Margaret Thatcher 336


By chance I knew Margaret Thatcher rather better than a junior civil servant might have been expected to, not least from giving her some maritime briefings during the First Gulf War. On another occasion Denis and I once got absolutely blind drunk in Lagos – I had been given him to look after for the day, and the itinerary started with the Guinness brewery and went on to the United Distillers bottling plant, before lunch at the golf club. I had to reunite him with his spouse for the State Banquet and quite literally fell out of the car. Happy days.

I can say I was on first name terms with her – she always called me by my first name. Except unfortunately she thought that was Peter. I recall she came out to Poland when I was in the Embassy there and I was embarrassed because she knew me, and thus greeted me more warmly than my Embassy superiors. The problem was lessened by her continuing to call me Peter very loudly, even after I corrected her twice.

In person she was frightfully sharp, she really was. If you gave her a briefing, she had an uncanny ability to seize on the one point where you did not have sufficient information. She also had that indescribable charisma – you really could feel when she entered a room in a way I have never experienced with anybody else, not Mandela or Walesa, for example. You may be surprised to hear that in person I found her quite likeable.

Yet she was a terrible, terrible disaster to this country. The utter devastation of heavy industry, the writing off of countless billions worth of tooling and equipment, the near total loss of the world’s greatest concentrated manufacturing skills base, the horrible political division of society and tearing of the bonds within our community. She was a complete, utter disaster.

Let me give one anecdote to which I can personally attest. In leaving office she became a “consultant” to US tobacco giant Phillip Morris. She immediately used her influence on behalf of Phillip Morris to persuade the FCO to lobby the Polish government to reduce the size of health warnings on Polish cigarette packets. Poland was applying to join the EU, and the Polish health warnings were larger than the EU stipulated size.

I was the official on whose desk the instruction landed to lobby for lower health warnings. I refused to do it. My then Ambassador, Michael Llewellyn Smith (for whom I had and have great respect) came up with the brilliant diplomatic solution of throwing the instruction in the bin, but telling London we had done it.

So as you drown in a sea of praise for Thatcher, remember this. She was prepared to promote lung cancer, for cash.


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336 thoughts on “Margaret Thatcher

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  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Craig :

    Happy to engage, but first – so that we’ll be discussing the same things and not talking past each other – which sectors of the (former) UK economy do you consider to have been “heavy industry”? What would you include under this rubric, apart from (the obvious) coal and steel industries?

  • kathy

    She destroyed Scotland and the north of England and Wales and protected her voter base in south east England. She destroyed union power thereby opening up the total abuse of workers in the present day. She elevated “the free market” to a religion that was to take precedence over fair human qualities that had generally been acknowledged in professions and everyday life. She set in motion a dog eat dog society. Besides all this,on a more personal level, she totally blighted a generation to which my kids belong. I just hope there is a hell that she can burn in.

  • crab

    Habbabkuk
    “Happy to engage, but first satisfy my tiresome demands for elaboration on these variables – I never clarify anything myself which i can possibly get my opponents to drag out, after which i like to respond to my own misinterpretions anhttps://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/18914yway.”

  • crab

    Habbabkuk
    “Happy to engage, but first satisfy my disfunctional demands for elaboration on these variables – I never clarify anything myself which i can possibly get my opponents to drag out for me, after which i like to respond to my own misinterpretations regardless.”

  • Hi

    Mary
    8 Apr, 2013 – 3:39 pm

    Your post brought this back to me.

    “He (Healey) is a strange person. When he was at Oxford he was a communist. Then friends took him in hand, sent him to the Rand Corporation of America, where he was brainwashed and came back very right wing.”

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRhealeyD.htm

    “In 1978 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, controversially began imposing tight monetary controls. This included deep cuts in public spending on education and health. Critics claimed that this laid the foundations of what became known as monetarism. In 1978 these public spending cuts led to a wave of strikes (winter of discontent) and the Labour Party was easily defeated in the 1979 General Election.”http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDthatcher.htm

  • Hi

    “Thatcherism”

    In truth it should not be called “Thatcherism”, it should have been called Gaitskellism, Healey, Thatcher and Blair are the children of Gaitskellism.

    The Labour party have always been right wing, they did have a slight flirtation with the left of centre under Attlee’s Labour government, the roots of all the problems we are experiencing at this moment in time go back to the evil seeds Hugh Gaitskell and Denis Healey.

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgaitskell.htm

    Note the strange death of Hugh Gaitskell.

  • mrjohn

    In order to destroy the unions she destroyed industries and wrecked lives and communities.

    The damage continues, one of her first acts as PM was to change the laws restricting the movement of currency abroad. Making tax evasion easier.

    Imagine how differently the banks in the UK would have behaved if the collateral to back their reckless gambles had been the money of the powerful & wealthy.

    Growing up in the North I was no fan of Thatcher, but her dying makes no difference.

  • JonL

    “Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher!”

    We should have got rid of her then……!

  • Kempe

    Craig,

    Wasn’t it that fine, upstanding Scottish socialist Gordon Brown who first had the idea of propping up the banks with public money? I also thought the worst casualties/offenders were based in places like Newcastle, Halifax and Edinburgh.

