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The irony is that all these claims are, themselves, spin. They are all misleading and the deception begins to emerge when one looks at just some of the detail. A ‘cabinet of all the talents’ is meant to include the ‘big beasts’ of the political jungle, whether they are friends or not.

But the men and women who Mr Brown apparently intends to appoint are little-known outside Westminster and consist largely of his cronies. Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper and Ed Milliband are hardly household names but they are Brown supporters and are, apparently, odds-on to be given high office. His pal, Alistair Darling, is touted as the coming Chancellor of the Exchequer. Another Scottish ally, Douglas Alexander is suggested as Transport Secretary. These are hardly the great stars of our political firmament.

The well-known Labour politicians – talented or otherwise - are more likely to be outside the cabinet. If, as seems likely, Charles Clarke, David Blunkett, Stephen Byers, John Prescott and Alan Milburn are not offered places in the cabinet, they will certainly be invited to appear on radio or TV when they have something critical to say.

Gordon Brown’s time as prime minister is likely to have a ‘left-over’ feeling. He will be like the turkey remains heated up on Boxing Day. Those men who follow dominant prime ministers rarely emerge fully from the shadows of their predecessors. Alec Douglas-Home was an anti-climax after Harold Macmillan. Jim Callaghan was an amusing digestif that followed the main course of Harold Wilson. John Major looked no higher-ranking than a colonel after Field Marshal Thatcher.

Gordon Brown is different from any of these. He is undoubtedly highly-motivated and intelligent. But like anyone appointed prime minister by his party after it has been in power for many years, he will look like a substitute brought on after the star player has been taken off through injury. His position brings inherent disadvantages. He cannot claim, as Blair did for years, that all the problems of the country have caused by the previous administration. And he won’t be able to assert that he has some brilliant new policy for solving the country’s ills. If he has such an policy, people will ask why didn’t he suggest it before?

Some of the major political figures in our history have stood for big ideas: Aneurin Bevan for state control, Margaret Thatcher for free enterprise. But what does Gordon Brown stand for? The New Labour muddle that has already been the dim, guiding light for Britain for the last decade. We already know that it has led to higher taxes and has not countered rising crime or heavy welfare dependancy. Yes, Mr Brown is credited with keeping inflation low and balancing the books. But that is not good enough. The whole culture and civilisation of Britain is at stake. Most people think Britain is in a bad way and getting worse. Gordon Brown will only offer more of the same government control, targets, taxes and regulations that led to this.

As a ‘left-over’ prime minister, Mr Brown does at least have one advantage: he can take us out of Iraq. Everyone knows that the invasion was Tony Blair’s idea. Mr Blair has refused to take us out because that would be admitting he was wrong in the first place. Mr Brown will have no such problem. Not that he will gain much liking from an army which he has systematically denied sufficient funds.

But the biggest problem that Mr Brown will face as prime minister is the old one – the one that caused him to be passed over when Mr Blair beat him to the leadership of the Labour Party. He lacks charm. He lacks the easy, likeable personality of Tony Blair. The British public can be very superficial – even frivolous – in its view of leaders. It decides as much on the basis of personalities as policies. And Gordon Brown doesn’t do personality. His premiership will be a duller affair than that of Mr Blair. There may be fewer scandals but there will also be less charisma. Mr Brown’s premiership is likely to be heavy-going and he will surely struggle to win the next election.

It will be a curious time with this dour man in charge. When the Prime Minister comes on our television screens, all around the country there will be scuffles as people compete to get hold of the remote controls to choose which channel to change to.

(The above is the unedited version of my article in the Daily Express today.)

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Many of us might think at first, 'well why shouldn't he play croquet?' and, of course there is no reason, in principle, why he shouldn't.

But it is not as simple as that. Very few people think he should still be at Dorneywood in the first place. Following his affair with Tracey Temple, his diary secretary, he was stripped of all significant ministerial responsibilities. There has been a desperate attempt to make it sound as though he still is an important figure in the government because he chairs various committees. But must of us are frankly disbelieving.

