I refer to Kevin Rafferty's article ("Britain's economy labours in the shadow of Thatcher's none-too-splendid legacy", April 20).
Britain's burdens today are the result of Tony Blair's and Gordon Brown's 13 years, not those of Margaret Thatcher.
Theirs is the legacy of financial crisis, blown-out public finances, welfare dependency, a fragmented union, failed foreign adventures, broken borders, a broken military and the Eurobabble that Britain now labours under.
The British economy is not "still in decline", relative to the date of her arrival, nor is the pound, nor is manufacturing (still about the same percentage of the economy as then and as the US today), and the increase in the trade deficit is the product of money printing and zero interest rates which she would have abhorred. Thank goodness for being able to devalue. The City of London was an ossified cartel and its opening was a huge boon to British industry and created hundreds of thousand of new jobs.
The "fat cat" thing came later, under Blair and Brown, as the city financed their huge expansion in government patronage and spending.
Blair and Brown were left a full treasury, a strike-free, humming economy and the lowest participation of the state in the economy since the 1930s.
