Chapter 1204: Minister Thatcher
“The preservation of Northern Rhodesia, Newfoundland, alone is close to a million and a half square kilometers. Add the mainland and we’re at no more of a disadvantage than the French. Algeria has less available land than we do.”
At the Whitehall gathering, Makins shook his glass and talked about the major breakthrough that had just been announced. Namely the impact of the Rhodesian Crown Lands, not entirely without misgivings of course, “It’s just that being alone overseas makes control a challenge.”
“Control is not shouting slogans, the first thing is to make sure that the local economy is much better than the neighboring economy, then there is the problem of the political structure, it’s like Newfoundland without an army, Northern Rhodesia without a parliament.”
Alan Wilson took a sip of whiskey and said unhurriedly, “With the population of Northern Rhodesia, there’s no need to worry about it in twenty or thirty years, hundreds of thousands of people independent of what? Not to mention that independence is also a landlocked country. Surrounded by black countries.”
“Speaking of which, there’s no ideas over in Southern Rhodesia?” Makins inquired, if there was, Alan Wilson must have known about it, he guessed correctly, but even if he did, there was nothing he could do about it.
“The bottom line is that the Malayan colony, Newfoundland, Rhodesia can’t help much.” Alan Wilson was also a little bitter, “Newfoundland has nothing to support its industry except fishing. Northern Rhodesia is landlocked, besides mining and farming, the help to Britain is also limited, Britain can maintain a relative supremacy, or depends on whether Malaya is safe or not.”
Britain had lost British India, which had once served as a market, but as long as Malaya remained, it was still close to two populous nations. What’s more, Southeast Asia was itself quite populous, and the basis for supporting Britain’s international standing was still there.
It was time to think about dumping the less valuable colonies and focusing on maintaining a few key areas. Allen Wilson could have extended the model of multi-monarchical rule to the UAE after Uganda’s independence, and merged the now scattered emirates.
The Middle East is still important, and British military power still cannot be withdrawn from there. This is also to prevent an oil crisis.
After all, Britain is still on the Arab side, unlike the US strategy of Israel and Iran.
The situation in the Middle East is inextricably linked to Saudi Arabia, which everyone knows is the world’s top oil producer and has good relations with the United States.
Saudi Arabia’s pro-US relationship can be traced back to decades ago, because British Petroleum started oil exploration in the Middle East from Iran, and at that time, the investment was huge, so it did not pay attention to Saudi Arabia’s request for oil exploration.
At that time, Britain was the Sunset Empire, the Middle East is the world of Britain, the exploration of the remaining oil-producing bottom of the concentration of cover not exploration, is conducive to controlling the output of oil. But the U.S. picked up the slack and established a good relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is the country with the lowest cost of oil exploration in the Middle East, and the second lowest is the United Arab Emirates, which is a merger of a bunch of emirates. The UAE was still in the hands of the British, and the British army stayed in the Persian Gulf to prevent the Saudis from getting bigger.
Alan Wilson helped his wife, Libya, Algeria, the Gulf of Guinea, Malaya and the British North Sea to look for oil. Not because the Mountbatten Group can not stand in the Middle East, but to prove that oil is not a scarce resource.
To prevent the collapse of the Breston Woods system, the U.S. used its relationship with Saudi Arabia to hold European countries hostage. It will not be easy for the US to tie up the oil when the share of the Middle Eastern oil producers is dispersed.
The United States to persuade the sheikhs of the Middle East is easy, but the suppression of Europe’s Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and Britain, France, Germany and Italy have controlled the oil-producing areas can not be so easy, these oil areas are exploiting, the oil crisis even if the outbreak of the oil crisis, Europe can not be in the Middle East with the oil to put down the oil crisis.
“By the way, Britain and the United States summit, you participate in it?” Makins suddenly had this question, “It seems that you and the Americans have a good relationship, and you will soon be the secretary general of the cabinet, you should establish a good relationship with the United States.”
“I only have good relations with a part of America.” Alan Wilson sighed, “There’s not much of a relationship with the American Democratic Party, and I’m also preparing information for the Anglo-American summit.”
As for what kind of information, it is nothing more than the record of how many massacres the United States did in the Korean War, how many women were raped in Japan for so many years, and not just Japan and Korea either, but also South Vietnam, Iran, the previous Anglo-American partnership to take out Mossadegh, the attempted take out of Lumumba, and so on.
If Kennedy wanted to start from a position of strength, Allen Wilson did a good job of settling scores with the Americans. Britain was a colonial empire, the US just didn’t have the name of a colonial empire and did all the things that colonial empires do.
“I don’t know what America’s purpose is, but it seems to be that they want both Britain and France to have a unified command of their nuclear weapons.”
“That must be one of the purposes.” Alan Wilson continued after hearing that, “Maybe they also want to set up military bases in the UK, hoping that the American aviation industry won’t compete with the American aviation industry.”
