Brian and Maggie

Channel 4 account of Walden interviews of Margaret Thatcher and the ERM split.

 

The re enactment of the Thatcher/Lawson/Howe split was poor. It missed the main point that Margaret was right to resist their wish to go into the ERM. When she was finally forced to do so by the replacement Chancellor, John Major, it proved ruinous for the UK economy.

The drama was so inaccurate in lots of annoying detailed ways . She did not talk to senior colleagues from behind a desk and did not make them stand. There were twin armchairs in her drawing room /study with other comfortable chairs in a semi circle. Bernard Ingham was her press Secretary. He did not see people in and out. Advisers did not speak at political events or gatherings of Cabinet colleagues. Alan Walters did add to tensions with Nigel Lawson at the end and was wrong to get into the press with his views. He did not cause the fissure over the ERM which started years earlier when the Treasury and Nigel started shadowing the DM as if we were in the ERM without permission.

I advised her of this and set out how ERM membership would lead to inflation when the pound was rising as you then needed to print too many pounds to sell, and to recession when the pound wanted to go down and you needed to buy. The scheme gave us both, a nasty inflation followed by a worse recession. She understood this and had to fend off the ill judged and dangerous joint Treasury/Foreign Office line. My paper setting out the problem is I am told now released with other government papers for those interested.

48 Comments

  1. Cheshire Girl
    January 31, 2025

    I do intend to watch this programme, but I was highly sceptical when I saw it is on Channel 4. The day they say anything good about the Conservatives, will be a first.
    They were desperate to get a Labour government in, and now they have, and we all have to suffer.

    1. Mike Wilson
      January 31, 2025

      What effect do you think Channel 4 had on the election? Does anyone watch it? 1 person in 5 voted Labour. So, not much of an effect.

      Do you think the 7 million voters who voted Tory in 2019 but who didn’t vote Tory in 2024 were influenced by Channel 4? I don’t. I think they despaired of the Tory governments 2010 – 2024 and just couldn’t bring themselves to vote Tory again. 4.1 million voted Reform. Most of the rest stayed at home.

      1. Mickey Taking
        January 31, 2025

        Spot on, and that frustration will likely remain for years.

    2. Lifelogic
      January 31, 2025

      Indeed but Thatcher failed to resist hard enough. Why too would anyone every appoint John Major who fail maths and nearly all his O levels as Chancellor, against the wise advice of JR and her economic advisor? it was obviously a mad thing to do whatever the rate. So why were so many in the FO and the Treasury for it? Did they all read PPE or similar?

      The again Rachael Reeves has A levels (almost a good as mine) and in reasonable subjects but has not a clue about how to get growth or economics. Show by her joining the Labour Party at 14 was it. Then again Denis Healey (double first Greats) thought 98% top income taxes were a good plan. Osborne went one better with 100%+ incoem tax rates on rents.

      Reply I was her adviser on economics in the middle period

  2. Wanderer
    January 31, 2025

    Presumably a mainstream media drama? Whatever it is, I’ve only heard about it here. It sounds as if the dramatists have taken artistic and ideological liberties.

    It’s lovely to hear the inside story compared to the connected drama.

  3. agricola
    January 31, 2025

    The ” Lovies” never liked Margaret Thatcher so expectations of historical accuracy are misplaced. They are largely of the Islington Left, so don’t waste your money on them.

  4. PeteB
    January 31, 2025

    So Brian and Maggie is historically inaccurate. The BBC’s SAS Rogue Heros is inaccurate, ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office was inaccurate. It appears docu-dramas do not need to stick to the truth, much better to entertain.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 31, 2025

      Did anybody expect a large warning at the start ‘This is a complete work of fiction intended to show actors as real people and some events in wildly inaccurate settings. ‘

      Well, you won’t get one!

    2. Ian B
      January 31, 2025

      @PeteB – the only part of the BBC’s SAS Rogue Heroes that is true, is that the SAS did exist – rest is pure fiction.

  5. Donna
    January 31, 2025

    Didn’t watch it. Google tells me it was a C4 production, so it will have been rubbish like everything else they produce.

