Tom Austin wrote:You could never be 'bottom-up' Keith, for the simple reason - clearly evidenced above, that straight away you wish to talk about yourself.
Kinnock, Smith, Thatcher, Blair, Brown;you are character obsessed. Just as Starkey thinks history is all about Kings and Queens, you display your thinking as Politics as all about Party and Party Leaders. Who else but yourself or BarryW could take the Top-down stance?
Wrong - totally wrong. It is your socialism that is top-down with the setting of rules and control by various levels of government including the EU and councils plus quangoes. It is you who support high levels of taxes, objecting to people doing what is legal to minimise their tax liabilities. It is you who objects to individualism and sneers at individual aspiration.
By contrast I want small government. Government that taxes us a lot less, spends a lot less and leaves us alone to get on with our lives. I put individuals and their aspiration first and foremost.
Then there are the public figures you refer to:
Where you are wrong is in respect of Mrs T. She was was bottom up in most respects, privatisation and her drive to open up equity ownership and employee buy-outs introduced real public ownership of business instead of the debilitating mirage of state ownership. She brought in right to buy enabling people to own their own homes who never before thought they would be able to. She got rid of a lot of senseless controls and rules that were introduced as 'temporary' war measures and were well past their sell-by-date. OK, she was not perfect in this respect, she did introduced rate capping and did nothing to break up the monstrosity of the NHS among many other central institutions. But - she did more to reduce the dead hand of government over our lives than anyone previously. The ironic thing was that to bring about 'bottom up' change it need 'top down; change to do it.
As for Starkey, you do him a disservice. Kings, queens, plus war and invasion - these are the 'attention grabbing' bits, the movers and shakers of history and as such are a good starting point to get people interested. But, of course, there is a lot more to it than that.
