Tuesday, 23 April 2019

What will Theresa May be remembered for?

• Tory Prime Ministers Benjamin Disraeli and Theresa May - centuries apart.

 Over Easter this year, I visited Hughenden Manor, an imposing Victorian mansion, located near High Wycombe, that was the country house of the Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

• Jon Danzig outside Hughenden Manor, the country home of Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli
Disraeli was British Prime Minister in 1868 and then from 1874 to 1880.

In one of the glass cabinets in the mansion is a sepia coloured document listing some of the remarkable and radical reforms instigated by Disraeli:

  • FACTORY ACT – reducing factory workers’ days to ten hours, and six hours on a Saturday.
  • CHIMNEY SWEEPERS ACT – to stop child labour and prohibiting any person under the age of 21 being compelled to ascend a chimney for sweeping.
  • PUBLIC HEALTH ACT – to ensure that all new residential constructions will include running water and an internal drainage system. Also, that every public health authority must have a medical officer and a sanitary inspector, to ensure laws on food, housing, water and hygiene are carried out.

 In addition, Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was responsible for the The Representation of the People Act 1867, that enabled working class men in England and Wales to vote for the first time. 
Before the Act, only one million of the seven million adult males in England and Wales could vote; the Act immediately doubled that number.
(However, women had to wait for the next century before they were given the right to vote.)
Of course, Disraeli wasn’t all good, despite his reforms. 
He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire; maybe considered an achievement then, but today, hardly looked on with nostalgia (unless you are an imperialist and colonist).
But Disraeli’s reforms were remarkable, and shortly after his death in 1881, his political rival, William Gladstone, the Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, suggested building a statue in his honour.
So, by comparison, what will today’s Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May, be remembered for in future history books? 
Certainly not any radical and remarkable reforms that helped to enhance and safeguard the lives of ordinary people.
Mrs May will likely only be remembered for not delivering Brexit, or else, for delivering a Brexit that nobody actually voted for, and that would see the sharp decline of Britain’s fortunes. 
As Home Secretary, she will be remembered for introducing a policy of ‘hostility to migrants’ that she ensured carried on when she moved into 10 Downing Street.
And she will be remembered as the Home Secretary and Prime Minister who wanted to scrap our Human Rights Act and replace it with a watered down ‘Bill of Rights’.
And her predecessor, the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron?
He will be remembered for imposing on the country a referendum, not for the benefit of the country, but simply to try and resolve a festering internal battle in his party. 
Then, when he lost, he’ll be remembered for running away, and hiding in a shepherd’s hut in in his garden.
Anything else? Yes. 
He’ll be remembered for instigating HS2 – the so-called High Speed 2 railway project, promising to deliver faster train speeds from London to the north of England. 
It was his pet project, costing tens of billions of pounds, which he sanctioned, whilst at the same time imposing severe austerity measures on the country, deeply hurting the lives of ordinary people, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of them would have to use food banks.
Now, there’s talk of scrapping HS2, because even though it’s already cost billions, nobody really cares about getting to Birmingham from London 20 minutes quicker – they would prefer more frequent, more comfortable, less expensive, higher quality train services instead.
And now there’s talk of scrapping Brexit, because even though it’s already cost billions, nobody fully realised that leaving the EU would cause yet more austerity, more poverty and more people needing to use food banks.
Compare the beneficial reforms of just one Conservative Prime Minister of the 19th Century, with the calamitous, ruinous and disastrous actions of the only two Conservative Prime Ministers (so far) of this millennium.
• Jon Danzig with a statue of Disraeli
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Other articles by Jon Danzig:
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