14/04/2013 Sunday Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, the war of words between the Yorkshire men

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who were at the side of Margaret Thatcher and her enemy Arthur

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Coming up today, we ask, how should Margaret Thatcher be remembered in

our part of the world? We will be in her hometown of Grantham. We will

hear the views of the Yorkshire men who were at the side of the Iron

Lady and her arch, Arthur Scargill. It was also an attack -- it was a

wholesale attack on the mining communities. And it was an attack on

the values that people had in those communities. She was not a bully.

She didn't like the fight of the kind she got at all. Over the past

few days, people across the country have been flocking to the

Lincolnshire town of Grantham to pay tribute to the grocers daughter who

became our first and so far only woman Prime Minister.

This is where it all began for Margaret Thatcher. The flat above

her father's grocers shop. He wasn't unjust aggressor. He was a local

politician and also a Methodist lay preacher. He expected his children

attend church three times on a Sunday and often engage in political

debate around the dinner table. I spoke to the headteacher at the

grammar school where Lady Thatcher attended as a child to ask how she

will be remembered. She was very happy here. There were difficulties

because she was very forthright even as a child. She was a person who

stood her ground. There must've been something about her singled out.

head girls are voted for by the girls and stuff so if she was a very

strong personality, she campaigned strongly to become head girl.

that was her first of election victory? That may be the case. The

death of Lady Thatcher has led many to reflect on her extraordinary

journey from Lincolnshire town to number ten Downing Street. Hearing

Grantham, people have been queueing to sign a book of condolence. And

for a lasting memorial in her memory.

I would guess art Andrew Percy, Conservative MP for brick and cool.

And in our Westminster studio is George Galloway, the respect MP for

Bradford West. In Sheffield is Angela Smith, Labour MP for

Penistone and stocks bridge. If I can start with you, George Galloway.

You've been at the centre of some controversy. Within hours of

Margaret Thatcher's death, you said Trump that dirt down. Is that a

respectful way to speak of our former leader? I didn't respect in

life. It would have been hypocrisy to do so in death. She murdered the

north the country, all the places we are talking to know were devastated

by her decade in power. She murdered the coal industry, she murdered the

steel industry, she meant -- murdered the ship industry, merchant

shipping and so on. Everybody watching theirs is living in a

community which was murdered by Margaret Thatcher. So I am more

concerned about Thatcher's victims than about her. Andrew, you might

take a different view. At least George is being consistent in his

views but I grew up in Humberside, as it was then, throughout the 80s

and 90s, and it is not true to say that communities were murdered by

Margaret Thatcher. The biggest land grant ever given for regeneration

came from the Thatcher government of the city of Hull in the 1980s.

Appropriately, she divided opinion. Parts of our region, large parts of

Yorkshire, certainly Lincolnshire and the area I represent, swung

heavily behind Margaret Thatcher when she was in office, electing

Conservative MPs in places where Conservative MPs were not elected at

the last election even. She divided opinion, no doubt, but she did a lot

of good for the region as well. Angela Smith, why are so many Labour

women sniffy about Margaret Thatcher? Didn't she pave the way

for more women to succeed in politics? She certainly achieves the

accolade of being the first female prime minister. But she pulled up

the ladder behind her. The fact we have so many Labour MPs in

Westminster now is not Margaret Thatcher's legacy but the legacy of

the work that Labour women have done through the decades, people like

Barbara Castle. That is the woman we will look up to. She didn't do much

for women at all, Margaret Thatcher. I want to be dignified and to show

some respect for Margaret Thatcher in death. But like David Blunkett,

I'd say one thing. I cannot forgive her for what she did to communities

across South Yorkshire. She will never be forgiven in our area for

what she did. As George Galloway said, she devastated the coal

industry, severely damaged and devastated the steel industry as

well. And we will never forgive her. Is it acceptable for people to

celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher? I am not myself

celebrating but the fact that some art is a measure, as Andrew said, of

just how divisive a person she was. She was elected with big majorities

but on 40% of the vote, she never commanded anything like half of the

support of the British people. She was only elected because of the

traitors of the SDP as it was, now scrumming on the Tory coalition

bench. It was their defection from Labour and the votes they took with

them that allowed a Tory government with sufficiently large majorities

to ram home their Thatcherite policy. That the diversion of the

Falklands War, which course is including the war crime against the

ship, Belgrano, where 300 young conscripts were sent to a watery

grave on Mrs Thatcher's order, even though they were shot in the back

even though they were speeding away from the exclusion zone and heading

back to port. What is your take on that version of history? It is a

unique version of history and does not a majority view. The idea that,

you know, taking out an enemy ship as a war crime when we had had a

piece of our territory invaded doesn't stand to much scrutiny. In

terms of Thatcher 's broader legacy in our region, it is important to

point out that for a lot of people, people from normal backgrounds,

people like me from a traditional Labour background, we were attracted

to Thatcher, even though I was attracted to the idea that it

doesn't matter where you are, who you are, where you come from, you

can do well for yourself. That is that something that I and a lot of

people in Yorkshire, because she got a 44% of the vote, which is more

than Tony Blair had, there were a lot of people that were inspired by

that message. Taking into account a lot of people in our region who had

other views. Let's speak to one of Margaret Thatcher 's most closest

allies, former press secretary Bernard in, offering his thoughts on

Margaret Thatcher with some strong views on her enemies.

