best counter

SARAH VINE: Coal mines row shows the Left needs a lesson in 1970s history

[ad_1]

Even the Prime Minister’s greatest fans will admit that he occasionally suffers from a debilitating form of foot-in-mouth disease.

Last week it took the form of a throwaway comment about Margaret Thatcher and the miners’ strike, which, had it been uttered, say, in the confines of the Garrick Club, might have raised a few chuckles – but which in the wider world has gone down like a pork chop at a bar mitzvah.

During a visit to Scotland on Thursday, he was asked about preparations for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this November, specifically whether he would set a deadline for ending the extraction of fossil fuels.

Replying that the process was already well under way, he added: ‘Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.’

Not his wisest quip. Because while technically he is correct – as an Oxford-educated scientist, Thatcher was genuinely ahead of her time in terms of climate change awareness, and gave several ground-breaking speeches on the subject – even her most loyal supporters would struggle to spin the environment as her primary motivation for taking on the unions. 

Boris Johnson drew criticism this week after saying that Margaret Thatcher’s (pictured) decision to shut coal mines in the 1980s had given Britain an ‘early start’ in moving away from coal  

Picketers throw stones at police at Orgreave coking plant near Sheffield in 1984 in protest at the closures

That said, the howls of outrage have been wearily predictable and – as ever with Labour these days – wildly over the top.

In particular, there seems to be some sort of collective political amnesia going on here.

Unsure about how much Covid had accelerated the loss of freedom? Take a look at Italy…

Anyone unsure just how much Covid has accelerated the loss of freedom need look no further than Italy, where even having dinner in a restaurant now requires a QR code that is checked against a government database, as well as photo ID.

The same applies to indoor cafes, swimming pools, museums, theatres and gyms. So much for la dolce vita. 

Labour MPs and Left-wing commentators now apparently look back on mining as though it were the Holy Grail of working-class life – when in reality it was a brutal, backbreaking way to earn a living.

And they act as though Britain before Thatcher’s 1979 election was some kind of socialist utopia, when in fact it was utterly miserable.

Inflation was through the roof; taxation was punitive to the point of destruction; the entire country was in the grip of the unions who ruled with an iron fist, holding everyone to ransom with their endless, impossible demands.

The miners went on strike in both 1972 and 1974, inflicting intolerable misery on ordinary families, who had to endure the three-day week and power cuts. 

Britain was on her knees and it was then that my parents, aged 27, with very little money and two tiny children, took the decision to emigrate to Italy.

Neither knew anyone there, nor did they speak a word of Italian. But anything was better than the horrors of life in 1970s Britain.

And, challenging as it was, they made the right decision. Back home, things just got worse and worse.

Boris Johnson (pictured left) and Sir Keir Starmer (pictured right) both made visits to wind farms this week 

This year’s A-level students have borne the brunt of lockdown 

Tensions are rising in our house ahead of A-level results day on Tuesday.

Several tearful conversations have already taken place, and the mood veers from defiant to desperate.

This year’s students have borne the brunt of lockdown.

My daughter worked out that of her entire A-level course she had spent just over two terms in an actual classroom.

That’s why all this talk of grade inflation is so depressing: there are thousands of young people whose futures hinge on the results of these exams, and already they’re being told they aren’t good enough.

After all they’ve been through, is it really too much to give them the benefit of the doubt? 

The final straw was 1978, the infamous Winter of Discontent, when widespread strikes paralysed vital infrastructure. 

NHS workers, refuse collectors, road hauliers – even gravediggers – downed tools, making life intolerable. Rubbish and bodies piled up.

Thatcher came to power shortly afterwards, on a mandate to restore order and tame union power. Which she triumphantly did. 

Yet it is this shambles that, for some unknown reason, the Left continues to romanticise as some kind of golden age. It’s baffling. 

Because far from making life worse for Britain’s working classes, Thatcher made it better. She opened out opportunity to everyone, not just those who held trade union membership cards.

That is not to say that what happened to Britain’s mining communities was not devastating for those involved. It clearly was.

But what the Left still won’t admit is that they are partially responsible for that disaster.

Had the unions not been so arrogant and recalcitrant, Thatcher might not have dug her heels in so hard. And the results might not have been so divisive.

So yes, the Prime Minister’s remark was a little insensitive.

But if Labour ever wants to stand a chance of being taken seriously again, it needs to pull its head out of the 1970s – and stop viewing the past through rose-tinted spectacles.

Thought of Apple trawling through our phones gives me the heebie-jeebies

The thought of Apple trawling through our phones in search of child pornography gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Of course we want to protect youngsters from online dangers, but the idea that to do so we must all submit to the digital equivalent of a strip search is unconscionable.

If Apple really wants to protect young people from predators, why not do something to stop them accessing porn websites?

That is the real danger facing most children today.

Hypocrisy of mum mocking Charlotte

Charlotte’s character is voiced by Game Of Thrones actress Sophie Turner (pictured)

Adorable new pictures of Princess Charlotte – and how much nicer to see the next generation of Royals through the eyes of their mother, as opposed to how they’re portrayed in HBO’s new ‘comedy’ The Prince.

Charlotte’s character is voiced by Game Of Thrones actress Sophie Turner, left, who’s been fiercely defensive of her own child’s privacy, lashing out on Instagram at a photographer who dared to try to snap one-year-old Willa earlier this year. 

‘She is my daughter. She did not ask for this life, to be photographed. 

‘It’s f***ing creepy,’ she wrote. So, fine to make money out of mocking someone else’s child; not fine when the tables are turned. 

Hypocritical, much?

PM’s holiday from hell

As well as having his Scottish break last year cut short after the location of his holiday cottage was revealed, it now turns out Boris nearly drowned when he got swept away while paddle-boarding.

Unsurprisingly, he’s less than keen to return to that part of the world – but doesn’t feel he and Carrie can take a foreign break either because it would be ‘too risky from a PR perspective’.

True, but when you are in front-line politics, almost everything you do is ‘too risky from a PR perspective’.

So just go somewhere nice, Boris, and to hell with the critics.

Helen MacDonald with her Alpaca Geronimo

Story of Geronimo is the stuff of political nightmares

The story of Geronimo the alpaca is the stuff of political nightmares.

On the one hand, he represents a lethal threat to thousands of animals, having tested positive for bovine TB. 

On the other… well, just look at that little face.

Then there’s the 85,000 strong ‘save Geronimo’ petition, the support of Saint Joanna of Lumley – and, of course, the appeal by Geronimo’s owner, Helen Macdonald, to the PM’s wife Carrie ‘from one animal lover to another’ to afford him a stay of execution.

Even Sir Humphrey might struggle to find a way out of this one.

Britney’s Instagram is both fascinating and deeply worrying – I’m slightly obsessed

I confess to being slightly obsessed with Britney Spears’s Instagram.

It’s both fascinating and deeply worrying – especially those posts where she poses almost naked and talks nineteen-to-the-dozen.

Not since Marilyn Monroe has a blonde bombshell exposed so many contradictions: childlike yet hopelessly over-sexualised, desperately searching for love yet for ever trusting the wrong person, used and abused by powerful men for money – and incredibly strong in some ways though oddly helpless in others.

Whatever it is she’s searching for, I dearly hope she finds it. 

Source: Daily Mail

[ad_2]

Source: newsfinale