Let them cut grass
Linda Colley
- The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher
HarperCollins, 914 pp, £25.00, October 1993, ISBN 0 00 255049 0
It was an extraordinarily long premiership – indeed the longest of the century by a considerable margin. In part, this was because the Opposition was divided, its members seemingly incapable of suppressing their personal disagreements and policy differences so as to co-ordinate and concentrate their attack. But the premier’s longevity was also due to a high degree of political professionalism and ruthless single-mindedness. Critics were shut out of the Cabinet and state patronage was exploited in an unprecedentedly partisan way. Favours were distributed to those sections of the press which supported the regime. Direct taxes on wealth were reduced in favour of indirect taxation, hurting the middle and lower classes, but beguiling the wealthy. The resulting dissatisfaction, in Scotland, the big cities and among intellectuals, was neutralised by the vagaries of the electoral system.
You are not logged in
- If you have already registered then you can login here
- If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
- If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
- If you are a member of a subscribing institution or university library please login here
- If you have an institutional print subscription without online access then you can find out about our institutional online subscriptions here
Vol. 15 No. 24 · 16 December 1993 » Linda Colley » Let them cut grass (print version)
pages 7-8 | 3856 words