Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet need some of Thatcher’s spirit
A MOOD of fatalism seems to have descended on the Conservatives, fuelled by dire opinion polls and the recent dismal local election results. But the sense of despair should not be overdone. After all, John Major looked a near certainty to lose in 1992 during a recession, yet emerged with an overall Commons majority.
Similarly in 2015, David Cameron appeared to have little chance of staying in power, his party having regularly been 15 points behind Ed Miliband’s Labour. Yet he achieved a famous victory. But perhaps the most pertinent lesson for the current Government comes from Margaret Thatcher’s win in June 1983, which occurred precisely 40 years ago next week.
What made her success so remarkable was that it had looked deeply improbable until a year before the election.
From late 1979 until mid1982 her premiership had been in permanent crisis as unemployment soared and the inner cities were scarred by rioting. Amid massive cutbacks in public spending, repeated clashes with the unions and the collapse of swathes of traditional British industries, surveys revealed her as our country’s most disliked leader ever.
YET she was the one who triumphed in June 1983, while Labour crumbled to their worst defeat since their near wipeout in 1931.There were several factors in that astonishing turnaround that do not exist today. One was the profound split in the Labour opposition, as moderate figures like Roy Jenkins formed the SDP. In contrast, Labour are relatively united today.
Furthermore, for all his flaws, Sir Keir Starmer is a far better leader than the hapless, otherworldly Michael Foot. Above all, Mrs Thatcher had gained enormously in stature from the recapture of the Falklands, which strengthened her global image as the “Iron Lady”.
It is almost impossible to imagine that another self-contained war on British territory will arise in the next 12 months, or that Britain would have the capability to fight it, given the huge reductions in the Armed Forces since the early 1990s.
But part of the Falklands experience is relevant for today, because the defeat of Argentina fed the narrative that Mrs Thatcher was a brave politician with a clear, patriotic vision, who was willing to take tremendous risks to achieve her goals. She did the same with the economy, incurring profound unpopularity in her determination to conquer inflation, balance the books, tame the trade unions and boost enterprise.
Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet need some of that same spirit. Pragmatic managerialism is not enough, nor are headlinegrabbing gimmicks like controls on food prices, just the sort of intervention that a free marketeer like Mrs Thatcher would have despised.
“History never repeats itself,” said Mark Twain. Nevertheless, it is fascinating several of the key challenges facing Rishi Sunak are exactly those that confronted Mrs Thatcher in the run up to 1983, including stubborn inflation, union bullying, Russian aggression and public sector inefficiencies.
If Mrs Thatcher serves as an inspiration, another political anniversary should be a warning. It is now a century since Stanley Baldwin first became Prime Minister in 1923. His sorry record graphically illustrates the consequences of political timidity. Where Mrs Thatcher rebuilt Britain, he dragged down the country with his misjudgments and impulse for retreat. The two figures could not have been more different.
She was all about courage and conviction. He was all about conciliation and cowardice. She cherished clarity; he wallowed in sentimentality.
DYNAMISM embodied Mrs Thatcher’s leadership, inertia characterised Baldwin’s. She was suspicious of consensus, whereas he craved it. She relished the responsibilities of office, but he shrank from them. She never lost a General Election; he twice squandered big Tory majorities.
The daughter of a Grantham grocer, she wanted to “roll back the frontiers of the state”, while he pushed them forward. She believed in the market, he in protectionism. His government nationalised electricity; hers privatised it. She helped bring down the Soviet Empire, he was one of the architects of the appeasement of Nazi Germany.
Churchill once described Baldwin’s government as “resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift and solid for fluidity,” words that could never have been used about Thatcher.
If the Tories are to have any hope, it is clear which of these two predecessors should be Rishi’s role model.
‘Key challenges facing Sunak are those that confronted Mrs Thatcher’