“[T]he movement for freedom and economic liberty on both sides of the Atlantic has lost one of its leading figures.” That’s how the Institute for Economic Affairs assesses the death this week of John Blundell (1952-2014), who served as IEA’s director general from 1993 to 2009.
A longtime intellectual ally of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Blundell discussed Thatcher’s legacy during an interview with Carolina Journal Radio in May 2013. The following represents the most interesting exchange:
Kokai: … I would suspect that having seen the role that Margaret Thatcher played, you would hope that the Britain of today — the United States of today, Western Europe of today — would adopt a little bit more Thatcher ideas for the types of policy challenges we face today.
Blundell: Yes. I think particularly on the deficit and the debt and on socialized medicine. I think if Margaret were here today on your radio program, she would be more worried about Obamacare than about the deficit. She was able to fix the annual deficit in the British government, and she was able to retire a lot of the debt. But she wasn’t able to take on the nationalized health system at all. And once that gets embedded, it is a really difficult job to change it. So I think if she were here today, she would say beware of Obamacare more than anything else. [Emphasis added.]
Click play below to watch video of the entire interview.
