Chapter 1541: A war of words

The wholesale denial of post-war consensus politics, and the policies of the Labor Party in power for the long term, is naturally stirring to say, but not so easy to do.

It is also true that the current policies, while being pursued, are not so easy. Even the ministers she appoints are not necessarily all supporters.

For example, this four billion pounds to cut spending on the idea, but also thanks to this budget cuts do not include the army and police, otherwise it can be said to offend everyone.

In addition to the violent organs of the original budget or even increased, housing, education, energy, employment, transportation, foreign aid and industry have been cut drastically.

This can make Alan Wilson busy, he has been meeting with various departments for 17 or 18 days in a row, explaining Margaret Thatcher’s policy, “civil servants have to think for the country, if I do not cut who cut?”

“Easy for you to say, Secretary General. It’s four billion pounds, not forty million, covering a multitude of departments.” Frank almost slapped his eucalyptus, “Something has to be done about it.”

“Oh Frank, if you can’t handle the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why would you trust me to handle the Prime Minister?”

Alan Wilson asked a direct rhetorical question and then began to praise himself, “I’m not trying to think of something, the Price Control Committee was then sent to Rhodesia to continue its work, and not everyone wanted to go. It’s so hard to handle a department of a few thousand people, let alone others.”

“Secretary-General, the international situation makes diplomacy extremely important.” Wick opened his mouth to defend his department, seeking to stay out of the middle of this cutback.

“Well, Wick, I agree with that. The international situation is not a calm one, the British Empire has interests all over the world, and I told Sir Norman as much back when I was in your position.” Alan Wilson reached out and shook his hand a bit and said, “But the importance of diplomacy at the moment cannot be overemphasized.”

Makins was just about to open his mouth when Allen Wilson stopped him directly with a look, “Sir Sheffield, don’t come out of the woodwork, the Ministry of Defense isn’t even on the list of spending cuts.”

As an old subordinate, Dixon also wanted to fight for the interests of his own department, Allen Wilson was not just so nice to talk, “The Ministry of Education is inevitably going to make sacrifices this time, in fact, we all know that those very prestigious scholars and professors, in fact, are the best to deal with, but a group of kneeling and swinging roles, to say too much may be a little offended. But when it really comes to drastic reforms, who will really take them seriously?”

It took three years for the Xiu Cai to rebel, can you curse people to death? What’s more, Margaret Thatcher is not afraid of scolding at all. Don’t forget that she used to be the Secretary of State for Education, and in order to save money, she abolished the breakfast milk given to students in the United Kingdom.

The Ministry of Education should take into account the overall situation, although Alan Wilson very sympathetic to the situation of the Ministry of Education, but in the practical point of view, the Ministry of Education should be used to be sacrificed, not only Alan Wilson think so, other departments of the permanent undersecretary also think so.

Feel free to curse the Prime Minister if you want to, it just so happens that those who work in education are expected to do so at this point, Alan Wilson then turned to the Home Office, “Brewster, be prepared. The Ministry of the Interior is the department with the largest number of people, although the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are also known as the three major ministries, the number of people in these two departments combined cannot be compared to the Ministry of the Interior, your department has such a large number of people and expenses that you understand it without me saying it.”

“I understand the reasoning as well, but when things don’t happen to you, of course you can pretend to be fine.” Brewster laughed bitterly, “It’s precisely because of the department’s large number of people that more people are offended when it really moves.”

“Why don’t we start with the BBC, I heard that the BBC is producing a TV series that seems to be mocking us. As for the democratic principles and neutral stance, we are definitely not going to pressurize in any way, but yeah, the funding cuts are a decision made by the Prime Minister, and there’s nothing wrong with us firmly supporting it.”

Alan Wilson smirked, “In fact, the BBC should really get with the times, the British Empire gives them everything they need, and as a result, they come up with cheesy jokes to treat us with? Britain’s media influence is deteriorating, there must be something wrong there.”

Brexit froze, then nodded solemnly, “Perhaps we are supposed to make the BBC understand that the government doesn’t give grants for nothing, and they should come up with some achievements in return.”

The permanent undersecretary of the Ministry of Employment, is the former ambassador to France, George Blake, this diamond in the performance of the duties of the ambassador to France, was Alan Wilson thrown to the Ministry of Employment, on the one hand that department is relatively unimportant, the other side is also for Mrs. Thatcher to come to power to make preparations.

Now is clearly the time, Margaret Thatcher is now pushing for privatization reforms, employment data is simply not among the important reference data of the current government, employment rate is not important, the Department of Employment should naturally be in the current cuts in the public budget.