    1. M.A.N.
      February 1, 2025

      Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth of the young left wing team putting it together? Complete disdain I would imagine. I watched the original 1989 interview on bbc 3 the same night(?). Why watch a recreation? . She was pretty good Walden was a pain and didn’t let it flow. No wonder other world leaders were in awe, she had a presence no doubt about it, sadly missing nowadays.

  6. formula57
    January 31, 2025

    Today’s title puzzled me at first for I did not know about this drama. (Who is Brian!)

    As for “The drama was so inaccurate in lots of annoying detailed ways” I have never once come across anyone with real knowledge of or expertise about dramatized events who has expressed contentment with how the portrayal is undertaken so, alas, one is left unsurprised that failure afflicts this production.

    I shall certainly seek sight of your paper: I might even send a copy to Sir Starmer lest he is thinking of changing Chancellors.

    1. formula57
      January 31, 2025

      I assume Brian is not the Messiah but a very naughty operative.

      1. David Andrews
        January 31, 2025

        Brian Walden was a former Labour MP who later became a well known and very successful TV interviewer.

        1. ChrisS
          January 31, 2025

          IMHO Brian Walden was the best TV Political journalist of his generation. He may have been a Labour MP, but he showed no fear or favour for his old party.

          His “Weekend World” programme, which was on LWT every Sunday lunchtime, was compulsive viewing in a way that Laura Kuenssberg’s pathetic effort most definitely never will be.

        2. formula57
          January 31, 2025

          @ David Andrews – thank you. I noticed the added reference and recall Walden as a proper journalist.

  7. Peter Wood
    January 31, 2025

    Good Morning,
    You must be fuming… with good reason. Another reason to stop the BBC tax. Our national broadcaster tries to rewrite history again and is not fit for purpose. Where’s the privatisation calls for this public body? Here’s the first step, reduce the BBC tax to £10 per month, about the same as a streaming service, and tell the BBC to live on it, ‘no ifs or buts’.

    Reply This was Channel 4. I repeated my proposals for BBC again on tv this week as published here.

    1. Peter Wood
      January 31, 2025

      Thanks, my mistake, I thought it was the BBC with Steve Coogan. Perhaps that is more accurate?

  8. Roy Grainger
    January 31, 2025

    I have no interest at all in dramas that attempt to recreate real people and recent events, such as this one and The Crown. I remember the original events so there is no interest in watching inaccurate versions of them, they neither inform, educate nor entertain. This particular programme seems to want to trade off the success of Frost Nixon (which I also didn’t watch). I wonder if any Conservative voters were involved in any parts of this production ? Certainly the actors, director and author are all declared Labour supporters and some of them are Corbynites.

  9. Paul Freedman
    January 31, 2025

    I wish you had been Chancellor of the Exchequer John and then onto being PM. With your leadership the country would have been managed properly and it would be a lot wealthier and more confident than it is today.

    1. Lifelogic
      January 31, 2025

      Had the various PMs take JR’s wise advice for 40 year or so we would be far better off and in so very many ways. Rather like Sir John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG Financial Secretary did for Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971.

  10. Bloke
    January 31, 2025

    Margaret Thatcher ought not to have appointed John Major Chancellor, enabling him to work against her. He became a lousy PM, and still spouts waffle and EU nonsense.
    The promotion of his qualification: being a circus performer’s son growing up in working-class Brixton for Conservative Party leadership, was near-equal to that of Saddiq Khan’s dad being a long term bus driver, for Mayor of London.
    Alan Walters was not an MP, able only to advise; not act. He, and SJR with valuable foresight, favoured better choices for UK prosperity.
    No PM is perfect. Thatcher was near-perfect at the time, loyal to whatever was best for the country and its people.
    Keir Starmer is two tiers below backward.

