Product Description

Love her or loathe her, no one can deny that Margaret Thatcher's premiership marked a crucially significant turning point, when the British economy halted and began to reverse a decline that had persisted for so long that it had come to be accepted as inevitable by successive governments of both parties.

In 1977, Margaret Thatcher asked the author to produce a paper, the 'Stepping Stones' report, which became the blueprint for the economic strategy of an incoming Conservative government. When her election victory of 1979 brought Mrs Thatcher to Downing Street, he went with her, as the new Head of the Policy Unit, a position he was to hold until his decision to retire, two-and-a-half years later, by which time, he believes, the tide had been turned.

Drawing upon the detailed diaries he kept throughout the period, Sir John takes us behind the scenes to show us how the Thatcher revolution was planned and executed. It is an intensely dramatic story of a small group of men and women battling to implement radical economic polocies against a background of strikes and the threat of strikes, economic and industrial crises, and a chorus of protest from press and public.

Sir John is a shrewd, sometimes acerbic, observer who does not disguise the views he formed of politicians, civil servants and others. As a businessman stepping straight into a role at the very heart of government, he brings a fresh and often critical perspective to his account of the processes of policy-making and decision-taking in Whitehall. His book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand perhaps the most important years in the past four decades of British history.

Sir John Hoskyns was a regular army officer for twelve years from 1945 to 1957. He then went into industry, working for IBM UK, before founding what became the Hoskyns Group of software companies which was sold to Martin Marietta Inc in 1975. He was director-general of the Institute of Directors from 1984 to 1989 and has served on the boards of a number of public companies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #280718 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-30
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Charles Moore, editor of The Daily Telegraph, October 2000
Hoskyns became the first head of Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit at No. 10. He has just written a very revealing book about it all,drawing on his diaries of the period...There were many 'unthinkable' things thought by Hoskyns, The Centre for Policy Studies and other architects of the 'Thatcher revolution'.

Jim Hoskin, The Financial Times, November 2000
[The] book will fascinate those who like to delve into the nitty-gritty...It contains some spiky portraits of colleagues, and acerbic comments on the wheels of state and those who turn them.

John Redwood, The Times, February 2001
[John Hoskyns'] book captures the hangdog spirit of a British Establishment policing the metaphors and excuses for the decline of Britain...[the present Government's] ministers would be well advised to read this book to be reminded how poor, dingy and downbeat Britain was before the 1980s revolution.

Customer Reviews

anatomy of a revolution
This book has never received the attention it merits. Without a doubt, it is one of the most important political books to appear in post-war Britain. It is all too easy to forget how the so-called 'Butskellite' consensus stultified thinking in the pre-Thatcher era. At the end of WWII, Britain was the only European power left standing against the Soviet Union, and it still had the second-largest economy in the world (mostly by default). By 1979, Britain was on the verge of third-world status, with the IMF on the doorstep. Yet our rulers could not understand that their attempts to 'manage' the economy were in fact the cause of our decline.

Hoskyns gives full credit to Sir Alfred Sherman, who started it all, and to Keith Joseph and Geoffrey Howe, who initially were the only Tory politicians clever enough (or perhaps brave enough) to grasp free-market economics. He is especially generous to his co-conspirator, Norman Strauss, who helped him write the 'Stepping Stones' political blueprint which eventually put Britain on the road to recovery. He is modest about his own part; without his tireless staffwork, Sherman's brilliance could never have broken through the mental fog that enveloped the world of politics and the civil service.

This book is a salutary lesson to historical determinists. It should be an inspiration to anyone who doubts the ability of a talented individual to have a positive impact on the course of human affairs. People really do make history.

Excellent insider perspective on the events of 1979-81
This is the best book written by any of the insiders involved at the heart of the decision making process in the Thatcher government between 1979 and 1981. The author has a balanced perspective and is happy to admit the early mistakes of 79-81 that nearly destroyed the administration before it had got off the ground. His frustrations at the timidity of Thatcher and her cabinet come through well and his decision to stay until he believed that the crucial battles were won is fully explained. An excellent source on the economic situation faced by the administration written with candour. It gives excellent portrayals of the individuals involved. This book is a must for anyone wishing to learn about and understand the most controversial government since 1945 in Britain if for no other reason than because it is devoid of the pompous self-justification found in many other insiders' writings and also of the sanctimonious claptrap written by those with an axe to grind. This book is such a welcome contrast, it is like a breath of fresh air blowing through the vast literature on Thatcher and Thatcherism.