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Ian Braithwaite's avatar

This article provides a great perspective, especially a wider European one, and an illustration that facts and circumstances can change faster than beliefs.

I now greatly admire Thatcher, though I loathed her and her government at the time. She had one attribute I wish all leaders had: you never had to guess her position or principles, and never expected her to chicken out.

A few words from her formidable press secretary Bernard Ingham in a documentary on her, have stuck with me: "She never wanted to be loved: God spare me from politicians who want to be loved". Burnham's future undoing, perhaps?

William Siebert's avatar

Thatcher dropped the minimum wage system under wages councils in 1993 - I know because I with Michael Forsyth drew up the report that encouraged this good free market approach!

Minimum wages were only restored by the BLair government in 1998....