Britain needs an Iron Lady. legacy was to create a government

which delivered the goods. It hadn't been delivering up to this -- up to

1979. If she had failed, where would we be now? That is what we should be

asking. We might have been living in a country is somewhat akin to to the

Kremlin rule in Russia. It is a gross simplification to say that

Margaret Thatcher 's Margaret forces broke the coalmining industry. No

government in this country would have done the damage to the

coalmining industry that Arthur Scargill 's strike did. We will roll

back the years of Thatcherism and tyranny. It can only mean disaster!

The last thing a prime minister trying to reform the country wants

is a row with the trade unions. They had had enough of them. But she knew

and she knew without any doubt that Arthur Scargill wanted a row and it

didn't matter what the government wanted, he wanted to row and he

would use his bullyboys to drum the NUM to fight to the bitter end. Hang

your head in shame, Arthur Scargill, you are a disgrace to Yorkshire and

you up a ruin of the miners. There had been neither freedom or order in

Britain if we had given into violence. There would have been no

hope for any prosperous industry. She didn't mind an argument, she

loved an argument. She didn't mind losing if she thought that the

person against had a very, very good case. But what she really loved was

the argument, the intellectual exploration of the problem. And

arguing with Margaret Thatcher successfully can get you anywhere.

We have become a grandmother of a grandson called Michael.

She was actually a human being. You could read her like a book. And that

was the great virtue of her position. Good evening. Good

evening. I'm very pleased that I got more than half the Parliamentary

party. And disappointed it is not quite enough to win on the first

ballot. People knew where they stood and they came to realise she would

carry out what she said she would do. She was a great bonus in the

politician. The thoughts of Sir Bernard Ingham.

Angela Smith, if you could click your fingers, would you turn back

the clock to the country that was governed by Labour back in 1979?

What I would say is this. It wasn't about Thatcher or Scargill in the

end. What it is really about is all those thousands of men and women in

some cases who lost their jobs in villages across Barnsley and in the

city of Sheffield as the result of the changes that Thatcher sought to

put in place. Yes, she changed the economic landscape, but the price

paid by South Yorkshire was huge and we are still paying the price. I

would finish on this. The economic legacy everybody is talking about at

the moment is one that increasingly people now are saying has to change.

It is failing. It failed in 2007 when we had the global economic

crash. It is not working. Thatcher's legacy, it has been suggested, is

injuring. I don't think it will draw much longer. George Galloway, what

kind of country would we be living in now had Scargill won the miners

strike? Britain was a far better country in the 1960s than it became

in the 80s, 90s and in this decade just passed. As Angela said, the

bubble, the credit bubble, the debt bubble that was built up by the new

-- neoliberal governments we have had, Thatcher and all her heirs and

successors, and they have all followed that policy, has taken us

over the cliff and into ruin. Mrs Thatcher, when she came to power,

had a Financial Services Industry that represented 3% of the British

economy. Now, tenet of make at least until the crash, it represented 40%

of the British economy and therein lies the problem. We used to make

and build things. We stood do things. We didn't play around with

computer screens and money. Margaret Thatcher preferred that kind of

economy both because they were her kind of people but also because they

didn't have any trade unions and that is one of the reasons why she

favoured it. She was out to destroy the trade unions which, at the end

of the day, whoever is their leader, they are there to defend the

interests of the working people. Mrs Thatcher represented the interests

of a tiny fragment of the population. Mr Scargill, whatever

you think of him, was elected to defend the miners. And �50 notes

were known as Scargills in South Yorkshire. He did a great job for

the miners. There was only a strike because Mrs Thatcher was closing the

mines. That was the strike, not for money, not for perks. It was for her

to stop the mines. If we hadn't closed the mines. If we hadn't

closed minds, we wouldn't be dependent on Putin's gas and the

King of Saudi Arabia's oil. Margaret Thatcher create an

north-south divide? There has been an north-south divide since the

Industrial Revolution. It has got wider still. That includes under the

previous government. There is a reason why the Labour government

didn't turn back anything significant undertaken by Margaret

Thatcher in terms of reforms. There is a reason why Tony Blair, whom I

admire, carried on those reforms because they recognise that those

reforms had brought greater wealth, all levels of income have increased

since that period, and they allow people who may not have gone on to

university, they allowed a salt to become wealthier and to become

richer, which is what I think most people want, whilst having regard

for other people, and they also included improving of the public

services. Under Margaret Thatcher, the number of nurses and doctors

have increased massively. What about all those working-class people that

bought council houses? They did by their council houses, but they were

buying them before Thatcher came to power. My parents bought theirs in

1970 and they bought their council houses, Labour voters, by the way.

