:01:25. > :01:28.part of the programme: As the North West goes, so Great Britain will go.
:01:28. > :01:38.But did it? From fighting Militant to mass unemployment, from riots to
:01:38. > :01:38.
:01:38. > :38:07.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2188 seconds
:38:07. > :38:14.regeneration - what was Baroness Good morning. Coming up. As the
:38:14. > :38:18.North West goes, so will Great Britain go. But did it? From riots
:38:18. > :38:28.to regeneration, what was Baroness Thatcher's legacy in this region?
:38:28. > :38:29.
:38:29. > :38:34.Joining us to discuss that is Sir Gerald Kaufman and Paul Maynard, the
:38:34. > :38:39.Conservative MP for Blackpool North and Cleveland is, who is helping
:38:39. > :38:43.Oliver Letwin dropped today's Conservative policies.
:38:43. > :38:53.Let us listen first to what's Gerald and others have to say about
:38:53. > :38:57.
:38:57. > :39:06.Parliament's recall this week. made redundant at the time he said.
:39:06. > :39:11.I setup my business cheetah factories and need a success. -- due
:39:11. > :39:17.to Thatcher's policies and I made a success. One should never destroy
:39:17. > :39:22.without then building up again and too many industries, too many
:39:22. > :39:26.working-class communities across the North were laid waste. I recently
:39:26. > :39:33.had published in a newspaper an article about protecting children
:39:33. > :39:38.from pornography on televisions and videos. She told me how much I
:39:38. > :39:48.admire -- she admires the article and said, I carry it everywhere with
:39:48. > :39:49.
:39:49. > :39:55.you in my handbag. Mr Speaker, to be part of the contents of Margaret...
:39:55. > :40:02.To be part of the contents of Margaret Thatcher's handbag, what
:40:02. > :40:06.greater thing could one possibly hope for?
:40:06. > :40:11.Sir Gerald Kaufman, you were clearly opposed to her policies, but it
:40:11. > :40:15.sounds as though you had some affection for her as well?
:40:15. > :40:19.course. It was my job and principles to oppose pretty much everything she
:40:19. > :40:24.didn't save this country when she was Prime Minister, but that does
:40:24. > :40:29.not affect your personal relations. I got on with her very well and we
:40:29. > :40:36.had pleasant relations. She was always forthcoming to me. If they
:40:36. > :40:42.wrote Rolle letters she would reply quickly and reply by hand. Personal
:40:42. > :40:48.relations are not necessarily affected by political antagonisms.
:40:48. > :40:53.Paul Maynard, when did you first meet her? At the age of four. She
:40:53. > :40:57.came to school and played with me. She invited the entire school going
:40:57. > :41:01.to Downing Street and being an inquisitive four-year-old boy I
:41:01. > :41:06.whipped up her skirt and got far more than I bargained for. Thank
:41:06. > :41:10.you. If the 1980s was a period of
:41:10. > :41:15.political warfare then the north-west was one of the key
:41:15. > :41:18.battlegrounds. The start of the decade saw riots in Moss Side in
:41:18. > :41:27.Toxteth and ended with protests over the poll tax. There were struggles
:41:27. > :41:37.with the unions and Militant. Disasters at Manchester airport and
:41:37. > :41:41.
:41:42. > :41:51.Hillsborough. I love coming here anyway, so I have
:41:51. > :41:55.come here quite a lot. The Prime Minister 's visit was
:41:55. > :42:03.arranged with haste and secrecy. The first the people of Liverpool knew
:42:03. > :42:06.was when her convoy was seen... During the course of the meeting,
:42:06. > :42:13.the bishops wanted to impress upon her the need for compassion. They
:42:13. > :42:18.were treated to her. They were interrupted by Denis Thatcher, he
:42:18. > :42:23.said, that is not really one of the Prime Minister's words. She led me
:42:23. > :42:27.to come here and do the things that I did. It was under the Conservative
:42:27. > :42:33.government that those transformational things took place.
:42:33. > :42:40.We are Great Britain's miners, one out, all out. She destroyed people
:42:40. > :42:44.'s lates, she destroyed communities, businesses. Margaret Thatcher came
:42:44. > :42:48.to the scene of the crash straight from holiday in Austria. She spent
:42:48. > :42:54.nearly an hour on the tarmac and expected the wreckage at close
:42:54. > :43:04.quarters. As the Prime Minister urged to being and stewing, several
:43:04. > :43:08.
:43:08. > :43:12.eggs were thrown from the crowd. -- and merged to shouts of abuse.
:43:12. > :43:22.closed down industries in the government did not then enable the
:43:22. > :43:23.
:43:23. > :43:26.people who were most affected to get alternative employment. 200 will
:43:26. > :43:33.join the march and thousands more will be transported to the capital
:43:33. > :43:40.for the rally. She was a women who excited strong feelings, she
:43:40. > :43:45.polarised political opinion, but she actually did stand for something.
