Tagged with Thatcherism

The fight against Thatcherism must go on

Yesterday, at 12.02, the anarchist Ian Bone wrote on his blog “Thatcher died this morning”. Moments after it hit Twitter and Facebook, though, as always, it was taken with a pinch of salt. That was until the BBC and Sky broke the news on its airwaves – the former Prime Minister had died, this was no longer a baseless rumour.

It is the humble opinion of this author that April 8, 2013 should mean nothing to the left, though. While parties were ongoing until the early hours yesterday, in Brixton, Glasgow and other places, and Trafalgar Square will host, against its will, a street party to mark the death of the controversial politician, July 30, 2011 should be the day we rejoice. Continue reading →

Death of a class war enthusiast

Thatcher was a deeply divisive figure, which is why she will be lionised in much of the South of the country and reviled in most of the North. In hard and difficult times the British people will rally to a unifier, whether Churchill in wartime or Attlee in constructing a peace that would not return to the 1930s. But Mrs. Thatcher was different: a class warrior who took the fight to her opponents and pursued a scorched earth policy to destroy them, and in the course of it destroyed much of the economic, industrial and social fabric of the country, leaving a legacy from which the country still suffers. Continue reading →

Condolences where they’re due but let’s celebrate the death of Thatcherism when it comes

We’ll celebrate no-one’s death. Margaret Thatcher was a mother and grand-mother and we offer condolences to her family. But we’ll not suffer the hagiographies in silence, and the final end of Thatcherism, when it eventually comes, will indeed be a cause for celebration. For now, however, Thatcherism lives on still, under various names –  the latest, sado-monetarism, coined only today by Paul Krugman.

It was responsible for the destruction of much of British industry, for the Big Bang that laid the foundations of our recent financial crisis, for the emasculation of the trade unions that had improved working people’s living standards, and for the undermining of the solidarity and community that were the foundations of the society whose existence she denied. There was nothing remotely “patriotic” about doing those things. Continue reading →

Doctors without qualifications: how Milton Friedman inspired coalition NHS reforms

When you trust someone to wield a scalpel on the most sensitive parts of your anatomy – and such, dear reader, was my painful lot some 18 months ago  – you cross your fingers and hope they are a properly trained surgeon.

But according to the free market right, regressive attitudes like that hold back the development of a free market in health services. The requirement for licensure both prevents all and sundry who wish to practice medicine from doing so, and deprives the rest of us of the opportunity to purchase their services, and so should be scrapped. Continue reading →

Ed Miliband: the impossibility of reinventing revisionism

Listening to Labour leaders espouse whatever intellectual fad is currently doing the rounds on the other side of the Atlantic is nothing new for those of us who follow these things.

The odds are that Ed Miliband’s advocacy of predistribution will be no longer lasting than Blair’s embrace of communitarianism or Brown’s support for progressive universalism. Indeed, if anyone can even remember what the latter was, kindly enlighten the rest of us. Continue reading →