Reply #6: I'm going to have to disagree here [View All]

[tjwmason]

What Thatcher did was nothing new. British politics has tended to inhabit a fairly small space with a vast amount of fuss made over the little patch of ground between the Tories and Labour (formerly Liberals); this is periodically interrupted with a revolution which moves this small patch and both parties.

After the second world war that moved sharply to the left and the revolution gave us the N.H.S., the strong Trade Union movement, the nationalised industries. Then we had stability again with the so called Butskelism of the '50s.

There was an attempt to move things back to the right under Ted Heath (if you ever want to irritate a Tory - talk to them about him, he is pretty much dispised everywhere now); which failed massively through the 3-day week &c.

Thatcher (whom we must acknowledge was a phenominal politician) tried that revolution again; now we are settling into the calm after that. There is a massive amount of fuss being made on tiny weeny policy differences in the current election.

After a while, perhaps we will get a strong left-wing leader to take us back across the spectrum.