:43:45. > :43:48.And we are also joined from Bristol by Lord Hunt. He was a Wirral MP for
:43:48. > :43:53.21 years and was a minister and deputy chief whip in Mrs that your's
:43:53. > :44:00.government. Sir Gerald Kaufman, as far as you're concerned, what was
:44:01. > :44:06.the worst thing about Thatcherism and her policies? Its divisiveness,
:44:06. > :44:09.and the way that it set different groups of people against each other.
:44:09. > :44:15.And the consequences of her policies, which were mass
:44:15. > :44:20.unemployment, privatisation, privatisation of socially rented
:44:20. > :44:27.houses so that people lost the opportunity of getting houses, she
:44:27. > :44:33.pitied to different groups of people and she had an electoral strategy
:44:33. > :44:36.which was based on giving to those through tax concessions. Giving to
:44:36. > :44:42.those who were likely to vote for her and taking away from those who
:44:42. > :44:47.would not fought for her. Deliberately, in your opinion? Yes,
:44:47. > :44:51.indeed. I do not criticise the strategy, she was a Tory Prime
:44:51. > :44:56.Minister carrying out Tory policies. It did not expect to carry out
:44:56. > :44:59.Labour policies. Lord Hunt, Sir Gerald Kaufman is seeing that this
:44:59. > :45:09.was a policy of taking money from pure and giving it to richer
:45:09. > :45:14.people. Let us not re-rate has to be. My recollection goes back to
:45:14. > :45:18.1976 when I stood as the candidate on Merseyside for Wirral. Margaret
:45:18. > :45:25.Thatcher came up. Let us try and remember what the country was like
:45:25. > :45:30.at that time. Inflation was around 27%, over half of industry was owned
:45:30. > :45:34.by the government who are actually running it rather badly. There was a
:45:34. > :45:40.crisis in our public expenditure, we had a letter from the IMF scene we
:45:40. > :45:44.had to cut back public expenditure. Those weren't the circumstances,
:45:44. > :45:50.when we became the sick man of Europe, and that was when Margaret
:45:51. > :45:56.Thatcher won the 1979 election. Do not let us forget the background, we
:45:56. > :46:00.had a lot to turn around. I accept the background, but in the early
:46:00. > :46:09.years under Thatcher unemployment shot up and affected this region
:46:09. > :46:12.perhaps more than most. What Margaret Thatcher wanted to do was
:46:12. > :46:15.to return industry to the private sector. That old policy of
:46:15. > :46:20.nationalising everything, including a lot of private companies, was
:46:20. > :46:25.wrong and misplaced and it created a great deal of damage. She also had
:46:25. > :46:33.to abolish exchange controls, Price commission, income controls,
:46:33. > :46:41.dividend controls, that of course had an effect on unemployment.
:46:41. > :46:44.Lord Hunt, you work energy minister, there were a lot of mailing works
:46:44. > :46:54.closures. Do you understand that there was perhaps a lack of
:46:54. > :46:54.
:46:54. > :46:57.compassion near in terms of finding people new jobs. I think people are
:46:57. > :47:03.rewriting history. People should pay attention to what Neil Kinnock has
:47:03. > :47:10.said about the miners's strike. And Sir Gerald Kaufman referred to it.
:47:10. > :47:20.It was something of a political strike and you have two will ask
:47:20. > :47:21.
:47:21. > :47:25.yourself why. There had been an election in 1983. Scargill disagreed
:47:25. > :47:30.with that election and so he wanted to post Margaret Thatcher. It was
:47:30. > :47:38.very divisive indeed. What unique, Sir Gerald Kaufman, of what Lord
:47:38. > :47:43.Hunt is seeing there? Lord Hunt, David Hunt, who I knew very well in
:47:43. > :47:50.Parliament, is pitting the case as he sees it. It is not the case as I
:47:50. > :47:56.see it. Certainly, she decided after Ted Heath had been defeated as prime
:47:56. > :48:02.minister by the miners, she decided that she was going to defeat the
:48:02. > :48:07.miners, and shall she provoked the miners to strike when call was not
:48:07. > :48:12.needed. And she was helped by the fact that the leader of the National
:48:12. > :48:19.union of Mineworkers do not hold a ballot of his members, which splits
:48:19. > :48:25.the National union of Mineworkers. Paul Maynard, you were growing up in
:48:25. > :48:28.the 1980s, did you feel her policies were right for that period? I did. I
:48:28. > :48:32.was growing up in a village where people were able to buy their
:48:32. > :48:37.council houses for the first time. People could aspire to go on to
:48:37. > :48:41.better things and she promised to bring harmony with was discord, and
:48:41. > :48:47.there was plenty of discord in 1979. I do not think in retrospect that
:48:47. > :48:52.anyone would disagree that the 20 years after her premiership are far
:48:52. > :48:59.more harmonious than the 20 years before she took over. She actually
:48:59. > :49:03.delivered on that prominence. -- promise.
