On Margaret Thatcher’s tenth anniversary in office she was advised by Lord Carrington and her husband Denis that she should step down in a blaze of glory. She ignored that advice, convinced that only she could solve the problems which still bedevilled Britain. Tony Blair is very much of the same mindset. It seems he has learned nothing from her fall. The question is, will be forced from office in the same ignominious manner? Many believe that the Tory Party is still suffering from the aftershocks of her overthrow more than 15 years later. I suspect that whatever form the transition from Blair to
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Blair Has Learned Nothing From Thatcher's Fall
Enoch Powell’s maxim, that ‘all political careers end in failure’ is almost always the case for Prime Ministers. Only one Prime Minister since the war, Harold Wilson, has resigned at a timing of his own choosing, and even in his case there are still suspicions among conspiracy theorists that the security services forced his hand. All other Prime Ministers have been ejected from office through ill health (Churchill, Macmillan, Eden), election defeat (Attlee, Douglas Home, Heath, Callaghan and Major) or in Margaret Thatcher’s case through betrayal.
On Margaret Thatcher’s tenth anniversary in office she was advised by Lord Carrington and her husband Denis that she should step down in a blaze of glory. She ignored that advice, convinced that only she could solve the problems which still bedevilled Britain. Tony Blair is very much of the same mindset. It seems he has learned nothing from her fall. The question is, will be forced from office in the same ignominious manner? Many believe that the Tory Party is still suffering from the aftershocks of her overthrow more than 15 years later. I suspect that whatever form the transition from Blair toAlan Johnson Gordon Brown takes, the Labour Party will suffer from post-Blair convulsions for some years to come.
On Margaret Thatcher’s tenth anniversary in office she was advised by Lord Carrington and her husband Denis that she should step down in a blaze of glory. She ignored that advice, convinced that only she could solve the problems which still bedevilled Britain. Tony Blair is very much of the same mindset. It seems he has learned nothing from her fall. The question is, will be forced from office in the same ignominious manner? Many believe that the Tory Party is still suffering from the aftershocks of her overthrow more than 15 years later. I suspect that whatever form the transition from Blair to
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"the Labour Party will suffer from post-Blair convulsions for some years to come."
I find that so ... cheering.
yeah great isn't!
How much of that is down to being surrounded by your closest advisers telling you that things are better than they really are, or how much is it about a total belief almost becoming an obsession, that no one else can do what you are doing
To quote the immortal Oscar:
"One would need a heart of stone, not to laugh."
It certain is beginning to feel like November 1990. The Parliamentary recess may be the only thing which might save Blair but the momentum in the media is beginning to roll.
Please, lets encourage Blair to stay on.
Diane Abbot is strolling around the House, probably looking for a camera.
Look in the Parliamentary Handbook and under 'OMINOUS' it says 'DIANE ABBOTT TURNING UP AT TIME OF CRISIS'.
Great News: Original Tory "A" lister "Lord" Jeffrey Archer is back - he's on R4 PM right now promoting change in the law to allow female succession to the throne.
Of course, Jeffrey has friends in the Royals - he spent time at Her Majesty's pleasure!
Rub you hands in delight Iain!
The warfare about to erupt between the Brownites and Blarites will make the schism in the Conserviatives in the 90's look like a tea party. The schism in Labour isn't about something small and unimportant like ideology or Europe. It's far bigger, deeper and far more dangerous.
It's personal. It's about betrayal and lies, ill-conceiled animosity and hatred, long remembered slights and briefings against, negative spin, Alistair Campbell's put-downs, class, failed ambition and a wasted decade of government achieving little more than can be written on a fag packet.
It's going to get very very nasty. I have a ringside seat and can't wait for these smug gits to get their well-overdue comeuppance. There is a god and he has finally answered my many years of prayers. Bring it on......they have a one-way bus ticket to self destructionville
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh Iain?
Churchill was 80 when he stepped down and was secretly hoping for a dukedom.
Eden was struck down by acute Sueztitis and Macmillan eventually succumbed to chronic Profumosis.
And Thatcher was just as much a victim of the parapolitical establishment as Harold Wilson.
She had this ridiculouse idea that there was an alternative to 'managed decline.'
Blair should call a General Election then resign.
The Tories should put down a Confidence Motion in any event to show up the Labour Party opportunists
A friend of mine in the Labour party has spoken to a well-placed source of his, who says Blair is calling the cabinet in one by one.... Thatcher all over again?
I think he is at the chewing the furniture stage. Even at Daggenham. (Two stops on from Barking).
He has learnt nothing. Zip.
Still it is entertaining and good fun to watch. Good for the Conservative party also.
"Many believe that the Tory Party is still suffering from the aftershocks of her overthrow more than 15 years later."
Yes and no. The underlying problem is that there is a substantial portion of the party that never believed in Thatcherism (and just went along with it for the electoral success). Even more so with Labour, Blair seems to have convinced only a small minority of the party of the need for moderation and pragmatisim, e.g. with things such as public spending and unilateral disarmament.