We suspect the only reason he is still deputy prime minister and has been allowed to keep Dorneywood is because he represents a link to Old Labour party members and backbenchers. Or perhaps he is there as a broker between the warring factions of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In any case, he only retains Dorneywood because of his position in the Labour Party, not because he is of any use in government. His presence at Dorneywood is an abuse of government perks for party political purposes.

The misleading comments made by members of his department add the nasty smell around this game. When his office was contacted and asked where he was, a spokeswoman reportedly said that Mr Prescott was in the Cabinet Office. It was an untruth.

When one the civil servants present at the croquet game was asked about it, he said they were 'allowed a lunch-break'. But the game - not to mention the picnic - was nowhere near lunchtime. It was mid to late afternoon.

Then, one of the civil servants claimed that, although they were hitting balls through hoops, they were actually working. She had received three faxes and made some phone calls. This has got to rank as one of the most absurd excuses ever, ranking alongside 'I was only showing her how springy the bed is' .

The simple fact is that the deputy prime minister on £134,000 a year plus many perks, got five civil servants and security men - probably all of them on the public payroll - to play a game with him during the hours when they should have been working. You and I and the old lady paying tax on an income below the the government's own poverty line were all paying the salaries of these people. Mr Prescott exemplifies the way that the government has lost sight of the idea that it has a responsibility not to waste our money.

John Prescott now seems to think that anything he does must be OK because he is so important a national figure. He acts like a feudal lord. The idea, expressed by Tony Blair when Labour came to power, that they were all servants of the people has been forgotten.

It is strange to recall that a decade ago John Prescott was regarded as a formidable political figure. I was once told my a BBC producer that Tory MPs would back out of radio and TV debates when they heard they were going to be up against him. He helped Tony Blair get through the abolition of Clause Four, thus helping to change the ethos of the Labour Party. He talked then about 'integrated transport system' and people thought he know what he was talking about'.

But the longer that Labour has been in power, the lower John Prescott's reputation has fallen. As Transport Secretary, his main action was to stop authorising new road-building and even to cancel plans that were already in place. He left the busiest section of the M25 in gridlock and it was not until he was replaced that the desperately-needed authorisation for a new lane came through.

He has been an appalling minister, everywhere he has gone. He promoted regional assemblies that nobody wanted. His latest responsibility has been in planning. All surveys of the kind of housing people actually want have indicated that they would like houses with gardens. But he has opted instead for high-density housing - the greatest number of 'units' in the smallest possible space. He has boasted that he is developing 'brownfield' sites. It has now emerged that a significant portion of these brownfield sitea are existing houses and their gardens. Over the past 15 years, front gardens in London equivalent to 22 Hyde Parks have been concreted over. He has played a major role in doing away with the high-quality housing which his predecessor, Nye Bevan, insisted upon.

So what do we have? A man whose ministerial career has been a series of bungles that have embarrassed even the prime minister. A man who has clung to office and to his perks like a limpet. Where other principled Old Labour figures like Robin Cook resigned on one issue or another, Mr Prescott's greatest principle has been to hold onto his country estate. Even Labour backbenchers may have had enough of him, with unconfirmed reports of that some are gathering together to ask for him to be replaced.

He betrayed his wife with his sordid affair, thus taking the charm out of his self-indulgence. He is just out for what he can get. He has moved from being a rough diamond, to being a bit of joke and finally an embarrassment.

Mr Prescott should go. And go now.

The above is the unedited version of my article in the Daily Express today.

