came in dirtier than it went out, and I thought that 3 funerals a week in a small town was normal. Maggie scuppering Skargill was the best thing that ever happened to the miners. Keep it up boys, someone needs to perpetuate socialist myths. You are exemplars of the Broken Society, because you have never known self respect or self reliance.
If Karl Marx was starting to write "Das Kapital" today I'm sure he'd come to you, Dave, and your cronies, with your "mis-remembered" events of the last 30 years or so. According to you and your cohort the working masses are still being ground down by the property-owning class.
Perhaps you need to start a new party that will attract sufficient support to form a government to realise your ambitions? You could call it the Communist Party.
Funny how all them ex-miners at the Durham Gala don't seem so happy about spending years on the dole, Atropos. Mustn't know what's good for 'em, eh?
Thatcher is history and New Labour can't mitigate its failed policies by continually blaming her. Although I would claim that the source of so many of our current problems can be traced back to her administration, as an excuse it's long past its sell by date. However, it does seem to have a purpose in that it propagandises New Labour as being the same as the 'traditional Labour Party', and has the affect of keeping many of them loyal to a party, which in many respects, is right of Thatcher.
'I grew up in a mining town - Fencehouses in Co. Durham. "Brassed Off" it wasn't. My Mum couldn't hang the washing outside because it came in dirtier than it went out, and I thought that 3 funerals a week in a small town was normal. Maggie scuppering Skargill was the best thing that ever happened to the miners. Keep it up boys, someone needs to perpetuate socialist myths. You are exemplars of the Broken Society, because you have never known self respect or self reliance.
oh, the delusions of a working class Tory...
Is this a circumlocuational way of saying the Tories own Britain since they broke it?
"Liebour party"!!! Genius!!! LOL!!!!!
"Homelessness was not a major feature of our towns and cities before the mass sale of council housing"...
I was 40 in 1985, the year I first saw a young adult male beggar in London.