rjt

BBC NEWS | Politics | Howe to lead Tory taxation review

I should think the news will give the Iron Lady another stroke!

Geoffrey actually was a tough Chancellor who took some difficult decisons resulting in inflation falling from over 20% in1979 to 4% between 1979-83.

Sadly his Europhile tenedncys and known preference for a single currancy which caused him and Lady T to fall out makes me uneasy that he is conducting such a review.

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Mr Delors said that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, The Commission to be The Executive and The Council Of Ministers The Senate. NO! NO! NO!
(Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990)

Ignore List: The Prophets of ST Al the Unelectable.

Britannist

Thank you for opening this thread, RJT.

I am appalled that this europhile Howe - who helped bring down Lady Thatcher - has been asked to head a taxation review for the Conservative Party.

As you know, RJT (but for the benefit of those readers who do not) committed europhiles Heseltine and 'Ken' Clarke (both Heathites like Howe) are already doing reviews on other matters at the request of pro-EU and anti-UKIP David Cameron.

The return of Howe will mean more votes for UKIP as angry Conservatives join those who have already quit the Conservative Party over the failure of David Cameron to keep his promise (made in 2005) to pull his party out of the pro-euro EPP group in Brussels "within months not years".

Howe is a member of the Kinnock-backed UK Metric Association which seeks to make usage of Imperial measurements illegal.

rjt

House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Nov 1990

Indeed Howes speach was full of bile it still chills my blood to read it. I did not know about his role as regards imperial measurements, not supprised to hear it though.

__________________
Mr Delors said that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, The Commission to be The Executive and The Council Of Ministers The Senate. NO! NO! NO!
(Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990)

Ignore List: The Prophets of ST Al the Unelectable.

Britannist

Thank you for that link RJT. I have copied the text to read it this evening when I hopefully will be a bit less busy.

The mistake Lady Thatcher made was giving Howe a job in the first place.

I shall never forget that famous remark of eurosceptic Lord Healey (for those reading this who do not know it - Lord Healey was Labour Shadow Chancellor at the time) who said (to a roar of laughter across both sides of the House of Commons) that being criticised by Howe was like "being savaged by a dead sheep".

That remark of Lord Healey - regarded by many as one of the all-time-great jokes made in the Commons - will be quoted long after Howe and his bitter anti-Lady Thatcher speech have been forgotten.

I read a newspaper interview with Lord Healey a few months ago and he said that past party political divisions have, for him, faded somewhat and he is now friends with Lady Thatcher. I wouldn't be surprised if, over a sherry or a port in the House of Lords bar, the two haven't had a good laugh about Lord Healey's celebrated "dead sheep" jibe .

Britannist

No, I wasn't surprised to find that Howe was part of the metric campaign either. Many of these europhiles will join almost anything if it helps to damage the traditions of this country.

The Conservative Party would be better off without them and it will not recover its full electoral potential until it is made quite clear to the europhile impostors in its ranks that they are not welcome as members.

rjt

I think she did it becuase ecnomically they agreed with each other like her he wanted to adopt a monterist style of ecnomics against the opposition of many in the cabinet such as Prior, Heseltine, Gilmour, Carrington, Walker and also critics such as Heath on the backbenches. Howe was unusual as a Europhile in that way. After she moved him to the foriegn office she said she had made a bad mistake and that it magnified his faults and suffocated his virtues. He then moved away from her on Europe and that caused the rift which led to his being moved from the foreign office, the bitterness that caused lead to his hateful speach, Ken Baker in his memoirs said ' Geoffrey had decided sh should go and this ws his last chance beofre an election to bring her down'. I agree with that the attack was not about Europe it was personal.

Thatcher also admitted she would have prefered Cecil Parkinson to have become Foreign Secretary but she was made aware of his personal difficultys and felt she could not, I wonder if things would have been diffrent if Parkinson and not Howe had become Foreign Secretary in 1983?

__________________
Mr Delors said that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, The Commission to be The Executive and The Council Of Ministers The Senate. NO! NO! NO!
(Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990)

Ignore List: The Prophets of ST Al the Unelectable.

Britannist

A pity eurosceptic anti-Heathite Cecil wasn't made Foreign Secretary. He would have been loyal to Lady Thatcher and to the proper form of Conservatism (i.e. small Government and low taxes) she stood for.

Britannist

What virtues?

Britannist

The europhiles used rising public anger about the poll tax as an excuse to try to bring Lady Thatcher down in 1990 because she had angered them with her 'No No No' speech (against an EU Superstate) in the Commons and infuriated them with her famous Bruges speech in 1988.

rjt

I think she was refering to his shared beleif in free market ecnomics which he seemed to abandon in his rush to get us to join the Euro, he behaved disgracfully getting his supporters to breif against her all the time and making coded attacks on government policy in his speaches. She should have sacked him but that was a weakness of Mrs Thatcher she remebered how well he had implemented some of ther key ecnomic policys and had felt loyalty to him even though there personal relationship became so bad she said they found each others comapny intolerable by the end of his time in government.

__________________
Mr Delors said that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, The Commission to be The Executive and The Council Of Ministers The Senate. NO! NO! NO!
(Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990)

Ignore List: The Prophets of ST Al the Unelectable.