Kwasi Kwarteng will be resigning, then? If not, why not? His answer would be that he had no power, so to speak, over such matters. What a very fine thing have been 45 years this month of what came to be called Thatcherism, and which has placed our power supply here in the North East of England under the ultimate control of Warren Buffett. So much for national sovereignty there. Take Back Control, indeed.
Part of that programme was Britain's first privatisation, namely the Labour Government's privatisation of part of British Petroleum. Tony Benn said that the party had rendered itself powerless to resist further selloffs, but of course that was the idea. Criticism of Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey for submitting to the IMF are correct, but not for the reasons supposed by the people who are usually allowed to make them.
There cannot be said to have been a post-War settlement until that had demonstrably been accepted by the Conservative Party in office, and that in turn cannot be said to have existed before 1951. Therefore, that settlement lasted 28 years, while the age of Thatcherism, for want of a better word, has lasted 45 years and counting. Labour was in office for not quite seven years of the post-War settlement. But it has so far been in office for 15 and a half years, well over twice as long, of the age of Thatcherism, which a Labour Government began in December 1976.
Thank you.
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