I might add, incidentally, that Mr Prescott once telephoned me from Dorneywood. I had written an article for the Daily Mail in which I accused the government of being 'anti-car'. We talked about the M25 and I argued it desperately needed another lane and perhaps more. He wanted to know what 'evidence' I had that this would improve matters. I am not a transport expert who can cite studies of car behaviour. I am of course aware of the argument that traffic increases to fill the roadspace available. But it is a simple commonsense point that a four-lane road can carry a bigger volume of traffic faster than a three-lane road. This, of course, has indeed proved to be the case, since the M25 in the area between the M4 and the M3 has been widened. The flow has considerably improved.

He said 'what if then there are still jams on the road? When do we stop building lanes?' Having driven in the USA where there are roads with five and more lanes, I could see no reason in principle why a further lane or two could not be built if necessary. But the point which he, like most people in Britain, have not cottoned on to is that we are approaching saturation point of car use in Britain. The big jump in usage is already in the bag. The vast majority of households use cars. The quantity of car usage simple cannot increase by the same proportion again. It is a pity to give up on roads when we are so close to having enough. (I am referring to cross-country travel here, of course, not travel within city centres which are a different matter.)

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29th November 2005

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP

Chancellor of the Exchequer

HM Treasury

Horse Guards Road

London SW1A 2HQ

Dear Chancellor,

Affordability of Pensions – £2.13 million as PM for a day

You insist before Adair Turner publishes his long-awaited Report tomorrow that our country’s pensions must be affordable. Will you lead by example? Many millions in Britain face working longer, trapped in a vicious spiral of means testing because your Pension Credits undermine incentives to save. But you have to serve only another 4 years in Parliament to complete the 26 years and 8 months needed to be entitled to a full index-linked pension of £36,934 a year. It would cost you £1million to buy a comparable pension to the one you have already accrued as an M.P. from a private sector provider such as Prudential. You also have rights to an extra pension for your service as Chancellor since 1997.

If you took over as Prime Minister tomorrow, you would immediately be entitled to an extra pension of £62,418, fully index-linked for life, even if you only serve a day in the post. That would cost you £2.13 million from the Pru. How can it be right to take that on top of the generous pension you have already earned?

Pensions affordability starts at the top. Mr Blair may have made financial commitments on the basis of his retirement package, but will you give a lead by announcing now that you would not take the extra instant Prime Ministerial pension?

Matthew Oakeshott

Liberal Democrat Pensions Spokesman

House of Lords

Quotation for G Brown – Born 20 Feb 1951 – Elected to Parliament 1983

(Fully index-linked annuity for life with surviving spouse’s annuity at 5/8)

Age Next Birthday : 55 PURCHASE PRICE
M.P’s pension: = 22.4 / 26.7 years x £36,934 p.a. - £1 million
P.M.’s Pension if appointed now = £62,418 p.a. £2.13 million
TOTAL £3.13 million

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this is "naive" for several reasons.

For one thing, in the long-run, competition between parties tends to be replaced by a kind of 'political cartel'. The booklet quotes Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer arguing that: "The previous outsiders quickly realise that many advantage are to be gained by tolerating the politicians' cartel, and even more by participating in it".

In current politics, this brings to mind David Cameron in his current bid to lead the Conservative Party. He has, like Tony Blair before him, put himself at the political centre. Much of the media, including the BBC, likes this, having previously itself responded to incentives to be centrist (or left of centre). So there we have a kind of political cartel of media, New Labour and New Conservative - each of them covertly supporting the other to a surprising degree. (The thing that it really new about this New Conservatism, incidentally, seems to be that, while being very charming and aspirational in tone, it avoids suggesting any radical change whatsoever - to taxation, to education, to the NHS or anything else.) The Liberal Democrats are so much a part of this 'political cartel' that it is only just seems worth mentioning the fact.

What is the real solution to the centralising (even totalitarian) tendency? The one which has most credibility with the authors of the booklet is competition between central and local government. A key part of this is the possibility of 'exit' - that is the chance that a part of a country (or union) could entirely depart from the control of the central authority. Canada is cited as an example of a place where there is this competition between the central and local powers. The possibility of the secession of Quebec has helped to bring this about. Spain has a similar situation.

