hkind

Some of Margaret Thatcher’s record is business gift rightly controversial or, in retrospect, embarrassing. But the most durable parts of her years as prime minister -- the instances in which she not only got her way but ultimately brought the Labour Party along with her -- are also the most important and laudable ones.

I am mainly talking about three aspects of the Thatcher legacy: the breaking of the National Union of Mineworkers strike; the privatization of industrial firms owned by the British government; and substantial reductions in the top rate of income tax, which stood at 83 percent when Thatcher took office.

First, the miners’ strike: In 1984,gift and premium when Thatcher tried to close 20 money-losing government-owned coal mines, the NUM went on strike to protest the closures. Unlike two previous governments that had been cowed by the union, Thatcher’s government had stockpiled coal and waited the workers out though a fractious strike that lasted nearly a year. Then Thatcher won: The money-losing mines closed, and the workers in the other mines returned.

This keeps showing up at the top of the list of lefty criticisms of Thatcher. In describing the miners’ strike, Ned Resnikoff of MSNBC complains that “Thatcherism’s gift premium economic program was one of austerity, privatization, and aggressive union-busting.” But what was the correct public policy with regard to the miners? To continue operating money-losing industrial enterprises at taxpayer expense because that is what a union wants?

The miners’ strike shows why Thatcher was correct to want the government out of industry. When the government runs industrial enterprises, the political temptation is to operate them business gift
in the interests of unions instead of taxpayers or the public at large. That’s why it was necessary not only to defeat the NUM but also to sell British Coal so it would not have such influence in the future.