:49:03. > :49:10.You served as inner cities minister. Why did the Tories get weight taped
:49:10. > :49:14.Indian cities? There was a tremendous change in the structure.
:49:14. > :49:20.The older industries were declining and Margaret Thatcher wanted to see
:49:20. > :49:24.the rise of the entrepreneur, the individual. Certainly I found when I
:49:24. > :49:29.was in cities Minister, as they did when I was called minister, that she
:49:29. > :49:33.wanted to put a lot of resources into regeneration. Michael Heseltine
:49:33. > :49:38.found that he was getting the support he needed when he wanted to
:49:38. > :49:41.regenerate inner cities and so did I. The trouble is that we were
:49:41. > :49:46.trying to roll back years of socialism and Sir Gerald Kaufman and
:49:46. > :49:50.I will disagree on this, but there was a need for Reconstruction and
:49:50. > :49:54.Margaret Thatcher did what she could to support us.
:49:55. > :50:00.Lord Hunt, thank you very much for your time. We will stick with that
:50:00. > :50:05.theme. When Margaret Thatcher was re-elected in 1983, she started by
:50:05. > :50:08.saying there was a big job to do in the end cities. The willingness may
:50:08. > :50:15.have been there, but the Conservative party had been waked
:50:15. > :50:20.out in Manchester and Liverpool. When she came to power she had two
:50:20. > :50:24.seats in Liverpool and one in Manchester. There have now been no
:50:24. > :50:32.Conservative MPs in Liverpool for 30 years. It is a similar story at
:50:32. > :50:42.council level. The last seat they had was 15 years ago. We have been
:50:42. > :50:53.
:50:53. > :51:03.Liverpool assessing Baroness We think of Toxteth, Hillsborough,
:51:03. > :51:06.
:51:06. > :51:13.some of the biggest events that happened during Thatcher's time
:51:13. > :51:18.happened in Liverpool. How do people view that snow? Where there is
:51:18. > :51:28.discord, may we bring harmony. There was very little harmony on the
:51:28. > :51:34.
:51:34. > :51:37.streets of Toxteth in 1981. I think what she had was that she had so
:51:37. > :51:41.much lack experience here that she would not be able to interpret what
:51:42. > :51:45.was said. You were talking to her face but she
:51:45. > :51:50.was not listening. She waits for you to finish and she tells you what she
:51:50. > :51:59.wants to see. That is my memory of her. He says that the streets are
:51:59. > :52:02.worse than they were three decades ago. In my view, the policies they
:52:02. > :52:10.had been Liverpool did absolutely next to nothing to improve the life
:52:10. > :52:15.of like young people and the black community in Liverpool. Where there
:52:15. > :52:25.is despair, may we bring hope. were you doing during the Thatcher
:52:25. > :52:27.
:52:27. > :52:31.Europe? I had a sports shop and I sold it -- I sold football kits.
:52:31. > :52:38.Different times. Very different times. He would not recognise the
:52:38. > :52:41.city. That transformation, he believes, began with the Iron Lady.
:52:41. > :52:45.Even now, people see that Margaret Thatcher cost us thousands of jobs.
:52:45. > :52:51.Full stops would have gone anyway but what we have never is a thriving
:52:51. > :52:54.city. She did not get recognition at the time and she will not now. It
:52:54. > :53:03.was Margaret Thatcher that started things off despite objections from
:53:03. > :53:07.the local council that eventually turned the city round.
:53:07. > :53:11.Where there is error may we bring truth.
:53:11. > :53:18.There is that Hillsborough affected thousands of lives. Margaret
:53:18. > :53:21.Aspinall, who lost her son, is only now starting to find out the truth.
:53:21. > :53:31.Years later and all that documentation was in the hands. How
:53:31. > :53:34.
:53:34. > :53:44.appalling is that? Were they raise doubt, may we bring faith. There are
:53:44. > :53:50.some people who are sick and tired of liberals in this city!
:53:50. > :53:54.This shows that she did have a definite interest. Very much so. You
:53:54. > :53:59.could tell from the words... He says that the Prime Minister had faith in
:53:59. > :54:05.the city. She came and she applauded those of us who were involved in
:54:05. > :54:11.doing something rather than moaning about somebody else not doing
:54:11. > :54:18.something for them. The voters do still not trust the Tories in
:54:18. > :54:24.Liverpool. There are no Conservatives in Liverpool. That is
:54:24. > :54:28.still some kind of legacy surrounding the 1980s period.
:54:28. > :54:36.Even today 's hammer political waters, even the mention of Margaret
:54:36. > :54:42.Thatcher here still stirs strong emotions.