The relevance of this to the European Union is obvious. The authors wold contend that the only effective check to continuously growing power for the centre would be strong subsidiarity and the possibility to leave without cost or penalty.

The authors conclude:

The most effective counterweight to any centralist tendency is of course the option to ignore the centre as a region, city, or - most effectively - an individual.

The booklet is rather misleadingly called The Regulation Race . It is really about central government, not regulation. It is by Rahim Taghizadegan and Grego Hochreiter and published by the Research Centre Free Europe, PK 4231, Tallinna Peaspostkontor, Tallinn 10510, Estonia. The website is http://liberty.li. Email: info@liberty.li. The booklet is published in association with the Democracy Movement as part of "Vision Europe", for which the website is www.visioneurope.ee.

I picked up the booklet at the Conservative Party Conference last month. It could have been at the meeting of the Freedom Association where I spoke.

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For the last two and half years we have been told that the British army was doing well in Basra. The British befriended the locals. They were subtle and less aggressive than the American forces. The British army was more skilled at winning 'hearts and minds' .

There is still still a lot of truth to that. But when a mob mercilessly attacks British soldiers, it is obvious even to the most wishful-thinking patriot that a good number of hearts and minds in Iraq have finally become bitterly angry against our forces and probably our country, too. The incident has brought out further telling bits of information. For instance, in some police stations in areas controlled by the British are prominently displayed pictures of leaders of local militias. So the hearts and minds even of large sections of the police force are not with us.

The occupation in the American-controlled parts of the country is going terribly. Over 150 people were killed in a single day in Bagdad last week in suicide bombings. British intelligence reports that Al-Quaeda, the terrorist organisation which planned the assault on the twin towers in New York and is headed by Osama bin Laden, is gaining influence. Instead of relying on suicide bombers from other countries like Syria, Al-Quaeda is increasingly able to recruit home-grown Iraqi suicide bombers.

Religious hatred and violence is increasing between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority. And it is not such an uneven fight since the Sunnis were accustomed to being top-dogs under Saddam Hussein and are better organised.

The overall situation is getting worse, not better. By being there, the Americans and the British are allowing the most extreme, violent people to turn themselves into armies while those whom we would prefer to govern are bound to tend to rely on our armed forces to do their fighting for them. When we leave - and of course we will leave, sooner or later - the people we like best will be weaker. Those we like least will be stronger.

Of course there are dangers in going. Our departure may well be followed by civil war. But civil war is developing whatever we do. The longer we leave it, the more bitter and persistent it may be.

There is a danger, too, that some new strong man will emerge - another Saddam Hussein and no better disposed towards Britain and America. Well, what else did we expect? What did the war-planners think? Did they really imagine that we could take a country like Iraq and suddenly turn it into a modern, western democracy by sending over some 'advisers'.

There is an even bigger danger: that other countries will involve themselves in a coming civil war. Iraq will be sorely tempted. Syria has plenty of people there already. Saudi Arabia will feel its vital interests are involved. Turkey will want to prevent - by force if necessary - the creation of a Kurdish state on its border. This is potentially the scene of a unpredictable, multi-faceted conflict. But, I repeat, we will leave sooner or later anyway. And the later we go, the more demoralised we will be and the more incapable of having any calming influence at all.

Tony Blair has a personal reason for not getting us out. It would mean admitting he has mismanged the whole thing. But that is what most people think anyway. It is becoming increasingly clear that Mr Blair put us in greater danger by taking us into a war which has earned us the hatred of many Muslims both in the Middle East and here at home.

It would compound Mr Blair's fault if he continues this misbegotten war to save his pride. It would be appalling if British soldiers in Iraq and civilians at home continue dying because one man refuses to admit he was wrong.

