Margaret Thatcher - green saint

William Connelly observes, correctly, that in effectively destroying the coal industry, Margaret Thatcher

is responsible for any faint hopes that the UK has of meeting its Kyoto targets.

This is yet another example of how good economics can drive good environmentalism. I wonder if any of my greener readers would care to call for the environmental beatification of the Blessed Margaret. Joe? Repeat after me: "Maggie is a saint".

Comments

[Joe Otten]

That's only half of it. Maggie put global warming on the agenda. The Green Party surge in 1989, for example, was a consequence of Maggie raising the issue of global warming.

[TDK]

I like the inversion of demons and saints but i don't think it holds up.

Despite left wing myths to the contrary the mining industry was in permanent decline from the day it was nationalised. Far more mines were closed and miners made redundant by Labour in the 1960s and 1970s than by Maggie in the 1980s. There were 800-plus pits and 750,000 miners in 1947, the industry had declined to 170 pits and 240,000 miners by 1983.

[Bishop Hill]

TDK

Sure. But I think Mrs T certainly precipitated the change.

[Phil A]

Given the prevailing leftwards lean of much Green rhetoric I can’t see them acknowledging any contribution Maggie may have made much before they start worrying about the effects of the sun turning into a red giant on the ice caps.

[TDK]

How can she precipitate a change that had already largely taken place.

Incidentally, I was under the impression that Kyoto was concerned with emissions reduction based upon the base line of 1992. That would mean that the Thatcher closures were already a moot point in terms of meeting Kyoto.

Also don't misunderstand me. I'm all for beating up Labour over it's environmental record. Rail closures pre-Beeching were done on an ad-hoc case by case basis. In general they were well considered. Contrast that with the achievements post Beeching. True the study was conducted in the dying days of the Tory Government but the bulk of the closures took place between 1964 and 1970. I forget who was in power then. I mean, not only did they tear up the rails, they disposed of the right of way. Ironically, the very first Beeching closure, the line from Leeds to Wetherby, is periodically discussed as a potential commuter route reopening.

[Bishop Hill]

TDK

I meant that she precipitated the final collapse of the mines.