“The Americans are treating us like a colony?” Makins gasped at the sound of that, “They’re out of their minds.”
“I don’t know, I’m just guessing.” Allen Wilson said this shutting his mouth, his guesses, of course, had been made into a report and sent to Prime Minister Aidan.
Anyway, there were a couple of things going on at the moment, the first being that Britain had paid off its wartime debts please.
The second is that Britain has resisted pressure to establish a trinity of nuclear strikes. Without the debt being pinched by the Americans, and with nuclear weapons of its own, it should not bow down and surrender without being held hostage to American technology.
But it also depends on what price the United States to open, there is a price for everything in this world, if you are not satisfied, that is, you have to add money.
Maybe the U.S. can really offer a price that Britain can’t refuse? Although Alan Wilson’s ordinary mind is unable to think of what price can be opened.
On this day, there was one thing that surprised Alan Wilson, the Aidan government appointed a new Secretary of State for Education, and the former Secretary of State for Education, Macmillan, really went to be the honorary chancellor of the University of Oxford.
The new Secretary of State for Education was not a cabinet minister, but it was surprising enough, at least Alan Wilson thought so, because this was a minister he knew, better than anyone else, Margaret Thatcher, who was now Secretary Thatcher.
Although Mrs. Thatcher had become an MP three years ago, there were hundreds of Conservative MPs, and it wasn’t that worthwhile, but being a minister, even without being in the Cabinet, was different.
“Won’t appointing a woman as Education Secretary bring her one-sided emotions into the education system?”
In front of Norman Brooke, Alan Wilson expressed his misgivings, or rather prejudices.
“It’s a bit younger, but aren’t you young too. Politicians are actually a little younger than the average age of senior civil servants in Whitehall.” Norman Brooke wondered how it was that his favored successor didn’t seem to like the new Education Secretary very much, having had previous problems.
“The point is that she is a woman, and our view of women is not laced with personal prejudice, but no means no. They are too emotional and delay making accurate judgments.”
Alan Wilson denied having a problem with Margaret Thatcher, it was merely a youthful encounter, not a problem at all, and he was sure that the great female Prime Minister would not care about that kind of triviality.
But the first time he saw Margaret Thatcher into the political center of the United Kingdom, he just could not help but want to compare the chatter.
Think he so many years, in order to British labor, not dare to say how much contribution, but also called is exhaustive, do not dare to have a hint of slack, to today also did the Cabinet Deputy Secretary General, has not been promoted to the authority of the supreme.
A woman did not see what contribution to the country, and now become a minister? It made sense for him to be unbalanced.
But unbalanced to unbalanced, Alan Wilson, after a short period of reflection, decided to give this new minister a chance, after all, in the stall of the upcoming takeover of Whitehall, he still has to have contact with the Secretary of State for Education in the future.
Norman Brooke is happy to see this kind of scene, he hopes that the future secretary-general of the cabinet can have more contact with the Conservative Party or the Labour Party politicians, and help to maintain the interests of Whitehall.
Unbeknownst to the Supreme Authority at the moment, his chosen future Cabinet Secretary General has a more complicated relationship with the newly appointed Secretary of State for Education, which is by no means something to be commented on in a few words.
Dependent on the training of the movie queens who were on equal footing with his wife, Alan Wilson had nothing to be ashamed of, and, in a sort of celebration of the new minister, came to express his welcome to the Secretary of State for Education.
“The Rt. Hon. Permanent Secretary, or Rt. Hon. Deputy Cabinet Secretary, thank you for coming.” Mrs. Thatcher was stunned, but quickly expressed her welcome saying, “I’ve only just taken up my post and I still need the help of civil servants.”
“What a thing for a minister to say, we are but humble social commons holding the fruit of your thoughtfulness.”
Alan Wilson said with a smile on his face, “I’m also unfamiliar with many things in the Ministry of Education, in fact, just like the minister, I’m also in the middle of learning from scratch, so I hope the minister can familiarize himself with the work as soon as possible.”
“I will!” Mrs. Thatcher looked as if she was going to implement the grand blueprint right away, and leapt forward to say, “Your Excellency the Under-Secretary-General, I may need more help from you in the future.”
“Absolutely no problem, I personally very much look forward to being the support behind the minister.” Alan Wilson nodded solemnly, “If there is anything you need, you can call me at any time.”
The two men’s conversation had a rather peculiar atmosphere, and although they maintained a certain distance, it was as if it wasn’t the case. Of course the Ministry of Education’s uninformed eaters didn’t realize this at this time.
The blessing of the disaster, Allen Wilson or frankly face the reality, decided to first observe and observe, maybe everything will not happen, the two are able to do each other.
Washington sent back a message, hoping that the Anglo-American summit was held in Nassau to discuss the special relationship between Britain and the United States on the basis of a sincere solidarity to face major challenges on multiple levels.