    1. Mike Wilson
      January 31, 2025

      Didn’t Major get the largest number of votes in history?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        January 31, 2025

        Do you mean when Thatcher won the election for him – before we knew him and refused to vote for him dishing him the biggest loss until that loss was trumped by May?
        She was the most extraordinary woman, literally won 4 General Elections on the trot, never defeated by the British electorate as PM. Resilient, totally in control because she had a guiding start. Hampered by the little group of frustrated inferiors who joined together to bring her down. All the H’s – Hurd, Howe and Hestletine – she was forever undermined by Heath too.
        I remember her saying ‘when you are guilty by accusation, that day freedom dies’. Rodney talks of ‘punishment by process’. Who would have believed it? But then along came Trump, and Robinson, and many others… Post Masters etc…

    2. Ian B
      January 31, 2025

      @Bloke – what a time a PM that listened to the electorate, worked for them and with them, above all worked for the Country. Contrast to day when Starmer suggests it is the WEF that he takes works with and takes orders from not the democratic elected Parliament and the People they are said to represent.

  11. Rod Evans
    January 31, 2025

    As I don’t watch terrestrial TV ever and avoid listening to any mainstream news broadcasts. I am not in the slightest bit interested o their productions or indeed surprised by the inaccuracies a program about modern political history would carry.
    It is good to know there are still enough people such as you John, who where actually there to see the history unfold, people who are able to tell us the truth.
    I enjoy a weekly pint with one such individual, someone immortalised as one of the bas-tards by John Major.
    We know all PMs make mistakes, they have advisers they shouldn’t listen to and critics they should. Margaret Thatcher was no different. Having said that, she was head and shoulders above most leaders in her capacity to spot those not good enough to be in government, yet in other areas she had a complete blind spot.

  12. Bryan Harris
    January 31, 2025

    The drama was so inaccurate in lots of annoying detailed ways

    But this is what we would expect from channel 4 or the BBC – It’s how they shift the truth and suggest alternative narratives through innuendos.

    You simply cannot trust MSM TV to be honest – they have an agenda, and honesty doesn’t come into it.

    Whether it is making less of Thatcher or Trump, or other decent figures working for the benefit of all concerned, they bring in their hatchet writers to ensure they are portrayed in a bad light. It’s what they are and what they do.

    We urgently need to get away from the outdated idea that MSM TV are impartial!

  13. glen cullen
    January 31, 2025

    Media rewritting history without challenge ….a bit like climate change

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      January 31, 2025

      Nobody listening…. they are finished.

  14. William Long
    January 31, 2025

    Why does this inaccuracy not surprise me? But I suppose, equally, I wonder what a contemporary would have had to say about any of Shakespeare’s history plays?

  15. Linda Brown
    January 31, 2025

    I did not watch the rubbish because I read Coogan did not like Thatcher and had altered the truth.

  16. Brian Tomkinson
    January 31, 2025

    How about getting a screenwriter and production team to produce a more accurate and informed docudrama of the Thatcher years from your writings?

  17. Ukret123
    January 31, 2025

    I declined to watch this obvious nonsensical propaganda when I read the main actors hated Margaret Thatcher. She helped folk like me become self employed and remember that she encouraged millions to become aspirational plus buying their own home as did our modest host.
    Rather than put up with the “sick man of Europe” I had seriously considered leaving for Australia, NZ or Canada as the news every day was always depressing.
    Like Sir John I find it a travesty that her brave achievements were portrayed as point scoring by these pygmies instead who were probably in kindergarten at the time and now benefit from her and SJR’ s achievements. Thank you indeed!

  18. Robert Miller
    January 31, 2025

    All this needed saying – ERM membership was a complete disaster

  19. Ian B
    January 31, 2025

    Sir John
    Its part of the rot that has trickled into to our society. They call it drama, but most of the time its just sensualism to draw people in – based in inexactitudes from people that were never there. Its easy when people are dead you can make things up. The problem then becomes the lazy media that accept a ‘press release’ as verbatim then they perpetuate it time and time again so after all what is actual a lie, to some becomes to be seen as a truth.

    The Political World has a lot to answer for, it is allowing what they call politics to trickle down to be an acceptable reality in everyday life. Just look at your other observations made today – who thinks we have become a sovereign self-governing nation? Only those that are refusing it to happen and trying to manipulate society against its will.

