Baroness Thatcher's Legacy

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I paid tribute to him when he was appointed as Margaret’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. If only he had been her Parliamentary Private Secretary a little earlier, she would never have lost by four votes, but that is probably rewriting history. I absolutely agree about how Margaret’s legacy has been completely misrepresented.

Contrary to left-wing opinion, Britain’s manufacturing production rose by 7.5% during Baroness Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister. In short, because of policies such as the right to buy, share ownership, privatisation, tax cuts and fewer days lost to strikes, Baroness Thatcher was able to bring Britain back from the brink and build a stronger economy.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the hon. Gentleman beforehand, and he knows what I am going to say. Baroness Thatcher’s legacy is threefold for us in Northern Ireland. First, although we Unionists were not happy with the Belfast agreement, she recognised that in her memoirs and said so accordingly, and we appreciate and understand that. Secondly, she took on the hunger strikers and beat them, and broke the back of the IRA at that time as well. Thirdly, she said:

“Ulster is as British as Finchley.”

That is the legacy that we have in Northern Ireland—the United Kingdom is more unified than ever before, and Northern Ireland is an integral part of that as never before—and that is a legacy well worth holding on to.

[Mr Amess]

I have always regarded the hon. Gentleman as my hon. Friend. I thank him for making that point. The only upsetting thing that I can recall was one moment during Prime Minister’s Question Time when there was a very unfortunate exchange about Northern Ireland between Enoch Powell and Margaret. But that is all history now, and it is very good that the hon. Gentleman has paid tribute to Margaret’s legacy, as demonstrated in how Ireland is today.

We should not forget anything that Margaret did for education. We know the unfortunate slogan, but how many people realise that Margaret created more comprehensive schools than any Education Secretary before or after her? Some Members might say, “We don’t support that,” but I am simply saying that, again, she was misrepresented. As Prime Minister, she offered schools a chance to come out of direct council control—a policy that is successful and popular to this day. She implemented a core curriculum, with a national standard that every school had to attain. She focused the curriculum on the essentials: maths, English and the sciences. The current Secretary of State for Education certainly applauds Margaret’s policies. Parents were given more power in how schools were administered. The Government designed policies around serving children and parents. Her policy victories in this area and more widely are no small feat, but let us look now at some of her tangible legacies, because at the moment, these are just words.

Margaret Thatcher’s tangible legacies are found where I was born: the east end of London. She, through her dynamism, absolutely changed the docklands, which everyone enjoys now, and as we particularly did during last year’s Olympic games. The Daily Telegraph recently ran a story asking, “Will Canary Wharf be Baroness Thatcher’s greatest lasting legacy?” I know that it will be one of them. After designating the London docklands as an enterprise zone and offering tax breaks to local businesses, the then Prime Minister phoned Paul Reichmann to kick-start the project and persuaded him, as only she could, to take on the project. None of this could have happened without the lifting of exchange controls, which Baroness Thatcher did when she was first elected. Finance from abroad poured into London, and it became the most prominent city in the world. The regeneration of a huge area took place over the next few decades, and east London is now entirely unrecognisable from how it was my childhood. The docklands light railway was part of this legacy—a line that has assisted greatly in the quite stunning transformation of east London.

Margaret Thatcher was always described as being anti-Europe. For 100 years, people had talked about the channel tunnel, but did it happen? Absolutely not, but Margaret Thatcher was responsible for driving that grand infrastructure project. I was then Michael Portillo’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, and we walked together down the channel tunnel as it was being bored—absolutely extraordinary—and although we take it for granted today, it was entirely due to Margaret Thatcher. I well remember when she met then President Mitterrand halfway down the tunnel.

The previous project had been started in 1974 but it had to be abandoned because of the financial pressure that built up during the old, broken consensus. It took a more innovative approach and Mrs Thatcher asked private companies to tender for contracts in 1981. Just nine years later, the tunnel was built. It was part of her wider vision to build up Britain again and to revitalise our economy. Even the roots of Crossrail, which we can all see with our own eyes, can be found in Margaret’s time. As a former director of UK Contractors Group remembers, “she really pushed” Crossrail forward.

