Friday, February 01, 2008

Cameron on Thatcher: seeing through true-blue-tinted glasses

You have to smile at his chutzpah:

Today we know what Thatcherism meant for our country - victory in the Cold War, victory against unbridled trade union power, the sale of council houses, the liberation of the British economy. …
But today's circumstances are different. …the most fundamental long-term challenge we face is not the broken economy inherited by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, but our broken society, the consequence of years of failed state planning and the denial of social responsibility. Britain has falling school standards, the worst rate of family breakdown in Europe and an endemic crime problem in our inner cities.

Thatcher “liberated” the economy in much the same way that Bush and Rumsfeld liberated Fallujah – yes, high inflation was eventually reduced, but only at the cost of widespread devastation.

And really – the very idea that poverty, crime and the other ills of a “broken society” aren’t largely the legacy of Thatcherism is just embarrassing.

1 comment:

Chris said...

When he says 'years of failed state planning' he presumably includes the National bloody Curriculum introduced by... hold a sec, it'll come...