Will history be kind to the Iron Lady?
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MARGARET Thatcher’s death has dominated the headlines over the last week. Supporters and detractors alike have filled the airwaves with their opinions and she has been vilified and sanctified depending on their viewpoint.
In particular those who suffered, as with the closure of the smelter in Invergordon, have bitter memories.
It will probably be at least thirty years before history makes an objective assessment of what she did and the impacts of her leadership as Prime Minister. For now we all look at those years through the prism of personal experience.
My working life began in 1972 as a trainee at the Savoy in London. By 1979 I had risen to be reception manager at Claridges.
In the intervening years we had been through a strike over the dismissal of a chef; the three-day week had seen us working by candlelight; and we thought nothing of queuing for hours to get a ration of petrol.
We regularly got pay rises of 12 or 15 per cent but which barely kept up with inflation and we ended with the “winter of discontent”. I had no interest in politics then, just newly married and starting a career, but I remember the difficulties which we all seemed to take for granted.
For the first half of the ‘80s I lived in Paris having been appointed general manager of the Savoy Group’s Hotel Lancaster.
It coincided with the election of President Mitterand and the formation of a left wing government.
The French were suffering from many of the same problems that beset Britain, including unprofitable mines, old fashioned heavy industry that needed modernisation and some closures, as well as inner city tensions.
I watched the Falklands war on French television.
I vividly remember the start when it was announced that the Royal Marines had left after an Argentine invasion.
There was much mirth and joking about the failing British. Over the weeks ahead the tone of comment changed from laughter to astonishment as the task force set out, and finally to admiration as the Falklands were retaken.
I watched as the attitude of the French changed visibly and as a new respect became apparent.
Discussing it with French friends it became obvious that they had largely written off the UK and that our military actions had caused a major reappraisal.
It also contrasted with the earlier pictures of the Toxteth riots which had come as a vivid shock underlining the bitterness and division which prevailed within the country at the time.
But my time there showed something else which was that many of the difficulties being faced in Britain were also being faced in France. Mines and steelworks were closing.
Shipyards shrinking and industrial practices changed.
There were difficulties and strikes but to a much lesser extent than in the UK.
Among the differences were a much less political and more pragmatic approach by their unions as well as a desire to negotiate and mitigate on the part of the government.
It seemed that France was changing but with less aggro. When I returned to the UK to take over a new hotel it seemed vastly different from the country I had left.
That change was needed is accepted by all commentators from left and right.
The real question is whether it could have been done on something like the French model or whether the scars and division of the early ‘80s were necessary.
That will be for history to decide. Yet today we have a similar choice following another financial fiasco created by Labour requiring a balancing of the books.
Many Tories would like to let rip another decade of Thatcherism.
My French experience tells me that a strong economy and a fair society are not only possible but better.
