British Conservatives in Paris Blog

« Scotland is anti-Thatcher. The stated objections to Thatcher are that she was nasty and divisive. But the Scottish admire divisive people such as Nye Bevan, who called Conservatives ?vermin?, Arthur Scargill, who aimed to bring down an elected government and succeeded in bringing down an industry, and Alex Salmond, whose style is often divisive and his aim always. The real objection to Thatcher is that she seems to have been right and her opponents therefore wrong. Her economic policies were aimed at increasing the pot rather than worrying about its division. If, as I expect, devolution weakens Scotland?s dependency culture, its government will shift in this direction. It will be fascinating to observe Scotland becoming more Thatcherite while pretending not to do so. Thatcherite policies will have to be relabelled, but this will be easy for good marketing men and, if you are in politics and not good at marketing, then you are in the wrong job. »