Margaret Thatcher cannot be blamed for the North-South divide in this country - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: M P Laycock, West Court , Hollins Hall, Killing hall.
Paul Andrews (July 13) is right to praise Margaret Thatcher for reducing power of trades unions, winning the Falklands war and negotiating an EU rebate.
He is, however, mistaken in saying that she "created the north/south divide". Journalists were writing about "the north/south divide" years before Edward Heath appointed her as a token woman in his cabinet.
Similarly, she did not wreck, or intend to wreck, Britain's heavy industries. He claims that she did this by cutting grants and subsidies. Why were these subsidies ever necessary?
Decline of our heavy industries had two main causes. One was foreign competition; another was trades union militancy.
Day by day, during the 1960s and 1970s we read of one strike after another in ship building, in steel making, in mining, in engineering, in car manufacturing, on railways or some other industry.
Is it any wonder that so many yards, mines and factories closed?
Mr Andrews invites Conservatives to "ditch" Mrs Thatcher. Is that not what our leaders have been doing for many years?