Shadow of Thatcher continues to linger
MANY voters in Northern Ireland will be astounded by the reent opinion polls which are predicting a hung parliament after the impending General Election.
How is this possible after the total mess that Labour has made of governance?
We have had Tony Blair marching us to what turns out to have been an illegal war in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist.
And our troops suffered heavy losses both in Iraq and Afghanistan, not least because they were ill equipped as a result of lack of funding.
We have had the ill-tempered Gordon Brown, one of the most unpopular leaders in contemporary political history, whose 'light touch' regulation of the City of London contributed to the global banking collapse and the deep recession that has followed.
Unemployment continues to rise, businesses to fail, and we have nothing to look forward to but public spending cuts and an erosion of prosperity.
Politicians, including some cabinet ministers, have been exposed for their greed and corruption. Under the current government the political classes have never been more unpopular. Cynicism, the great under-miner of democracy and progress, is on the rise.
Labour has failed by almost every yardstick – including the one which its supporters most cherish – its commitment to eradicating poverty and creating opportunity for all.
The gap between the wealthy and the most poor in our society is greater than it was in the Victorian era.
There are whole communities left without hope, young people with no prospect of work, and that most ugly symptom of societal unrest – racism – is on the rise again.
And yet for all this the Tories have, as yet, failed to take a commanding lead in the polls – indeed support for them is waning.
How can this possibly be?
Step forward Margaret Hilda Thatcher.
Twenty years after she was forced to resign from office, this most ruthless and divisive of British political figures still casts a long shadow.
Labour may be hugely unpopular and demonstrably incompetent, but many British voters still remember and are not yet ready to forgive or forget what was visited upon them in the 1980s.
Whether or not David Cameron can topple Labour will, to a large extent, depend on whether he is able to persuade voters in Scotland, Wales and the North of England that he represents a new form of Conservatism.
And the more he and his party talk of massive public spending cuts, the less likely it is that this will happen.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
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Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
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