Some politicians and members of the press have worked themselves into a fury with John McDonnell, the Labour politician who said this week that he wished he could go back in time and ‘assassinate Thatcher’. Harriet Harman has been urged to denounce him for making a ‘threat’ against the former prime minister. Though their indignation is understandable, they should lighten up. McDonnell (who on Tuesday withdrew from the Labour leadership race) was not, of course, being serious. His line drew loud laughs from his audience, a GMB trade union crowd.
But more than that, John McDonnell has in fact done the Lady a service. In postulating a world without her, he has served to remind us how vital she was to this country, and how great is the debt we owe her. Before Thatcher took charge, Britain was at the mercy of bullying unions, a state-controlled economy and a Conservative party which had succumbed to a ruinous Keynesian orthodoxy. Would the Conservatives have changed tack so radically in 1975 without her as leader? Was there another candidate even half as good? The answer is no.
It is a tribute to the Iron Lady that 20 years after she left 10 Downing Street, her socialist opponents still see her as the enemy.
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