Thatcher one of the greatest
Re: “Thatcher despised by many,” by Barton Whyte, Letters, Jan. 12, and “Many suffered under Thatcher’s policies,” by Keith Norman Wyatt, Letters, Jan. 17.
Strong leaders arouse strong feelings and Thatcher is no exception. She was the longest-serving British prime minister since 1827 and repeatedly re-elected, so it is nonsense to write: “Everyone from the United Kingdom who had the misfortune of being there under her ideological rule will tell you she was the most despised woman in Britain.”
On the contrary, she was idolized by many who saw her as the saviour of Britain. She inherited a shattered economy and a country in despair after the “winter of discontent” in 1979-80 under the previous disastrous Labour government, when unions had brought Britain to a standstill.
She broke the unions’ stranglehold on the economy while promoting the privatization of inefficient government-run businesses, deregulating and encouraging an enterprise culture that made Britain thrive.
The economic position Britain is in now is certainly not due to Thatcher, but to 13 years of mismanagement by the Labour Party under the infamous Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
As regards the miners, their Communist leader Arthur Scargill boasted he could bring down any British government and called a national strike against the wishes of a majority of his members. He went to the Kremlin to ask for money to be paid into secret bank accounts and sent an envoy to Libya asking Gadhafi for money. In other words, he was seeking the support of enemies of Britain to bring down the British government, an act of treason.
It was a battle Thatcher knew she had to win and it sorely tested her, especially as there were those in her own party who were keen to surrender to Scargill, but the Iron Lady was not for turning, and thankfully for the sake of Britain she triumphed in the end.
History will judge her as one of the greatest of British prime ministers.