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Who do you think the best Prime Minister of the last 40 years has been? on 11:39 - May 27 by Sadoldgit
Interesting to see Thatcher now in the lead. I wonder if her votes are wind ups or if people genuinely think she was the best?
For me Margaret Thatcher, though I don't agree with everything she did. She was strong , resolute and determined, she ran her cabinet skilfully, and as a result they got things done. WIthout those qualities Government and Parliament as whole disintegrate, as we've seen. For the same reason Blair was a success, and was a very good delegator. If we went back fifty years I'd say Harold Wilson would vie with Thatcher for top spot. He was a clever, sly ,devious man, good qualities to run a Government.
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Who do you think the best Prime Minister of the last 40 years has been? on 08:47 - Jan 2 with 1232 views
Who do you think the best Prime Minister of the last 40 years has been? on 12:51 - May 27 by dirk_doone
The 1979 oil crisis tripled the price of oil at a time when North Sea oil reserves were massive. UK oil production was increased in every one of the Thatcher years. We were awash with oil money, like The Emirates, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, during her years as PM. Of course, ultimately we helped flood the market and used up most of our oil reserves. There's very little left today. The oil exports covered what would otherwise have been a massive trade deficit as British heavy industry was all but closed down by Thatcher.
The next thing was voters love a leader who wins a war. At the time the Falklands crisis started, opinion polls showed that Thatcher was the most unpopular prime minister in British history. After the war, the same polls showed she was one of the most popular. There was no need for that war. Previous PMs had used intelligence warnings to send ships to the Falklands to warn off the Argentinians; Thatcher did the opposite: she had been told they were preparing to invade but did nothing about it. She basically invited them in to trigger a war.
If Boris Johnson were to lure a weaker nation into a war and win it, he would be even more popular than she was, and that's without billions of petro-dollars at his disposal.
[Post edited 27 May 2020 13:05]
That's too simplistic and partisan. There had been underinvestment in Britain;s heavy industry for years, going back to the time when Britain was effectively broke in the fifties. It doesn't just start when a new Government comes in. Poor industrial relations going way back to the first miners strikes in the Seventies just compounded the problem. Remember the Winter of Discontent was under Callaghan not Thatcher. Nobody in the City because of that was willing to recapitalise heavy industry under the threat of Militant strikes. As for North Sea Oil, apart from the short lived BNOC the Government didn't "own" the oil, so the oil companies were and still are to this day free to export or import as they see fit for their own business needs subject to taxation. The Government under EEC laws couldn't just deny them the right to sell oil abroad and the Govt never owned the majority rights for any oil or gas field at any time even with BNOC (which was sold at a loss in 1984) . What The Tories didn't do in the Seventies is the same as most of our Governments haven't done which is to plan for the world beyond the next election. We should have built up Sovereign Wealth funds much as Norway has done, instead of just using the revenues to reduce taxes and buy votes at the next election. As for the Falkands I was too young in 1982 but I served with plenty who were there and the problem wasn't Thatcher - it was that nincompoop Lord Carrington - because he was played for a fool by Argentina and John Nott because he was busy shutting the Navy down even when while placing demands on it that it could barely fulfil. Where was Ark ROyal in 1982 when we needed it? Ask John Nott, not Margaret Thatcher. Heading for scrap was the answer. Thatcher had no knowledge or skill in warfare and leaned on these men until they let her down, then she realised most men in her cabinet were wet idiots, rolled her sleeves up and so did a better job herself . As for closing industry down, under EEC law (which was regularry broken by other EEC countries) we could not subsidise loss making businesses so they went because by the 1980s they were uncompetitive. What would you have done? If you want to know why France, Germany, Italy and Spain managed to hang on to their industries then perhaps we should have just cheated like France Germany Italy and Spain did.
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