When we went into this war, I hoped that Mr Blair and President Bush knew something that we didn't. On the evidence they gave publicly, the war was not justified yet I thought people in a such positions would not take the risks of this war without definite knowledge that our country was under great and imminent danger. I gave them too much credit for honour and I assumed they knew at least something of hisotry - of how occupying forces always end up being hated.

Now we should get out as fast as we can. True, Iraq might break up into separate states. That might even be desirable since it would give different national and religious groups their own spaces. We should try to bring together the states of the middle east to agree not to send in their own armies but, instead, contribute to the creation of lasting settlement.

This situation has the potential to poison Muslim/Christian relations for a generation with terrible consequences. We are in an awful hole and should follow the traditional advice: to stop digging.

(This is the unedited version of an article that appeared in yesterday's Daily Express.)

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He should remember that even in 2000, support for the disruption of supplies was not that fulsome. Only 56 per cent of people were behind further blockades according to one poll. But although people were not sure about the hauliers, they became convinced that the government was handling it badly. Disapproval of the leadership ran at the higher level of 72 per cent.

So while support for the hauliers may be more muted than before, anger with the government could still increase. It is a simple phenomenon: if anything goes badly wrong with the smooth running of the country, the government tends to lose popularity.

Anger with the government is likely to increase both because of the disruption and because we don't like paying so much for our petrol, especially as it comes just before we are going to have to pay for heating and lighting this winter. British Gas has already announced a price rise of 14 per cent.

The focus of annoyance is going to keep coming back to Mr Brown because he refuses to do anything to ease the pain. Worst of all, he is actually making money out of it.

The amount of revenue the government collected from North Sea Oil production last year was £5billion. This year, according to the UK Offshore Operators' Association, he is on course to take far more: £10billion. Even that estimate might be too low since it is based on an average price of of US$50 a gallon of crude oil. The price is currently much higher.

He is also making extra money out of VAT on every litre of petrol we buy at the pump. True, the amount he gets in petrol duty has not changed. It is a whopping 47.1p and that is what make the price of petrol in Britain among the highest in the world. But there is also VAT on petrol which has risen from 12.2p a year ago to 14.1p today. So 2p of the cost of each litre now is extra money which Gordon Brown is taking from compared to a year ago. If you fill up a tank with 45 litres, the extra money taken by Mr Brown is 90p. He is making a painfully high oil price even higher.

As more people realise this, they are going to demand that Mr Brown cuts back on his increased taxation of petrol - even if it is relatively short term. After all, the current sky-high oil price is not likely to last more than a year or two. At this price, all sorts of energy reserves around the world that were not worth exploiting before have become highly profitable. There is about to be a boom - especially in America and parts of the former Soviet Union - in oil, coal and gas development.

But Gordon Brown has another problem. One of the other differences between now and five years ago is that, in 2000, the economy was going pretty well and the government's finances were in good fettle. But he has used up both the good economic inheritance he got from the Tories and the sound financial position he gained from economic growth combined with tax increases. Mr Brown is therefore heading for increasing budget deficits and lower growth. He has not got so much room for manoeuvre. In his next budget, he was expected to raise taxes. He really needs the extra tax windfall that this higher oil price is bringing him.

He knows he is in trouble. That is why he tried to pre-empt discussion by saying he was not going to reduce the tax. He also has briefed newspapers that this is all an international problem and nothing to do with him. He has tried to re-direct attention away from himself by blaming the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries for not increasing production more. While he is at it, he is also trying to make us believe that the recent oil price rise is as economically devastating as the one in the 1970s. That is simply not true and he is saying it - being one of the most calculating of politicians - because he wants this to be accepted as the reason why the economy is doing worse now than he predicted.

In the world Brown wants us to believe in, everything that goes right is because of him and everything that goes wrong is because of someone else.

But the hard truth is Mr Brown's record of economic growth is coming to an end and he is now just a tax-and-spend chancellor making money out of other people's petrol misery. He had better bend with the wind if he does not want the frustations and unhappiness of the moment to turn soon into bitterness directed at him.

