By David Torrance
Baroness Thatcher visited Scotland at the weekend as guest of honour at a dinner to mark 30 years since she became the first woman Prime Minister of the UK. It was an oddly poignant occasion: although Mrs Thatcher and Scotland never really got along, there was a sense that – aged 83 – this might be her last visit north of the border.
Labour chose to mark the occasion by issuing a statement that called on Baroness Thatcher to "apologise to Glasgow for her policies that wreaked havoc on our city".
Glasgow MSP Margaret Curran said: "The constituency I represent is still trying to recover from the destruction that ensued from her plans and political approach."
Ms Curran continued: "This is the woman that closed down our shipyards and steel mills, believed that unemployment is a price worth paying, and then told us that she knew best. If that wasn't bad enough, she used Scotland as a guinea pig for the poll tax. The Tories abandoned families and offered no support to people in desperate circumstances. Twenty years ago, Glasgow showed Margaret Thatcher what we thought of her government when she was booed at Hampden Park. I don’t think many people's views have changed."
Ms Curran's onslaught neatly summarises many beliefs that surfaced in Scotland during – and since - Margaret Thatcher's 11-year premiership. But they contain more fiction than fact.
The charge that Mrs Thatcher wreaked political "destruction" on Glasgow is the most curious. During the 1980s the Prime Minister signed off the successful Glasgow Garden Festival, lobbied for the city to become European City of Culture and authorised several billion pounds of public spending projects such as the St Enoch Centre.
The charge sheet against the Thatcher legacy in the rest of Scotland is also simplistic. Yes, Scottish shipyards and steel mills did close down in the 1980s (although Mrs Thatcher did not close Ravenscraig; it actually shut in 1992), but that owed more to an international recession and cheap foreign imports than the actions of her governments.
And to argue, as Ms Curran does, that Mrs Thatcher "used Scotland as a guinea pig for the poll tax" is nonsense. Scottish local government finance had always been legislated for separately north of the border, while the introduction of the Poll Tax in Scotland first was as a result of a disastrous rates revaluation in 1985. And if, as the Glasgow MSP claims, it was "tested" on Scotland, why then did Mrs Thatcher apply the same tax - virtually unaltered - to England and Wales a year later?
Ms Curran is also wrong to claim that the Tories abandoned families and "offered no support to people in desperate circumstances". Yes, the worse off in Scottish society did suffer in the 1980s but, contrary to popular belief, Mrs Thatcher's governments did not seriously erode the welfare state or benefits system. Ironically, if any government has cut benefits and introduced tougher conditions for claimants, it has been those of New Labour since 1997.
Political mythology, however, is a difficult thing to counteract. Ironically, having succeeded in breaking up one consensus - that of the post-war era, Mrs Thatcher inadvertently gave rise to another - a belief that she somehow "hated" Scotland. In short, as I conclude in my book on the subject, the Scots may never learn to love Mrs Thatcher, but they really ought to get over her.
David Torrance's book, 'We in Scotland' – Thatcherism in a Cold Climate, is published by Birlinn on Monday.