  20. Ian B
    January 31, 2025

    My understanding at the time was the EU wanted the Pound to euro set obscenely high so as to disadvantage the UK against other member states. Even today it is manipulating reality, the seemingly poorer states finish up funding those with more clout

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      January 31, 2025

      Nobody can set a rate that is accurate for more than a day. That is why we have Markets which trade. Watch the fluctuation in every hour!

  21. Peter Gardner
    January 31, 2025

    Lawson’s big mistake but his tax reforms were excellent and his subsequent work as founder and Chairman of the GWPF was vital. Nobody’s perfect!

  22. Stephen Phillips
    January 31, 2025

    I would be interested to read your paper. Any chance of putting it or a link to it on here please?

    1. Hefner
      January 31, 2025

      discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk
      It must be in Prem 19, then somewhere within Economy.
      But without some idea when those letters to the PM have been written it is the proverbial needle in a haystack. And even with the exact reference (Prem 19/xxx with xxx being the magic number) it might cost £3.50 to read the document (but not all documents have to be paid).

  23. a-tracy
    January 31, 2025

    It’s a good thing you have a blog to correct the record. It would be more frustrating if you weren’t able to speak. You should put this blog post on X:
    Fact check C4’s Brian and Maggie, as noted by a Minister who was there.

  24. Derek
    January 31, 2025

    What a surprise, inaccurate scripts from a lefty channel and fellow of the BBC that taxpayers still fund? It’s a wonder this has not been challenged on the floor of the House. Or is the new Tory opposition not up to the job of protecting the truth about their Party?
    It is most peculiar that both of these channels rely upon British taxpayers to fund them, yet continually seek to bite the hand that feeds them.
    Why are they so tolerated by the Cultural Department who are supposed to keep them in line?
    I know we cannot expect anything from Ofcom whose senior staff is comprised of ex-employees of the BBC.
    That has to be the main reason they regularly try to shut down the true TV channel for promoting balanced discussions, GB News. LOL, It’s out-viewing their pals over at Broadcasting House and that is a crime!

  25. Keith from Leeds
    January 31, 2025

    Why be surprised or upset? Channel 4 and the BBC have been propaganda channels for many years and will never allow anything positive about Mrs Thatcher or the Conservative government.

    PS – Your system is no longer retaining my name and email, so I have to type it in each time. Any chance of getting that fixed?

  26. iain gill
    January 31, 2025

    the full video of Channel 4 news interviewing Jordan Peterson should tell you all you need to know about Channel 4

  27. MBJ
    January 31, 2025

    And you wonder why historical evidence is not accurate..

  28. Will in Hampshire
    February 1, 2025

    Something for the elderly to appreciate this evening, thank you. Our children (and theirs) won’t have the faintest understanding of your article.

  29. mancunius
    February 1, 2025

    Sir John, It puzzled me at the time (late 1980s) and has puzzled me since, why Lady Thatcher seemed so keen on promoting John Major, who showed no evident flair except for a general show of duty and urbanity. She whizzed him through the leading offices of state at supersonic speed (I recall his rapid trans-ministerial Grand National gallop garnered quips from the Opposition in the House at the time). Did he conceal his pro-ERM integrationist leanings, or was she forced willy-nilly to find a figure representing the the EU-leaning Tory parliamentary party demanded? And that just at a time when Tories should have been standing up to the increasingly anti-British bullying of Mitterand and Kohl ganging up on her, instead of which the usual Tory suspects chose that very moment to stick the knife in her back. The British have never recovered their standing in Europe since then.
    Between 1983 and 1988 I heard many Germans (with whom I was working) express their admiration for the way she spoke out for British interests.

    Reply Yes, she thought John was on her side but he was clearly out to replace her, working with the group she called the wets.

    1. Ukret123
      February 1, 2025

      @mancunius Yes it John Major turned out to be another “minor” who cost Britain dearly and paved the way for the New Labour landslide victory in 1997 and the demise of the Conservative Party IMHO.

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