Lady Thatcher….. the last post
Between 1974 and 1976 public spending rose in cash terms by a staggering 60 per cent, without any noticeable improvement in services since much of the increase went to pay the inflated wage demands of public sector workers.
In 1974, at the end of the Heath government, borrowing had reached a record £4.5 billion. But by 1976 the figure climbed to £11 billion – an increase of almost 150 per cent in two years. Between 1965 and 1975, public spending as a proportion of GDP had risen from 44 per cent to 60 per cent.
In 1976 Britain was forced to go to the IMF for a bail out, in return for agreeing spending cuts of £1 billion. But even at that desperate stage there were those in Callaghan’s government arguing that all would be well if only we embarked on more Keynesian borrowing and spending combined with import controls to keep all of those cheap foreign goods out of the country.
I’m enormously encouraged that we can have a proper debate about political ideas and that most people, certainly those wishing to make a serious contribution, have avoided personal attacks.
Not all politicians behaved wisely, of course. Here in Birmingham the city council leader, Sir Albert Bore, initially refused to fly the Union Flag at half-mast on the day of Lady Thatcher’s funeral, even though instructions to do so on all central and local government buildings were given by the College of Arms acting on the orders of the Royal Household.
What a load of anachronistic rubbish, wrote one of my left wing friends. Well, yes, but that’ll be the same anachronistic system that Sir Albert signed up to when he went to Buckingham Palace and bent the knee for the Queen to bestow his knighthood.