And the Ministry of Employment has the same treatment as the Ministry of Housing, public housing are to be privatized and sold, the Ministry of Housing’s work pressure is also greatly reduced, so also in the budget cuts.

Alan Wilson looked at Frank and asked, “How much difference is there? Can we meet the requirements of the cabinet side?”

“There is still eight hundred million pounds.” Frank answered after a simple calculation, “Do we want each department to share the remaining share equally?”

“In that case, the Prosperity Foundation and the Commonwealth Foundation will share a portion, and Malaya and Xiangjiang will subscribe a certain share themselves, and that will be that.” Alan Wilson let out a long breath and said, “Meeting adjourned.”

Finally the budget cuts were taken care of, and Alan Wilson went straight to 10 Downing Street to brief the Prime Minister on the issue, and Margaret Thatcher said meaningfully, “Sir, it seems that Whitehall still has a lot of potential.”

“If the Prime Minister thinks it’s easy, it’s probably not true.” Alan Wilson said with a heavy heart, “It is an offending job and departments are understandably evasive. It’s fair to say that Whitehall has done everything it can, it’s just that the current inflation problem can’t always be solved by berating the previous government.”

What can be said about this approach of blaming the previous government, some people can use it some can’t, it’s like the king of understanding can use it and the king of sleep can’t.

Alan Wilson believed that Margaret Thatcher was much better than those Labour politicians in terms of ruthlessness, but the dumping trick wouldn’t work if there were no results for a long time.

“Sir, I can’t solve all of Britain’s problems right away either, it always takes time.” Mrs. Thatcher all of a sudden looked like she had been stepped on her tail, wanting to prove her ability in front of this man, “It is me who can solve the problems, not you, otherwise you wouldn’t have done nothing for so many years.”

Sensing the extra emotion, Alan Wilson stared into the Prime Minister’s eyes and took two deep breaths, “Prime Minister, could you please not bring your personal feelings into your work.”

In the view of the supreme authority, Mrs. Thatcher obviously remembered the past of the rocket ride, it had been so many years, the two of them were already the Secretary General of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister, can’t they be a little more open-minded?

If it is not the end of the day to arrive, on the atmosphere just now, the two may be inevitable a war of words, in the end, who is for the country to pay a lot of issues to make sense.

Cabinet Secretary is never off duty on time, but does not mean that he has forgotten the differences with the Prime Minister, at this time Alan Wilson felt, should be on the future of the United Kingdom and the woman to talk about it. What kind of future was Margaret Thatcher asking for?

The next day came to ten Downing Street Alan Wilson, before entering the prime minister’s office, directly instructed to let people do not disturb the conversation between himself and the prime minister, if there is a minister to find the prime minister to call first.

From international issues, domestic issues, military diplomacy, the two men had a discussion, Alan Wilson was very serious, “I have always wanted Britain to become a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse, and now what. My Prime Minister, you go to war against inefficient industry, which I am very much in favor of, but never seem to indicate for the country what they should do after putting workers out of work?”

“Train for the job, should the country keep supporting them?” Mrs. Thatcher replied without thinking, “Britain is not the Soviet Union.”

“What kind of job training, and if you don’t think British industry is enough to bring prosperity to Britain, isn’t there at least a place for unemployed workers to go?” Alan Wilson threw his hands up in the air, “Yet you have done nothing, unemployment is unemployment. Nor have you found industries for Britain that can provide employment. Are the unemployed workers to be kept on the dole?”

Alan Wilson’s question went unanswered, apparently this never occurred to Mrs. Thatcher, who historically took the spending cuts and sold off the state-owned enterprises to collect all the money collected and turned it into dole money for the unemployed workers.

Thatcher’s reforms did little to reduce spending, except to turn public spending into unemployment benefits to be handed out.

Alan Wilson didn’t have even a hint of pity in the face of the Prime Minister’s silence, “What’s the point of your attack on the Soviet Union for orchestrating a coup in Afghanistan, other than to be a pain in the ass? Hmm?”

Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power coincided with the Soviet Union plotting a coup in Afghanistan. Mrs. Thatcher didn’t just bash it, but had to take economic sanctions against the Soviet Union.

Germany and France don’t impose economic sanctions, and on top of that the Carter administration hasn’t said a word, so why is Britain jumping so high?

“You go, I don’t want to see you.” Mrs. Thatcher, faced with Alan Wilson’s accusation, directly threw out words that were greatly out of line.

The words just fell, the phone on the table rang, did not wait for Thatcher to answer the phone, Alan Wilson directly pick up the microphone to listen to a moment, and then said, “Let the Financial Secretary wait a while, I did not talk to the Prime Minister.” Putting the microphone back in place, Alan Wilson met the prime minister’s shocked gaze.