Read Online There is No Alternative by Claire Berlinski - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Claire Berlinski
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it might be fiction, but it is entirely true. It involves two great personalities: Thatcher herself, and Arthur Scargill, coal miner and communist, one of the most powerful orators in the annals of the Left. It is a story of two ways of looking at the world, and the contest that would determine whether Britain would be a capitalist society or a socialist one.
Previous mining strikes had been over in a matter of weeks. Not this one. Over the course of a year, as all of Britain watched, horrified, waiting to see who would break first, Thatcher proceeded to crush her enemies with a calculating, ruthless violence that stunned the British public. Neither labor nor the unions ever recovered. For a brief moment of clarity, power politics stood revealed in all its stark drama. The unions had made a bid for power. They lost. They were doomed. No longer was there any doubt what kind of country Britain would be. No longer was there any doubt who ruled.
In late 1984, Mikhail Gorbachev visited Britain. Thatcher declared him a man she could do business with. One year later, the West did business with him at the Reykjavik summit, and the year following, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. In 1987, Thatcher won a third term in office, becoming the only prime minister in the twentieth century to serve three consecutive terms.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Just as communismâs prehensile grip on power began to loosen, so did Thatcherâs. The introduction of the poll taxâa uniform, fixed charge for community servicesâwas intended to reduce the hold of the Labour Party on local councils by exposing its profligacy, but instead sparked protests and riots. Inflation began again to rise. Her cabinet fractured over the terms of Britainâs entry into Europe.
In 1990, her longest-serving minister, Geoffrey Howe, resigned. Thatcher was challenged for the Conservative Party leadership by
her former defense minister, Michael Heseltine, who gained sufficient votes in the first round of balloting to force a second one. Persuaded by her cabinet colleagues that she had lost the support of her party and could not win, she resigned.
She was never defeated at the polls.
Leave aside for the moment the question of credit for the vibrant state of Britainâs economy nowâis it the consequence of Thatcherâs policies, or New Labourâs, or both, or neither? We will come back to that. Let us instead ask what seems to me the obvious question to ask of the man who managed Thatcherâs image. Given that the economy is now so vibrant, why is Thatcher still so often reviled in Britain? For if it is often said that the American people would elect her in a heartbeat, this is not so in the country she ran. Thatcherâs name to this day inspires in a remarkable number of her countrymen profound vitriol, even among people who have clearly been the beneficiaries of her policies. What was it about her that so rubbed people the wrong way?
Needless to say, Ingham does not believe the animus to be fair.
BI: First of all, I donât think people really understand the viciousness of the Left in this country. Okay, you may say that the Left is infinitely more vicious in France, where they riot at the drop of a hat and all that, but this lot are really nasty .
CB: What do you think is the source of that viciousness?
BI: Well, I think, because we are a fairly intemperate lot. The British pride themselves on being a wonderfully even-tempered and decent people, but once they embrace a doctrine, they can become quite, quite extreme. And the Left, theyâre a nasty bunch. And theyâre a nasty, scheming bunch, too . . . Then there was the affronted self-regardâyou remember, do you, the 364 economists who wrote to the Times?
CB: In 1981, yesâ
BI: Good. Well, they donât like being proven wrong. And they were proved comprehensively wrong!
In one sense, Ingham has a point.
Previous mining strikes had been over in a matter of weeks. Not this one. Over the course of a year, as all of Britain watched, horrified, waiting to see who would break first, Thatcher proceeded to crush her enemies with a calculating, ruthless violence that stunned the British public. Neither labor nor the unions ever recovered. For a brief moment of clarity, power politics stood revealed in all its stark drama. The unions had made a bid for power. They lost. They were doomed. No longer was there any doubt what kind of country Britain would be. No longer was there any doubt who ruled.
In late 1984, Mikhail Gorbachev visited Britain. Thatcher declared him a man she could do business with. One year later, the West did business with him at the Reykjavik summit, and the year following, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. In 1987, Thatcher won a third term in office, becoming the only prime minister in the twentieth century to serve three consecutive terms.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Just as communismâs prehensile grip on power began to loosen, so did Thatcherâs. The introduction of the poll taxâa uniform, fixed charge for community servicesâwas intended to reduce the hold of the Labour Party on local councils by exposing its profligacy, but instead sparked protests and riots. Inflation began again to rise. Her cabinet fractured over the terms of Britainâs entry into Europe.
In 1990, her longest-serving minister, Geoffrey Howe, resigned. Thatcher was challenged for the Conservative Party leadership by
her former defense minister, Michael Heseltine, who gained sufficient votes in the first round of balloting to force a second one. Persuaded by her cabinet colleagues that she had lost the support of her party and could not win, she resigned.
She was never defeated at the polls.
Leave aside for the moment the question of credit for the vibrant state of Britainâs economy nowâis it the consequence of Thatcherâs policies, or New Labourâs, or both, or neither? We will come back to that. Let us instead ask what seems to me the obvious question to ask of the man who managed Thatcherâs image. Given that the economy is now so vibrant, why is Thatcher still so often reviled in Britain? For if it is often said that the American people would elect her in a heartbeat, this is not so in the country she ran. Thatcherâs name to this day inspires in a remarkable number of her countrymen profound vitriol, even among people who have clearly been the beneficiaries of her policies. What was it about her that so rubbed people the wrong way?
Needless to say, Ingham does not believe the animus to be fair.
BI: First of all, I donât think people really understand the viciousness of the Left in this country. Okay, you may say that the Left is infinitely more vicious in France, where they riot at the drop of a hat and all that, but this lot are really nasty .
CB: What do you think is the source of that viciousness?
BI: Well, I think, because we are a fairly intemperate lot. The British pride themselves on being a wonderfully even-tempered and decent people, but once they embrace a doctrine, they can become quite, quite extreme. And the Left, theyâre a nasty bunch. And theyâre a nasty, scheming bunch, too . . . Then there was the affronted self-regardâyou remember, do you, the 364 economists who wrote to the Times?
CB: In 1981, yesâ
BI: Good. Well, they donât like being proven wrong. And they were proved comprehensively wrong!
In one sense, Ingham has a point.
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