(This is the unedited version of an article that appeared in the Daily Express today.)

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Since the early 1970s, the GHS has recorded a steady increase in the ownership of consumer durables. Ownership of a refrigerator rose from 73% of households in 1972 to 95% in 1985.

Other household amenities that were available only to a minority of households in the early 1970s were also more widespread by 2002. For example, the percentage of households with central heating rose from 37% in 1972 to 93% in 2002.

By the mid-1990s, most homes had access to a freezer, a washing machine, a telephone and a television. The proportion of households with access to more recently introduced items (such as the dishwasher, tumble drier and microwave) continues to rise.

Since their introduction to the survey, entertainment items have become much more widely available. Access to a television has always been highly prevalent (93% of households in 1972, rising to 99% in 2002).

And again,

Under half (42%) of all households had a telephone in 1972. In 2000 98% had a phone. Since then, the proportion of households with fixed telephones has remained almost constant. There has however been a significant increase in the availability of mobile phones. The proportion of households owning mobile telephones increased from nearly three fifths (58%) in 2000 to three quarters (75%) of households in 2002.

When people say that poverty has increased, they have to explain in what way those people in the 1970s were less in poverty and while not having a telephone, a freezer or central heating. Going back a bit further, were the people between the wars less in poverty when they had no inside lavatory and, earlier in the century still, when the cost of food absorbed 30% of average incomes rather than 10 per cent as it does now. In those days, the cost of food was major issue for those with below-average incomes.

It is absurd and insulting to our intelligence to suggest poverty has got worse. The real problems of Britain are much more those of dependancy, incivility, cultural decline, crime, bad healthcare, bad education for the least well off one third and so on.

The full press release is here.

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He got elected in 1970 on the basis that he was a tough, free-market reformer. He hosted a conference at Selsdon Park Hotel at which this policy was agreed. A new phrase was coined: "Selsdon Man". But when he actually got into power, it became clear that this was a false prospectus. He went in for laws to control wage rises and gave tax-payers' money to failing industries. He was as much of a 'statist' as members of the Labour Party, to the point that Tony Benn was delighted that he was doing 'spadework for socialism'. Either he was never truly the reformer he claimed to be or else he funked it when faced with a bumpy ride.

He regarded his greatest achievement as that of taking Britain into what was then called 'The Common Market'. That was a second false prospectus. He knew and intended that this 'Common Market' should develop into something far more all-embracing. He expected that Britain should take part in monetary union - in other words should join a common European currency - by 1980. But he kept jolly quiet about this, giving the impression that we would hardly lose anything in the way of national sovereignty. That 'Common Market' has gone on acquiring power to the point now where it even tells us whether or not we are to be allowed to have vitamin supplements in our shops.

He improved relations with Mao's communist China. As a political act, that was probably sensible. But he took it further than that, becoming excessively friendly over the years with the leaders of this foul regime which was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people and ruthlessly subjugated Tibet. It is hard to resist the idea that he was influenced by the way the Chinese leadership flattered him. His vanity may have undermined a proper sense of what was good and decent.

One of his greatest errors in government is hard to dispute. He was concerned, quite rightly, that unemployment was rising. In response, he let credit rip. His Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber, kept down interest rates and let money flow in unprecedented quantities. The money caused no reform of industry, of course. It just sloshed into banking and property. House prices went crazy. Heath and Barber were responsible for setting off the great inflation of the 1970s which ruined the living standards of many elderly people reliant on fixed incomes. The value of their monthly pensions and their bank interest was destroyed. This was a terrible thing for him to have done. But it got worse.

He was in confrontation with the trade unions and managed it badly. He tried to reach accommodation with them. He ended up in confrontation. Admittedly his problems were hugely exacerbated by the quadrupling of the price of oil. We ended up with the three-day week when businesses were only meant to operate on a part-time basis. It is hard, even for those of us who were there, to remember just how bad it got.

