Margaret thatcher

The BBC’s former political editor, John Cole, has died aged 85. As their political reporter during the Thatcher era, he covered many major stories concerning her, including the miners’ strike and the Brighton bombing. We have dug up from the archive a review, by John Campbell, of Cole’s memoir, ‘As it seemed to me’, from April 1995.  John Cole’s Ulster accent was a shock to metropolitan ears when he became the BBC’s Political Editor in 1981. Scottish or Yorkshire voices were no problem, but there was unfamiliarity amounting almost to incongruity in hearing that particular accent discoursing on subjects wider than the tribal politics of Northern Ireland. Undoubtedly (‘Hondootedly’) it

The most extraordinary thing about the scandal of Unite at Grangemouth and in Falkirk is how long it took the outside world to notice. Partly, this is an effect of devolution: almost nothing Scottish is now considered news in London, even if it is of kingdom-wide importance. Partly, it results from the loss of media and political attention to trade union affairs. So successful was Mrs Thatcher in taming union political power that newspapers laid off the labour correspondents who, in the 1970s and early 1980s, had been the aristocrats of the news room. As for the Tories, they have forgotten the Cold War arts of keeping dossiers on subversion. But

Today the conference hall in Manchester paid our respects, once again, to Britain’s greatest peacetime leader, Margaret Thatcher. listen to ‘The Conseratives’ tribute to Margaret Thatcher’ on Audioboo It is a source of never-ending pride for every Conservative MP that we represent a party which was led by the country’s first female Prime Minister. Baroness Thatcher did more to extend wealth and ownership across the country than any other politician. We are all better off because of what she did. But it’s not only in the conference hall in Manchester that Baroness Thatcher’s legacy is alive and well. Across the country we see the change in the transferring of wealth

When Margaret Thatcher passed away and the broadcasters, newspapers, and casual drinkers in pubs picked over what her legacy really was, one of the key policies mentioned – and praised – time and time again by those from all sides of the political spectrum was the Right to Buy. It was an iconic housing policy that helped people who would never have had a chance of making it onto the housing ladder realise the dream of owning their own property. It was an empowering policy (the detail, of course, is slightly more complicated: the way the policy was designed led to a reduction in the overall size of the social

When Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election, she was helped into Downing Street by what many of today’s politicians would regard as an unlikely group of Tory voters. The votes of trade unionists were crucial to Margaret Thatcher beating Jim Callaghan in 1979. And this didn’t happen by accident – Mrs Thatcher, the one-time President of the Dartford branch of Conservative Trade Unionists had made active efforts to appeal to those moderate trade unionists who felt let down by their leaders. After becoming leader in 1975, she set out to revive Conservative Trade Unionists. By the 1979 election, the organisation had 250 branches and was able to hold a pre-election

In this increasingly secular age, you would expect the Archbishop of Canterbury to be a figure of diminishing importance. But Justin Welby is fast becoming the most politically influential Archbishop since the war. Part of Welby’s influence stems from the fact that both the Conservatives and Labour think that he is, secretly, one of them. I remember within days of his appointment being approacedh by a Tory minister and then by one of those closest to Ed Miliband. They both wanted to explain how Welby was going to help move public debate in their direction. One never had this kind of conversation about Rowan Williams whose views were thought not

Lord Bell, AKA the King of Spin, made some noise at the annual Freedom Dinner (established by libertarians to mark the anniversary of the smoking ban) last night at Canary Wharf’s cavernous Boisdale. He had stern words for the anti-tobacco lobby: ‘There is not one shred of scientific evidence of the existence of passive smoking and it’s one of the more terrible lies told by a democratically elected government in the world.’ Bell, though, was only getting going. He aimed his real fire at some recent prime ministers, saying: ‘We could do that Blair devil eyes campaign, because he is actually the devil.’ He expanded on the demonic theme (although it

Margaret Thatcher’s death has reinvigorated her devout following in the Conservative Party. The current Prime Minister was wise to give the House of Lord’s terrace a wide berth last night. It was packed out for the summer party of Conservative Way Forward. This is the pressure group that was established to preserve ‘the lady’s legacy’. Young Dave was not the most popular person in the room. This became clear after the minute’s silence for the group’s deceased honorary president, when former defence minister Gerald Howarth took to the podium to greet ‘the conservative wing of the coalition’. He went on to slam the PM for ‘slashing defence spending while protecting

It’s said that Ken Clarke would cross a motorway to pick a fight with a political opponent. His aggression is one reason why he thrived (eventually) under Mrs Thatcher: ambulance drivers, teaching unions and local government were all given a bunch of fives when Clarke reached Cabinet in the late ‘80s. Chris Patten (in the course of saying that he would go into the jungle with Clarke) told the late Hugo Young that ‘the key to Clarke is that he is anti-establishment – any establishment’. Yet pugilism is but one side of Clarke. He is not, by temperament or conviction, an ideologue. What matters is what works. And it worked