  • Kempe

    Oh and the banking industry hadn’t been in terminal decline for decades previously.

  • Ex Pat

    Maggie’s Desert Island Discs pick? – Comic Relief Special –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_0cayp5s0#t=00m37s

    “Her body should be burned in a rubbish bin.”

    “If the right people were in charge of Thatcher’s funeral, her casket would be launched into London’s renowned Victorian sewage system.” One of the few bits of Britain’s infrastructure she didn’t manage to dismantle for her Anglo-American chums (see Lobster magazine link below).

    – To (ER, loosely? Ed.) paraphrase Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on another Reich-wing US Nazi party apparatchik – far to the _left_ of the leaderene. No, Really!!! – Substitute ‘Margaret Thatcher’ for ‘Richard Nixon’ and it fits perfectly! –

    “She was a crook” – The Atlantic –

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/

    … UNCLE SAM’S NEW LABOUR – Page 88

    BLIAR, BROWN – UK TRAITORS OR ‘REALISTS’! ?

    “The US government was also paying attention: in 1985 – only two years after Blair became an MP – an official in US embassy in London described him as ‘one of the brightest and most ambitious of recent Labor intake’; and the next year Blair took the first of his freebie trips to America.”

    “Brown and Blair were ‘modernisers’ and that had a specific meaning in this period: accept the power of the City and American global hegemony and give up all this nonsense about economic independence (let alone socialism). John Smith, another ‘moderniser’ in the Labour leadership, was on the steering committee of the Bilderberg group, one of the key elite forums promoting globalisation, from 1989 to 1992. In June 1991 Smith took his then understudy, Gordon Brown, to the Bilderberg meeting at Baden Baden. There Brown met the then obscure governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Blair attended the 1993 Bilderberg Conference in Athens.”

    Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!!! Shocked, Shocked! To discover gambling going on. ; )

    Thatcher too was of that Anglo-American foundation gravy train ilk. Further, she sold out the people of Britain to her Anglo-American chums on UK oil. Where Tony Benn wanted a sovereign wealth fund to preserve the wealth for future generations, as Norway did successfully.

    So the Tories are _exactly_ as New Labour. Utterly corrupt US Empire poodles, desperately competing to jump the highest whenever the US Empire whistles.

    See Lobster #60, ‘Well, how did we get here?’ – Page 62, Issue #60 –

    http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue60.php

    More – ‘Perfidious Albion’ – Comments to New Labour’s Franco Adventure, 7th November, 2013 – Craig Murray blog –

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/11/new-labours-franco-adventure/

  • daniel

    Deregulation of the City Of London
    Sell-off of council housing stock
    Ending free school milk (Thatcher the milk snatcher)
    The Poll Tax
    Deindustrialization
    Lady Porter
    Neoliberal economics
    Unecessarily perpetuating the Irish problem
    The sinking of the Belgrano
    Ignoring the Peruvian Peace Initiative
    Police brutality against the miners
    Brixton
    Toxteth
    Canary Wharf
    Mark Thatcher
    Gagging of Gerry Adams
    Loadsamoney
    Ben Elton
    Tony Blair
    Hades
    Thatcher

  • conjunction

    Re Kempe, Habbakuk, etc

    To be fair I wasn’t paying close attention to the political scene during the Thatcher years. However it has always been my impression that you are right in saying the manufacturing scene was on the way out by 1979. Thatcher’s response – or at least one of theme – was to smash the unions, thereby saving industry billions. She is quite explicit about this in her autobiographies. I would be interested to know exactly how Craig thinks she was responsible for destroying the manufacturing base – was this a question of lack of tax breaks or other help, or should she have done more to encourage investment?

    My feeling about Thatcher has always been that she came to power at a time when Britain’s wealth was declining sharply and that she solved this by massively boosting the financial sector by deregulation and encouraging ‘service’ industries – Starbucks etc.

  • Mary

    It is galling that the news readers and presenters are still wearing black. A few daring males have coloured ties.

    The eulogies and the sycophancy continue apace. They cannot see that our present parlous condition emanates from her policies of letting the City rip. All those crooks in the financial world had free vein in the fever of the privatisation of the public utilities and the word ‘entrepreneur’ was heard increasingly.

    PS I thought Kempe had been banned here?

  • Mary

    Instead of being in the Ritz care home, she could have been by the seaside in Devon.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-22062024

    Note the NHS colours on the notice board. See the money invested – hope for creaming. Any financial input from the NHS I wonder?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9978562/New-multi-million-pound-care-home-investigated-over-neglect.html

    http://www.europeancare.co.uk/about-us/the-senior-team Note Mr Robertson’s many other interests.

    You will note the number of posts being advertised. Recruitment was slowed by the CRB checks of course.

    http://www.indeed.co.uk/European-Care-jobs-in-Dartmouth

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9974244/Neglect-and-lack-of-dignity-in-care-homes-found-in-new-study.html

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Craig :

    my question to you was, despite Crab’s unhelpful intrusion (a fairly standard kind of reply to every post of mine), a genuine one. I should myself be inclined to add shipbuilding and the potteries to the list of heavy industries, but am in two minds about (cotton) textiles and the railways and have probably overlooked something blindingly obvious. So grateful if you’d specify. And then I’ll attempt to answer your proposition.
    Best regards.