This project also gives us an insight into the outward-looking nature of Mrs Thatcher’s leadership. It was a leadership which did not just look to Britain’s shores, but looked to change the world. My goodness, what an international leader Baroness Thatcher was! She showed a remarkable aptitude for the international political stage. Unlike some leaders who are no longer in the House, she was far from being a warmonger. She used to do everything she possibly could to avoid war and broker peace. It was only when the Falklands were invaded that she had to defend those isles. I struggle to put it better than Niall Ferguson, who wrote:

“She was also mostly right about foreign policy. She was right to drive the forces of Argentina’s junta out of the Falklands and she was right to exhort a ‘wobbly’ George H. W. Bush to mete out the same treatment to Saddam Hussein’s forces in Kuwait. . . Like Ronald Reagan, she was quick to see the opportunity offered by”

Mikhail Gorbachev’s

“policies of glasnost and perestroika.”

Mrs Thatcher was right about Europe, supporting the idea of free and fair trade while opposing the idea of a unified currency. Europe was still divided between east and west when she was first elected and, as we know, it was the Soviet press that nicknamed her the “Iron Lady”. She was strong when necessary, but she was conciliatory too. When I had the privilege to meet Mikhail Gorbachev when he came to this place, he looked at me and said, “David, you are young to be a Member of Parliament.” I said to him, “Well, you’re very young to be the Soviet leader.” But what a different type of leader he was to some who have followed him. When Margaret, Ronald and Mikhail were working together, my goodness, they made a huge difference. It was as a result of Margaret’s policy that the Berlin wall was eventually taken down.

I was delighted to see that a council in Poland is trying to re-name a roundabout after Margaret, as roundabouts, as far as I am concerned, ensure that U-turns are redundant. Margaret is a hugely popular figure in Poland today. Her visit in 1988 is well remembered, establishing an alternative option for government in the minds of the Polish people. She had the presence to change a nation’s mind in one visit. I am not surprised that President Reagan was in awe of this remarkable woman. Not content with defeating socialism at home—although sadly, as a result of that, she gave us Tony Blair—together with President Reagan she vanquished the forces of communism across Europe, and there are many millions of people who rightly revere her name for bringing about freedom, democracy and commercial opportunity in eastern Europe.

I suppose that one of the only things I will ever be remembered for is the 1992 election, although for me privately, when I won the first time in 1983, that was my greatest moment. I was under the cosh, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford will attest, as he ran the campaign team in his remarkable way. Every single journalist, not only local and national but international, descended on Basildon because they had been told by my enemies that Barclays bank tellers were to be brought in to do the count, it would be done within an hour, and they would see live on TV the first Conservative to lose their seat.

Who came to my rescue? Margaret Thatcher. Just three days before the general election she arrived, as always, magnificently dressed in blue, and she was given a heroine’s welcome.

I owe her everything, and that was particularly true in 1992.

I will not dwell on what happened when she stood down as Prime Minister; I think it is best to draw a line under that. I will just say to my Conservative colleagues in the Chamber that we should never air our dirty linen in public. The greatest leader I have even known should certainly have been treated differently. Considering that I represented a highly marginal seat, I had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

I want to allow time for my hon. Friend the Minister, whose father, Lord Hurd of Westwell, was of course Margaret’s Foreign Secretary at the end, so I will bring my remarks to a close. I can find no finer words than my own, in “Margaret Thatcher: A Tribute in Words and Pictures”, compiled by Iain Dale. Apparently, I said:

“Margaret Thatcher was the consummate politician. She had those unique qualities of charisma, enormous courage and determination. She was blessed with first-class skills of leadership and undoubtedly not only changed this country but the world for the better.”

Margaret Thatcher was a remarkable Prime Minister and an inspiration to any young women today, proving that women can do not only an equal job to us men, but—this is certainly the experience in my household—a far superior job. It is difficult to believe that the same Prime Minister who revitalised east London, the place where I grew up, successfully restructured the whole economy, dragging Britain away from the danger zone, leaving the physical marks of her success in, for instance, the Eurostar and the London docklands.

Margaret loved this country and loved the place in which we now work. She believed in the supremacy of Parliament, as I do and as you certainly do, Mr Speaker—may the army of unelected decision-makers take note. She stood up for Britain in Europe and liberated the Falkland Islands from the Argentine invaders. She stood up for freedom and democracy against the tyranny of communism. She defeated socialism. She believed that Government should create the conditions under which every human being should be given the opportunity to make the most of their lives. She made this country and our world better places in which to live. She is certainly the greatest politician I have ever met, and I am just so blessed to have worked in Parliament under her leadership. The memory of this remarkable lady will last for ever.