Nick Clegg accuses Margaret Thatcher of sowing seeds of financial collapse



Nick Clegg launched an extraordinary attack on Margaret Thatcher's legacy last night - blaming her for sowing the seeds of Britain's financial collapse.

The Liberal Democrat leader blasted the Iron Lady's 'brutal money-above-morality' government and firmly linked it to today's 'battered economy', which has left millions fearing losing their homes and jobs.

Addressing his party's spring conference in Harrogate, he insisted the economic 'false idols' worshipped by the Tories and New Labour over the past two decades had 'turned to dust'.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, left, has linked Margaret Thatcher's 'brutal money-above-morality' government to today's 'battered economy'



Paying scant regard to regulating the City and encouraging a culture of huge bonuses had created the crisis which is currently blighting the UK, he said.

Now, he said, the painstaking task of creating a 'new order' fell to his party.

Mr Clegg, who was educated privately at Westminster School before attending Oxford University, saved his most withering and personal attack for Baroness Thatcher, the Tory leader widely regarded as one of Britain's finest Prime Ministers.

Recalling the 'harsh' 1980s when she was in power, he said: 'The country had been presented with a false choice: inept, statist dogma on the Left, and cut-throat, sink-or-swim materialism on the Right.

Unrest on the picket line at Tilmanstone Colliery in Kent during the miners' strike of 1984

'And when the Right won out, the reality was brutal. I remember very distinctly this sense that we were being told we should all place money above morality, profit ahead of people. That we shouldn't worry about selling out because there was no such thing as society.

'But I, like many people in this room, looked around me and thought, "No, there has to be more to life than this. Justice, fairness, community".

'We weren't ready to give in to that soulless, unforgiving Britain. That dog-eat-dog, get-rich-quick, look-after-number-one Britain. We didn't want to live in Thatcher's Britain.'

He added: 'The false idols of trickle-down economics worshipped by Tories and New Labour alike have turned to dust.



'Constructing a new order, built on compassion, on social mobility, now falls to us.



Nick Clegg has attacked the excesses of the materialist culture that grew in the 1980s under Thatcher

'Resurrecting Britain’s battered economy, this time with fairness at its foundations, now falls to us. That's no small task, but I know we have what it takes.'

Mr Clegg's heavy criticism of Baroness Thatcher contrasts with the tributes paid to her in recent years by Gordon Brown. It came on the 25th anniversary of the miners' strike, when the Thatcher government faced down one of the strongest unions and led the country to an era of prosperity.

His words will be reassuring to activists worried that he has attempted to move the party further to the Right to reassure Middle England voters that the LibDems are no longer out of step with their aspirations.

He is using his second LibDem spring conference as leader to spell out his commitments to boosting cash for childcare and cutting infant class sizes to just 15 pupils.



Mr Clegg also showed the human touch in his speech by referring to the birth last month of his third son, Miguel.



He said his new son had 'energised' him for the political challenges ahead.



He said: 'Despite the exhaustion, despite the mess that engulfs your home, despite the fact you surge from one emotion to the next - from jubilation, to fear, to complete bemusement.



'Despite all that the world suddenly seems so much more straightforward.



'Children, especially your own, make it so simple. They remind you that what's truly important in life can be counted on one hand: well-being, security, happiness, family.'