Andrew's point is that the vast majority of people got richer and

better. But in Sheffield, in 1987, the unemployment rate was 4% of the

national average. That is over 16%. In one part of Sheffield, it was

29%. When Arthur Scargill was sent a text of the news this week, he

reportedly replied to the message "Thatcher Dead" with the words

"Scargill Alive". That's according to his friend and former

vice-president of the Yorkshire NUM, Ken Capstick.

I think undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher decided in 1979 when she

came to power that she was going to take on the National union of mine

are the, the most powerful union in the country at the time. She

manufactured that situation. She wasn't just closing an economic pit

to here or there, it was an all sale attack on the mining industry, and

mining communities. And more than that, it was an attack on the values

people had in those communities. We believed in society and caring and

sharing. We believed in looking after the young, the old, the sick

and infirm. She believed that greed is good. The selling off of certain

private industries like British Gas, where people saw an opportunity to

make a quick killing or to become shareholders in that, but when you

look at it now, especially with British Gas, when bills have gone

through the roof, as a result of privatising and as a result of the

closure of Britain's coal mines, people might look back and think

that whilst that looked wonderful at the time, we are paying for it

today. The reality of it is that people are in debt, they don't own

shares because they can't afford to, they can't hardly afford to go

to the supermarket, let alone and shares. At the same time, the rich

become richer and richer, and the poor become poorer. That is a result

of Thatcher's policies, based on greed. Thatcher was a divisive

politician. That is no doubt. She did a lot of damage to many

communities in this country. Then, when they resisted, they were

referred to as the enemy within. People will not forgive that.

Andrew, can you understand why many people in mining areas and those

towns and villages that lost traditional industries are still

angry about the decisions made in that area? Of course. It is

important to remember that on mining, the industry had been in

decline since it was nationalised. We saw hundreds of jobs lost and

many mines closed in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Margaret Thatcher, like

many politicians in many countries in Western Europe and in the US

inherited a declining industry. That is why across Europe and across

other nations, there has been a huge decline in the number of people

working in the industry. There is one thing we have to be clear on.

Let's run and what that strike was about. There was a huge subsidy

going into that mining industry, paid for by taxpayers. The real

issue with that strike was the NUM's failure to call pithead ballots. We

talk about democracy, Margaret Thatcher was prepared to go before

the electorate, but the situation there was you had miners who were

not balloted and of course we know what happened with those miners that

did work. Angela, briefly, you respond. Can I just correct Andrew

on this history of the mining industry that he has given us. The

industry was nationalised post-World War II. It was already severely

weakened by the refusal of the previous mine owners to reform the

industry when it needed reforming. That is one of the key reasons why

it was so uncompetitive. The key point as well is that when you let

go of a national asset like coal reserves, it is very difficult to

get them back. That is the fundamental damage done to the

country by Thatcher's decision to close the pits. As seen with other

western European countries. Look at Germany, look at France. How many

people work in those industries there as opposed to how many worked

in the 1970s. The point is we've got huge coal reserves and now we have

to make use of carbon capture and storage to tap into them. The damage

done is immense and now we import coal that we are using to fire power

stations. We should have used our own. George Galloway, would you want

to go back to the era of power cuts, a three-day week and the immense

power held by the unions? I'll tell you what happened to this miners.

They are all unemployed and their pits are closed. If the country and

other unions and Labour 's front bench, for that matter, had gotten

behind the miners in the way they should have, then the miners might

have survived. And this accountancy over economic's would now be

laughable because Andrew says the mines were uncompetitive. They might

have been when oil was at $15 a barrel, but they are not when it is

at $115 in barrel and situated in places that are unstable. They might

have been uncompetitive compared to gasp before Russia became an

absolute Eldorado of gas production. This is rewriting

history on a grand scale. In the 1960s and 70s, Britain at least had

a society. It had a society that was moving in the direction of travel of

more equality. Young people like me grew up with free school dinners,

free school milk come a cod-liver oil and the orange juice, a council

house and a real prospect of an education and a job. None of that

survived the Thatcher era. Or her politics. People also grew up

contempt of row up in the same social class they were born into,

often going into the industry is their families had been in, whether

or not they wanted to be. In terms of his coal issue, is this the

policy now of the Labour Party, that it is to burn more coal? I was

pretty sure the policy of the last government and this Government was

to burn less and less coal and moved to other technologies. Gas in the

short-term but we knew a energy. Now we apparently want to burn more

coal! I don't want to burn more coal. We could have burnt more clean

coal. I'm going to give you five seconds to sum up Margaret

Thatcher's legacy. She damaged the industries, damaged manufacturing

and set in place an economic model that has ultimately failed. Needles,

crime, idleness and vice. That is what was left in the desolation of

post-industrial Britain. Most of the people watching this are living in

post-industrial Britain. Everything she did was so terrible that the

last Labour government never reversed any of it. That tells you

all you need to know about Margaret Thatcher 's legacy. I didn't agree

with many other things she did, one thing everybody would agree on,

whatever you thought of her politics, she at least had

conviction and principles. There are very few people in politics today