Given how many press officers are working for Labour (I mean the government) I think you should ban these rubbishy, nitpicky anonymong postings that are clearly the work of this band of merry men. I know, of course, that it would only result in them wasting their time burning our money in other ways, but it's the principle of the thing.
Anonymous: The Dukedom was Churchill's for the taking. He declined for whatever reason, possibly because he didn't want a peerage to restrict Randolph and Winston the Younger's hopes of political careers. (There was a time in the 1890s when Churchill was heir presumptive to the Duke of Marlborough so he knew what it was like to be at such risk.)
Churchill, like some other PMs, kept deferring discussion of his retirement and was evenutally forced to go by a Cabinet rebellion. As for Macmillan, he had survived the Profumo scandal but what brought him down was misdiagnosis by doctors - Macmillan genuinely believed he was dying and that he should step down. Had he not been struck ill that week he would have taken the party into another election and possibly even won it.
Eden was very ill at the end of his premiership. Whilst it was doubtful he could have survived politically anyway, his health was not an insignificant factor in his departure.
Thatcher was assassinated by the Europhiles. She had begun to see the light and was still full of fighting zeal. Major was recruited as a grey man willing to sign Maastricht.
Blair hasn't seen the light on anything as we can see. He's simply spun out all the yarn.
Despite the gullibility of the public, and their love of being told a whole pile of hooey, Blair cannot come up with anything new which hasn't already been heard and discounted. He's all spun out.
He's left with Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and trips to Birmingham. It's an energy collapse.
His recent holiday has not rediscovered any of the old spark. His candle is burned out. Even Gordon Brown hatred raises hardly a flicker. Blair is hollowed out, ready to fall. A tiny puff of wind, and he'll be history.
My own conspiracy theory Iain is that Blair has now announced he will stay another year because he and Bush have cooked up a plan to invade Iran, thus precipitating a global economic crisis that will give them both and excuse to say "well a chage of government would not be in the nation's best interests now," and thus enable them both to stay on.
Far fatched maybe, but I'm sure Blair will eventually be dragged from Downing Street kicking, screaming and hanging on to the doorknocker as Gordon Brown beats his fingers with a hammer.
Classic bunker mentality. Berlin 1945 all over again as Alan Clark might have put it....
Whoever emerges will not be as friendly to middle England as Blair. Despite his manifest failings as a leader he is or was their greatest electoral asset. Brown et al lack that appeal. Problem is that I am not sure that the votes will come home to the Blues. We could be in for a hung Parliament post next election and a Lib-Lab coalition. Grim.
Deep joy.
Ah, but Thatcher was a woman of substance. Will Labour really suffer by the departure of a fairy cake?
Ah, but Thatcher was a woman of substance. Will Labour really suffer by the departure of a fairy cake?
Churchill's potential Dukedom is a murky story: the suggestion was John Colville's to the Palace when Churchill decided to resign/was forced out by a cabinet rebellion in 1955. But it was felt that it could only be offered if Churchill was certain to refuse it which he did, fearing for his grandson's political career. Illogically, he hoped that the offer might be renewed after he left the Commons (which was about 9 years after his resignation as PM, if I recall correctly).
It was convention at the time that retiring Prime Ministers were elevated to an Earldom automatically (the practice nowardays is a life peerage). The suggested elevation of Churchill to a Dukedom seems to have rankled with the Palace (it would have been the first creation of a Duke for some considerable time). And the suggested title "of London" was not deemed to be suitable for a mere Earldom: after all, Westminster alone has a Duke!
So he died Sir Winston. As will Sir John. But I bet we'll see a Lord and Lady Blair of Freebi. DBE for Cherie's contribution to world affairs?
Benedict White says "He has learnt nothing. Zip." That sums it up. He is unaware of the damage he has done. He is unaware of how his over reaching wife and how his over reaching property investments are regarded.
I said from day one that Blair was very stupid. I still think so. He has been guided by people who jumped into the vacuum that is his mind.
Oh happy days, oh happy days......the point is that the media has turned against Blair, and the knives are out at Westminster. We can sit back and watch the whole Blair presidency unravel before our eyes!
And what fun it will be.
But don't forget, things will only get worse under Brown, till they get better under Dave!
"...in Margaret Thatcher's case through betrayal"
More like through going off her trolley, surely?
tapestry: Again with the myth that Thatcher was brought down just because of Europe?