  • Mary

    For Robertson above, read Rutherford.

    Andrew Pierce of the Mail is an ardent Thatcher admirer and was on Sky News last night waxing lyrical about her. He writes of her decline here.

    Frail final years of the Iron Lady: The death of Denis was a shattering blow as her great powers diminished

    By Andrew Pierce

    PUBLISHED: 00:22, 9 April 2013

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306046/Frail-final-years-Iron-Lady-The-death-Denis-shattering-blow-great-powers-diminished.html

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    And, pending those clarifications, a warm thank you to Mary who, on-topic as always, graces the blog with two posts

    – one on what newsreaders are wearing/blaming Thatcher for “letting the City rip”/on another poster, Kempe

    and

    – another on the NHS and a Mr Robertson (connection to Mrs T., out of power since 1990?)

    *************

    La vita è bella, life is good!

  • Mary

    No show without a word (and self publicity) from the ubiquitous Welsh songstress!

    Katherine Jenkins wrote on her Twitter: ‘RIP Baroness Thatcher. I will always fondly remember the afternoon tea & chat at your home #GirlPower.’

    But once again being criticised for her tweet, Katherine later added: ‘Say what you like but she was a wonderful supporter of our military in her later years and for that reason I have massive respect.’

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2305933/Geri-Halliwell-praises-Baroness-Thatcher-Twitter-deleting-post-backlash-celebs-voice-opinions-PM.html#ixzz2PwwIlGhl

  • Abe Rene

    @Habbakuk: “MIRAS was actually introduced by the 1966-70 Labour government”

    Thanks for this eye-opener. Evidently Roy Jenkins (former Blertchley Park codebreaker, later to be an SDP founder) introduced it in 1969.

    So that enables me to recognise better the positive side of Margaret Thatcher: she broke the power of the trade unions, saving the country from economic decline. She helped the rise of Gorbachev and the subsequent fall of Communism in Europe and the end of the cold war. She helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam’s invasion, though treachery organised by the Cabinet prevented her from finishing the job, leading to a much messier situation later. She enhanced British prestige abroad, not to mention saving the Falklands from Argentine fascism. Apart from being a woman who triumphed over many odds by perseverance. All this may have something to do with her getting the OM. May G_d grant her forgiveness for her sins, and may she rest in peace! 🙂

  • lwtc247

    “came up with the brilliant diplomatic solution of throwing the instruction in the bin, but telling London we had done it.” – any number of comments can be made about that, but I wouldn’t know where to start.

  • Mary

    Hi At 1.48am you wrote about Denis Healey and his Rand Corp connections. He was also the head of the IMF for a time.

    I found his name the other day on this front/’think tank’ outfit. It was founded by the Saudi Sheikh Yamani who ran OPEC. They used to directly control the supply and the price of our oil supplies. I suppose the ‘market’ does that now.

    About CGES

    Founded in 1990 by His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani the Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) is a non-profit think tank, specialising in oil market analysis and forecasting, and the economics and politics of energy.

    As energy analysts our task is to understand a complex reality, to simplify a confusing picture, to deconstruct the energy market into its constituent parts and reassemble them in such a way as to form a coherent narrative.

    The CGES is known for its well-researched, in-depth studies and reports on oil and gas issues. Our expertise lies in:
    • Oil demand, supply and price movements and forecasts
    • The futures market
    • OPEC policy
    • Geopolitics of the Middle East, the FSU, Africa and other oil and gas producing regions

    We offer advice and consultancy, publish oil market reports and hold regular energy-related events.
    http://www.cges.co.uk/aboutus/about-cges

    http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-healey/979

    ~~

    Little or nothing has been said so far about the creation of the internal market in the NHS and the ensuing nonsense.

    1987 Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher commissions a review of the NHS, amid concerns over growing financial pressures. This leads to the creation of the “internal market” in 1991 under the auspices of the then health secretary Ken Clarke. The market splits health authorities (which commission care for their local population) from hospital trusts (which compete to provide care). GP fundholding, which gives some family doctors budgets to buy care on their patients’ behalf, is introduced.

    History of NHS reforms: A state of permanent revolution
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/09/nhs-history-reforms-health-policy

  • crab

    Habbabkuk wrote:
    “Crab’s unhelpful intrusion (a fairly standard kind of reply to every post of mine)”

    Ive not got the commitment to shadow your posts the way you shadow Marys hbk. I just like to point out your standard patterns now and then.

    But now you might be close to interesting –
    how would these refinements on the definition of “heavy industry” (which you rightly provided yourself after some encouragement) affect your assessment of Craig’s previous statement?

    Don’t hold back on anyone elses account, i for one will do my best to make sense of a rare comment from you which makes something of your own deliberations…

  • doug scorgie

    The only newspaper front page without Thatcher’s smirking mush is the London Evening Standard which reports the death of a female cyclist in an horrific road accident; far more tragic than the gentle passing away of an 87 year old war criminal.

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