Two things first, by way of preparation and explanation. The first is personal and visceral, the second more philosophical.
First, all my political energy has been a reaction to Margaret Thatcher. I hated and continue to hate Thatcherism with a passion that remains undimmed, even after all these years. There have been moments when I wondered if I should have gotten over it by now. But I can’t. It is too deeply and furiously embedded in my psyche.
In the name of the free market, she trashed the long established infrastructure of care and civility that held us together as a country. Not since the Dissolution of the Monasteries has a whole pattern of social care been so thoroughly and successfully wiped away. In particular, she eviscerated northern working class towns, held together by mining and heavy industry, that were the heart of this country.
Second, my philosophical point: Mrs Thatcher wasn’t really a Conservative at all. She was a turbo-charged classical liberal who believed that the freedom of the individual, and most especially the economic freedom of the individual, trumped all other moral considerations. Setting people free from the state, setting people free to pursue their individual economic interests, this was her guiding idea. And so she took a sledgehammer to all those patterns of community living that held the individual back. To express her mistake philosophically, she confused ‘freedom from’ (any external constrains) with ‘freedom to’ (something that requires a whole social architecture of discipline and solidarity to enable people to flourish and live out their fullest lives).
Get “on your bike” was the message of one of her fiercest lieutenants to those whose communities had been trashed. Freedom of movement and freedom of capital, deregulated markets and the privatisation of public services – with all these, the world was transformed. Under the influence of people such as Keith Joseph and the free market philosophies of Friedrich Hayek, social problems were all imagined to have market solutions.
But far from setting ordinary people free, this turned into a revolution for financial opportunists feasting on the corpse of traditional manufacturing and the way of life it sustained. By destroying the power of the Trade Unions, Thatcher paved the way for the reign of the money men from the City. Very little was conserved. That is why Mrs Thatcher should be considered a cuckoo in the nest of traditional conservatism.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe