Andrew Marred

Reportedly, in the final installment of his hitherto rather good History of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr will this evening argue that we are somehow all Thatcherites now, on account of her "sceptical attitude to Europe" and the greater prosperity that she has brought about.

YER WHAT?!?

Her "sceptical attitude to Europe"? When, exactly? When she signed the Single European Act? Her "No! No! No!" was to hypothetical questions which have never appeared in any draft treaty put before ministers. That there has been no further European integration since 1997 has partly been because of the fact that (especially in its early days) the Blair Government was, as the Brown Government will be, composed of and surrounded by people who were Eurosceptics a very long time before Thatcher came round, insofar as she ever did. But it has been at least as much because of the fact that after her (especially) and her hand-picked successor, there really wasn't any European integration left to do.

And have we really grown richer as a result of the "free" market? On the contrary, we have grown poorer. Only a generation ago, a single manual wage provided the wage-earner, his wife and their several children with a quality of life unimaginable even on two professional salaries today. This impoverishment has been so rapid and so extreme that most people, including almost all politicians and commentators, simply refuse to acknowledge that it has happened. But it has indeed happened. And it is still going on.