:54:42. > :54:48.We are joined by a professor from Liverpool University. Why were the
:54:48. > :54:53.Conservatives awaked out in the North West? Liverpool was
:54:53. > :55:00.particularly vulnerable, its portals and acclaim, the workers were
:55:00. > :55:04.underqualified. In Liverpool there were one in five people unemployed.
:55:04. > :55:10.A big problem was mass youth unemployment. Whole generation never
:55:10. > :55:20.worked or got used to any kind of regular work. That erupted in
:55:20. > :55:20.
:55:20. > :55:27.riots. That generation were kept out of work. Was this a product of
:55:27. > :55:31.Thatcherism would it have happened anyway? Everyone would have had a
:55:31. > :55:36.tough 1980s regardless of who was in power. We did need modernisation.
:55:36. > :55:39.But Liverpool then had a fairly suicidal strategy of taking on the
:55:39. > :55:46.government. This was a Prime Minister who had taken on that IRA
:55:46. > :55:53.hunger strikers. It was almost inevitable that it would have
:55:53. > :56:01.disastrous effects. Do you believe that it had a modernisation of the
:56:01. > :56:05.economy that had consequences? not agree that it modernised. I
:56:05. > :56:13.think it undermined an economy that needed improvements but in many ways
:56:13. > :56:23.worked well. But Liverpool now is a major city in terms of financial
:56:23. > :56:28.
:56:28. > :56:31.sector outside of London. We did not come right after Thatcher's
:56:31. > :56:35.premiership. Thatcher was a Prime Minister who had her own motives,
:56:35. > :56:40.she had the right to those motives as a Tory prime minister but they
:56:40. > :56:45.were not good for industry. The manufacturing industry was almost
:56:45. > :56:49.waked out in Manchester during her period in office. Paul Maynard,
:56:49. > :56:54.whatever the truth of this, the reality is that the Conservatives
:56:54. > :57:04.have never recovered in places like Liverpool. Manchester and
:57:04. > :57:07.
:57:07. > :57:14.Liverpool's renaissance is came as a result of Margaret Thatcher. It is
:57:14. > :57:21.very easy to overstate the role that Margaret Thatcher played in wiping
:57:21. > :57:25.out Conservative representation in our northern cities.
:57:25. > :57:30.It is very difficult for you to when a Conservative majority if you do
:57:30. > :57:39.not have representation in places like Liverpool. It certainly does.
:57:39. > :57:49.But attributing that to Margaret Thatcher does not look at other
:57:49. > :57:52.factors. It was as much sectarian as it was political. It is not as
:57:52. > :57:58.simple as saying nasty Margaret was the one behind it all. Former
:57:58. > :58:05.complex. John, we focused on the big cities
:58:05. > :58:13.but she had electro excess in other parts of the North West. --
:58:14. > :58:16.electoral success. She was very popular. In some places that the
:58:16. > :58:20.Conservatives have been very difficult to win since she left
:58:20. > :58:30.office. She is so divisive, because the cities will power, the suburbs
:58:30. > :58:33.
:58:33. > :58:39.loved her. -- the cities heated her. He was the 62nd round up.
:58:39. > :58:43.Liverpool John were the University has withdrawn the Henri Fellowship
:58:43. > :58:50.awarded to Sir Norman Bettison. It comes after the police watchdog
:58:50. > :58:59.found that he would have a case to answer about Hillsborough if he was
:58:59. > :59:03.still serving. The government says that thousands
:59:03. > :59:09.of families will benefit from �11 million of funding for local
:59:09. > :59:13.hospices. The money will be shared between 31 centres. People holding
:59:13. > :59:17.assets on the Isle of Man to avoid tax are being given three years to
:59:17. > :59:20.pay up. An agreement with the UK Government means that backs want
:59:20. > :59:27.them -- banks will then automatically identify account
:59:27. > :59:35.orders. The latest report into drilling for
:59:35. > :59:38.shale gas says that it is not a significant cause of earthquakes.
:59:38. > :59:43.Paul Maynard, what is the significance do you think of
:59:43. > :59:48.Margaret Thatcher to politics today? How does she still influence things?
:59:48. > :59:52.What she does is remainder is that the task of all politicians is, in
:59:52. > :59:57.times of economic and social change, we have to do ever best to navigate
:59:57. > :00:05.our path through that change and support people through that change
:00:05. > :00:12.and she defined herself against a set back and wait Britain and
:00:12. > :00:16.stressed the importance of the individual. We cannot just hide pain
:00:16. > :00:22.Society and let others take responsibility. What are your views
:00:22. > :00:27.on how she still influences politics? There is a word. That's
:00:27. > :00:37.risen. No other prime minister since the war left that legacy with her or
:00:37. > :00:38.