His fight with the mining unions was unsuccessful. Unlike Nigel Lawson in the 1980s, he did not build up stocks of coal at the power stations before taking them on. He then called an election. It is often said that this election was fought on the basis of 'who rules the country - the unions or the government?'. But I remember that it was not put as plainly or bravely as that, more's the pity. The idea was merely implied.

So Heath lost that election and, indeed, the one after - making an overall score of elections won: 1, elections lost: 3. Not good.

His failure as prime minister let in the most useless government to have held power in Britain in all the years since the second world war. The miners were bought off with enormous amounts of other people's money. Inflation soared even further to over 27 per cent at the peak. We had to borrow wholesale from other countries to the point where they refused to lend more unless the government changed its ways. We went into a terrible recession and political turmoil. It got so bad that the best known financier of the time advised people that the best investments were guns and baked beans. Not all of this was Heath's fault of course, but if he had not made such a mess of his time in office, it might never have happened. He played a major role in making the 1970s Britain's worst decade in the second half of the twentieth century.

Meanwhile, he was defeated by Margaret Thatcher in a contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party. He responded by sniping and sneering at her for the rest of his life. He was not big enough to let it go. Lady Thatcher, in her time in office, cleared up many of the problems that he had helped create. After she left office, she was always polite about him. She has been generous again after his death, calling him a 'political giant' and saying 'we are all in his debt'. Edward Heath was clever, undoubtedly and multi-talented, too. But frankly the magnanimity Lady Thatcher has shown towards him is more than he deserved.

(This is an unedited version of an article which appears in today's Daily Express.)

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State education probably got worse. Reforms of the NHS were not fundamental enough. Only too late did she seriously turn her attention to the problems caused by welfare benefits. And her impact on the family was not good. During her time, the proportion of children living with two natural and married parents fell from 83 to 68 per cent.

But by bringing together in one place all the things she did, this collection of essays rams home the astonishing scope of what she did achieve. Council tenants were enabled to buy their homes, foreign exchange control was abolished, many state-owned industries including British Telecom and British Airways were privatised, the top tax rate was slashed from 83% to 40%, new laws were created so that landlords could get their property back from tenants (which gave rise to the boom in buy- to-let), foreign students were charged for comimg to British universities, trade unions ceased to be major political forces, the European Union reluctantly gave Britain a big annual rebate, pensioners were given tax relief for health insurance, government spending fell from 45 per cent of the economy to 39 per cent and so on. The list is too long to give in full. As a result, Britain was transformed from being the sick man of Europe to the fastest growing of its major countries. Labour politicians are currently riding the wave of economic success which Margaret Thatcher started in the face of their angry opposition.

It was not only the official opposition that she had to fight. Lord Tebbit, in his essay, describes how Lady Thatcher was a radical up against a large number of upper class patricians in her own party who generally accepted the kind of Britain created by Labour since the war. Her victory over Edward Heath for the leadership was a 'corporals' coup'. This conflict between different sides of the party - the 'accepters' and the free market radicals - is still going on in the current leadership contest.

The book reminds us what terrific battle she had to go through to make such a difference. She was often going utterly against the consensus, and quite rightly. William Hague tells how he only narrowly squeaked into parliament through a by-election in 1989. He had lost thousands of votes because water privatisation had been so unpopular. He went to Margaret Thatcher and told her - rather recklessly perhaps - that he had met no voter in favour of this policy.

Many politicians would have expressed regret about this. But not her. William Hague reports: "Margaret Thatcher left me in no doubt that the fault of this lay with the voters than than the policy, an insight which was indeed borne out as the privatised industry succeeded and controversy evaporated over subsequent years".

This was not just another politician just trying to please everybody. She was a woman with a mission to make her country a better place. Thatcher's rule was an amazing story. For my money, this is a book that sets the record straight. Every Tory should have a copy. It reminds us all what she did and what is still to be done. It stiffens the sinews.

