The greatest mistake

dsquared

"And the 1948 centralised structure of the NHS (the high watermark of Stalinist planning)" hmmm, I think some people would probably suggest that the Sputnik was almost as great an achievement, and others would perhaps quibble that the Trans-Siberian railway was more authentically Stalinist, but I see his point.

Ray

With its consequences still yet to be fully realised, another great mistake will surely be prove to be the destruction of the British coal industry by Major government. Granted it was the militancy of Arthur Scargill et al that first persuaded Margaret Thatcher against relying on coal for power generation. However, the wholesale closure programme initiated by Michael Heseltine in 1992/3 was not only a cruel stab-in-the-back for those moderate miners who had stood up to Scargill (and which allowed him to crow "I told you so"), but was a desperately short-sighted reaction to the low oil and gas prices of the time. With Vladimir Putin's fingers now fondling our throat, I fear we will soon rue the day we ever forsook this God-given natural resource and instead placed our energy security at the tender mercy of Russian gas barons and half-baked 'eco-friendly' windmills.

CG

I think you are unfair to Neville Chamberlain. He had very little room for manoeuvre and faced opposiiton to war not just from his own party, but from the labour movement, public opinin and the Dominions. No PM could have taken us to war before 1939 faced with that. I also agree with henry Kissingr that if Htler had been stopped when he invaded the Rhineland, historians would still be arguing whethr he was just a German patriot or a madman bent on world domination. The knowledge of what he really was was dearly bought, but can't be used against Chamberlain in hindsight. If he had know then what we know now, he (and the rest of the political class) would certainly have acted differently.

john moran

the english reformation

Mark Brightman

The NHS is a good one: rememeber that thinking was that spending would FALL as the population got healthier ! ( believe this was an arguement of Bevan) instead of becoming a bottomless pit of ever rising demand and a sacred cow of politics about which certain things can never ber suggested