Product Description

The history of Britain in the last thirty years, under both Conservative and Labour governments, has been dominated by one figure – Margaret Thatcher. Her election marked a decisive break with the past and her premiership transformed not just her country, but the nature of democratic leadership. Simon Jenkins analyses this revolution from its beginnings in the turmoil of the 1970s through the social and economic changes of the 1980s. Was Thatcherism a mere medicine for an ailing economy or a complete political philosophy? And did it eventually fall victim to the dogmatism and control which made it possible? This is the story of the events, personalities, defeats and victories which will be familiar to all those who lived through them, but seen through a new lens. It is also an argument about how Thatcher’s legacy has continued down to the present. Not just John Major, but Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are her heirs and acolytes. And as the Conservative party reinvents itself as a viable political force once again, is the age of Thatcher finally over?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34556 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'As Simon Jenkins argues in this splendidly readable and provocative account of the last thirty years, we still live in the Lady's shadow' Dominic Sandbrook

About the Author
Simon Jenkins writes for the Sunday Times and the Guardian. He has edited both the Evening Standard and The Times, and has written books on politics, history and architecture in London including England’s Thousand Best Churches and England’s Thousand Best Houses, published by Penguin. He was knighted in 2004.

Customer Reviews

Very interesting read
This book reviews the increasing centralisation of the United Kingdom beginning from the late 1970s under Margaret Thatcher and continuining under John Major and Tony Blair. It was written before Gordon Brown became PM.

It describes some of the reasons why the trend developed e.g. the rate capping of local authorities and a determination to curb the power of left wing councils under Lady Thatcher and the later attempt to set uniform targets throughout the country for such services as policing, education, healthcare and so on.

Simon Jenkins shows how this trend has led to stifling bureaucracy and red tape and taken away local initiative. Lady Thatcher's policies in many cases ended up having the opposite effect of what she intended.

Simon Jenkins discusses how overcentralisation leads to wasteful bureacracy and inefficiency in the allocation of scarce resources.

A very interesting read.

Very useful critique of Thatcherism
Simon Jenkins, past editor of The Times and the Evening Standard, has written a fascinating book on Thatcherism which, he observes, is not a style of leadership but a political direction. He claims that Blair and Brown are its `willing prisoners'.

Thatcher attacked all workers and all professions - doctors, nurses, teachers, judges, steelworkers, police and miners. She stripped local government and the civil service of their independence and democracy.

Since 1990 we have suffered Thatcherism without Thatcher. Jenkins shows how Major and Blair continued Thatcher's policies across the board. He calls Blair `Thatcher's most devoted follower', but he makes a very strong case that Brown is even more so.

His Chapter 17, `Gordon Brown Thatcherite', shows how Brown has mortgaged the government's current and capital accounts to balance the books and has sold forward contracts to private firms to supply services through his PFIs and PPPs. The government borrows dear now, workers pay dearer later.

Thus Brown shifted investment in public institutions `off the books', hidden from the public borrowing total, a technique that he copied from his banker friends like Gavyn Davies of Goldman Sachs. The Office of National Statistics now classifies 60% of PFIs as off-balance-sheet. Britain's gross off-balance-sheet public debt was £110 billion by 2003. Brown has imposed on us not just stealth taxes, but stealth debts too.

By 2005, Brown had forced the NHS to borrow £6 billion for PFI schemes, with another £11 billion to come. Less than 30% of the touted increased `health spending' goes to health care. 20% of hospital budgets go to servicing bank loans, far outweighing any promised compensatory `efficiency gains'. Most of the rest pays for the last decade's 60% increase in support and administrative staff, so it goes straight through the NHS and out the other side to private subcontractor firms.

Jenkins claims that Thatcher conducted two `revolutions' - freeing capital and strengthening the state - two aims which he sees as contradictory. But in fact she launched a single counter-revolution, strengthening capitalism's power, in order to defeat trade unions and their sources of strength in manufacturing industry.

Quite a devestating summary of the recent political past
While I really enjoyed reading this account, I found - as is often the case with up-dated books - it fell a little short of putting the most recent developments (i.e. Brown taking over) into the same sharp focus as the Thatcher and Blair premierships. Having said this, I was thoroughly impressed by the sheer amount of background information and detail often quite casually offered. Just to give one example - the money the Blair government spent on "consultants" is abolutely staggering. I wish real insiders like Simon Jenkins would "let rip" one day, and actually share the full amount of insight they have with the reader.