[Unedited version of a review of Margaret Thatcher's Revolution which has essays by Norman Tebbit, William Hague, Christopher Booker, Terence Kealey, Dennis O'Keeffe, James Tooley and James Stanfield, Patricia Morgan, David Marsland and others. The review appeared in yesterday's Mail on Sunday. The book can be obtained on Amazon herehttp://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/202-6896457-4182224 or by clicking on any of the links to books on sale in the left column and then searching for 'Margaret Thatcher's Revolution']

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I think it usually takes something else. Most terrorists in history certainly have thought they had some more pressing grievance or ambition other than cultural loathing. In Ireland, they wanted the British out. So too in Cyprus and India. In Algeria, they wanted the French out.

Some centuries have passed without Islamic terrorism against Western countries. It would be remarkable if it were merely a co-incidence that this terrorism has flared up after Britain and America have become so heavily involved in Middle Eastern affairs.

(I probably should emphasise that I am not in any way seeking to justify the terrorist attacks or to argue that we should pull out of the Middle East entirely - although there may well be a good argument for that. I merely seek to suggest that terrorists are human beings and that it takes more than a cultural difference to induce them to go to such lengths and put their own lives at risk.)

I certainly am no political bedfellow of Tariq Ali, but he very probably has an more intimate understanding of the mindset of Islamic terrorists than I do. He apparently wrote this in the Guardian:

"The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Just because these three wars are reported sporadically and mean little to the everyday lives of most Europeans does not mean the anger and bitterness they arouse in the Muslim world and its diaspora is insignificant. As long as western politicians wage their wars and their colleagues in the Muslim world watch in silence, young people will be attracted to the groups who carry out random acts of revenge."

This is quoted in a posting on Tech Central Station which has other comments from George Galloway and an American academic, Juan Cole, who all see the motivation of the terrorist as deriving from grievances. The posting also quotes Amir Teheri, in The Times, who takes a different view.

I never thought the day would come when I would quote George Galloway and Tariq Ali to try to support one of my views. Dear, oh dear. Perhaps I should keep away from the subject after all.

UPDATE:

I am afraid I have not approved some of the comments that have been made on this posting and the other one on 'Bombs and politicians'. This is a pity because the comments have been particularly interesting. But unfortunately they have either involved commenters insulting others who have commented or else making remarks which I know people who are closely involved in the long-running Arab/Israeli conflict will find extremely offensive. I don't want to quash free speech but, for anyone looking to re-run the Arab/Israili argument in such aggressive terms, this is not the website on which the debate will be allowed to take place. Similarly, I don't mind people criticising each other's arguments, but I won't have personal abuse.
On this website, please think of yourself as having to abide by the courtesies of Parliament.

There was also one case where a remark was made that was probably libellous.

I tried simply to edit the comments and thus keep the interesting parts but sadly my blog does not seem to allow me to do that. So I have just had to delete. I am sorry.

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Their anger may well be misdirected, unjust or overblown. But it serves no purpose beyond their own political advantage for Messrs Blair and Livingstone to pretend that these terrorists are - for some bizarre reason - passionately ant-democratic to the point of wanting to let off bombs to kill people.

At the back of his mind, Mr Blair must be well aware that London has perhaps been targeted because Britain took part in the invasion of Iraq. He is certainly well aware that most of the population believe that he took Britain into that war on a false prospectus. He thus could easily be held by many people to be responsible for the deaths that have taken place today. Naturally he wants to distract anyone from thinking along those lines. Talking of 'defending our historic liberties' from anti-democratic fanatics is a useful way of doing this.

As for Mr Livingstone's attempt to have his 'Churchill moment', it was a grotesquely self-serving and his words were equally inappropriate and misleading.

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Mr Brown said: "It wasn't until I read about Tony Blair's procedure that I even knew my condition could be treated. I was gi