Free Republic

Thatcher's great ally would have been able to implement her revolution here, says Peter Clarke What-ifs are tiresome. History is only what the victors did. Yet Scotland’s future altered when in 1979 the voters of Glasgow Cathcart rejected Sir Teddy Taylor at a time when Britain was beginning to warm to the dawn of Thatcherism. Taylor, who last week announced he would stand down from parliament, would have been a shoo-in as Margaret Thatcher’s secretary of state for Scotland. In his absence, the Conservative cause became muted and was all but obliterated as successively Younger, Rifkind, Lang and Forsyth were...