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Back to Thatcherism call unnerves Britain

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON OCT. 7. A chilling talk of a return to `Thatcherism' marked the start of the Tories' make-or-break conference in Bournemouth today amid a whispering campaign for a change in leadership as a new poll showed that only 10 per cent Britons thought that the party was capable of governing the country.

Ironically, the "back to Thatcher'' call came from the Tory chief Ian Duncan Smith who only last year had banished Margaret Thatcher from the party conference in order to distance himself from her policies and draw a line under the controversial Thatcher era, still remembered with a great deal of bitterness by many Britons.

Mr. Duncan Smith's move prompted fears that he was trying to push the party to the Right in a desperate bid to halt its rapidly declining fortunes. Kenneth Clarke, a former Tory Chancellor who lost the leadership election to Mr. Duncan Smith last year and has not ruled out trying again, warned against wandering off into "right-wing wilderness''. He said instead of resorting to such `ridiculous' tactics, the party needed to "get its act together''.

Critics said the talk of returning to Thatcherism was a "huge gamble'' at a time when the need was for Tories to look forward.

In fact, it contradicted Mr. Duncan Smith's own "mantra'' of moving ahead and getting away from what he witheringly called "voices from the past''.

It was recalled that only a few weeks ago, he sharply dissociated his agenda from Thatcherism's emphasis on individual, rather than collective, social good. He publicly disowned Mrs. Thatcher's famous remark that there was no such thing as a society, but only individuals, and families.

Mr. Duncan Smith's aides defended his move to `recall' Thatcherism saying that he intended to bring the same `radicalism' to bear on his policies on public services reform that Mrs. Thatcher brought to economic reform. Reforming the public services-health, transport and education-was the `unfinished' business of the Thatcher `revolution', they said and Mr. Duncan Smith wanted to carry that forward.

``He is saying that for the Tory Party there is a new mission — the quality of life. And he is saying we need the same level of radicalism and fresh thinking that was applied to economic reform in the Thatcher days to be applied to the public services now,'' one Tory leader was quoted as saying.

Nevertheless, unease over the move remained fuelling calls for breaking from the past and giving the party a new direction as it emerged that for the first time in "living memory'' Liberal Democrats had caught up with Tories in popular ratings.

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