By the late 1980s Thatcher was heavily out of touch (The Times reckoned that if she'd just been a little less aloof to her ministers she wouldn't have suffered so many resignations) and became personally associated with deeply unpopular policies, most obviously the Poll Tax. Many Conservatives, both in and out of Parliament (my father was a local party officer whose letter endorsing Heseltine's challenge was printed in the Telegraph) looked to the next election and could see Thatcher only leading the Party to defeat and the country to Prime Minister Kinnock. Faced with the choice between an out of steam sinking ship and repairing the breach and winning the next election the party chose, as it usually does, to win. It was only later that the myth that it was all about Europe sprang up. As even many ardent Thatcherites concede (e.g. Iain above) Thatcher failed to make her own departure when she should have done. That left the party with a difficult dilemma - but what was the realistic alternative?
I think it's fairly widely accepted now that Harold Wilson resigned due to his incipient Alzheimers disease, not because of plots, although that is not to say there were no plots, there is very good evidence that elements within the Army, secret services and Buck House schemed to stage a coup. Lucky us, living in such a trustworthy democracy! << This last bit is cynicism.
Tim Roll pickering
(my father was a local party officer whose letter endorsing Heseltine's challenge was printed in the Telegraph)
F*** me!
Talk about being close to power, do you have a copy of the letter framed ?
The poll tax was a great idea. Of course all the flotsam and jetsom didn't want it. They were incensed that they would have to pay their share.
verity, democracy is rule by flotsam and jetsom.
Hence, the poll tax was political suicide, whether it was an objectively good idea or not.
--Just like G Brown found out that the (incidentally, Tory-devised) fuel tax escalator was political suicide, whether it was an objectively good idea or not.
tim roll-pickering - all you say does not conflict with what I said - viz. that it was the Europhiles that assassinated Thatcher.
It might have been a coincidence. It is more likely that most people including me and your Dad, did not appreciate the significance of the assassination line-up until later. With that I would agree.
Blair is a case of burn-out. Unlike Thatcher, he's well-in with foreign powers who want to keep him in place if they can.
Only one Prime Minister since the war, Harold Wilson, has resigned at a timing of his own choosing, and even in his case there are still suspicions among conspiracy theorists that the security services forced his hand.
I've heard, over the years, from two people -- both of whom were certainly in a position to know -- that what precipitated Harold Wilson's resignation was the early diagnosis of the Alzheimer's that eventually killed him.
Just my two euro's-worth
Peter - No. I only mentioned this because so often the events of November 1990 are presented as a Palace coup with the mass membership wanting Thatcher to stay. Now one letter published does not prove anything beyond that the Telegraph thought there was sufficient reason to publish it (although whether that's more reflecting the volume of support on this or the personal agenda of the letters page editor I don't know) but the extent to which the party in the country really wanted Thatcher to stay deserves a proper investigation.
tapestry: I don't doubt a European motivation, but to dismiss Thatcher's widespread failings and deep domestic unpopularity amongst an electorate that has never lain awake anight panicking about Europe is to miss the point.
OK Tim Roll-pickering - tell us the point.
TRP, H&B et al,
The idea of Churchill being elevated to a dukedom if not conceived of at the Palace was certainly fostered there in the early '50's.
The Palace was still very sensitive both about its pre war stance on Nazi Germany and attitude to Churchill himself. The Palace had supported the doctrine of appeasement and had regarded Churchill as a warmonger.
This offer would have both bestowed self absolution on the Palace for its sins and assuaged Churchill's aristocratic obsession with maintaining family honour.
It was his son Randolph who talked him out of accepting the title.
As for Thatcher. Anyone here remember Gulf 1? Anyone remember her little gem, 'Now's not the time to go wobbly, George'?
And does anyone remember her causing just a little consternation amongst the Arab contingent (not to mention Washington) in 'Desert Storm' when she talked about the 'need' to advance on Baghdad and overthrow Saddam?
Does anyone here know what the CIA does to leaders who rock the boat?
I am happy to agree that Thatcher's popularity was in decline - but if her Europhile colleagues hadn't operated against her including feeding the media, her popularity would have remained higher.
Westland was a European issue at heart, which is when Heseltine detached himself and openly set up against her.
I think you are trying to exclude a key factor from your assessment -that the Europhiles brought about her demise both directly and indirectly.
It is not realistic to say that because the public at the time were not aware of what was happening, therefore the issue of Europe had little part in her downfall.
If the europhiles had stuck by her, she would have survived. Without all the negative publicity provided against her by her own side, her popularity would inevitably have been higher too.
thus precipitating a global economic crisis
I have confidence Brown could do that alone........
Afterall the mouthing off over the years, and the incompetence and true sleaze of NuLab...the chickens are finally coming home to roost, woohoo!!
Bliar has learnt nothing and will continue to cling on to power for the foreseeable future unless more resignations are made. He is going to announce a timetable apparently, which can mean anything, but this timetable will centre around him still clinging to power for at least another year...my prediction.
What is good for Labour? Who cares about Labour? What about the poor tax payers?
Labour and Bliar have but one policy...give the chavs just enough to get them to vote for Labour/Bliar re-election.
The difference is that Thatcher had a pretty fair idea of what she wanted to do whereas Blair just knows he wants to do something to be remembered for.
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