Meacher attacks Thatcher

LABOUR MP Michael Meacher launched an attack on Baroness Thatcher as the House of Commons paid tribute to the former prime minister, who died on Monday.

Mr Meacher, MP for Oldham West and Royton spoke during yesterday’s seven-hour debate and accused Baroness Thatcher of embarking on a “scorched earth policy” to destroy her opponents. and of ruining the north of England’s manufacturing industries.

Mr Meacher, a member of the shadow cabinet when Lady Thatcher was Prime Minister, said the textiles industry in Oldham was “wiped out” by her policies, as he accused the former Conservative leader of polarising the country.

He acknowledged that in 1979, when she came to power, Britain was “set on a course that could not go on and demanded radical change”.

But he said Lady Thatcher should have done more to build up new industries in the wake of those left to ruin.

“One should never destroy without building up again and too many industries, too many working–class communities across the north, were laid waste over those years without any alternative and better future to replace what had been lost,” he said.

“Many of those are still decimated today. In Oldham, the textiles industry was wiped out and whole swathes of the country’s finest engineering companies were simply swept away.”

Prime Minister David Cameron praising Lady Thatcher as an “extraordinary leader and an extraordinary woman”, while Labour leader Ed Miliband, speaking from sparsely–populated Opposition benches, hailed her as a “unique and towering figure”.