Reuters/London
Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged to consider abandoning Liverpool to “managed decline” after riots erupted in the city in 1981, newly released government papers showed yesterday.
Senior ministers warned her that it might be a waste to pour money into the “stony gro und” of Merseyside after the decline of its heavy industry led to high unemployment and social unrest.
In some of the worst inner city riots of the last century in Britain, nearly 500 police officers were injured and at least 70 buildings severely damaged during nine days of violence in the port city.
At a time of public cuts after a severe recession, former chancellor Geoffrey Howe said the government must not “over-commit scarce resources to Liverpool”, despite calls from other ministers to regenerate old industrial towns.
“I cannot help feeling that the option of managed decline is one which we should not forget altogether,” Howe wrote in a letter to Thatcher, according to papers released by the National Archives, adding: “We must not expend all our limited resources in trying to make water flow uphill.”
Thatcher sent a senior minister – environment secretary Michael Heseltine – to find out what had gone wrong in the once mighty port that boomed during the Industrial Revolution.
Heseltine said that the idea of abandoning the city that produced the Beatles “never got any traction”.
Instead, he tried to encourage private sector investment to regenerate the area.
“I simply wouldn’t countenance that you could say that (in) one of England’s great cities, a world city, we’re going to manage decline here,” he told BBC radio. “That would simply be unthinkable.”
Speaking to the BBC, Howe said he did not remember discussing the option of managing Liverpool’s decline.
“I don’t recall how that argument got into the discussion at all. It certainly doesn’t sound very considerate,” Howe said.
Commentators noted parallels between today’s Britain and the the one discussed in the government papers. Rioters clashed with police in several English cities this summer, the economy is once again on the brink of recession and another royal wedding offered some light relief.
Thatcher’s press secretary wrote to the prime minister after the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981, saying: “The triumph of the royal wedding has been a national tonic.”

Files reveal the Iron Lady’s expenses fears, offering to pay for her own ironing board
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher offered to buy her own ironing board after being appalled at the refurbishment costs for her official residence when she was elected, new files showed yesterday.
In a row reminiscent of the expenses scandal that rocked British politics in 2009, the Iron Lady acted after details were leaked to the media of the £1,836 cost of refitting Number 10 Downing Street after she took office in 1979.
Adjusted for inflation, this is the equivalent of about £7,250 in today’s money (about $11,200).
On a memo accompanying details of the refurbishment, an aide to Thatcher wrote that some of the costs were “impossible to believe”, to which she replied: “So do I! I could use my own (linen) and my own crockery.”
In a separate note, she wrote: “I will pay for the ironing board and other things. We’ve sufficient linen for the one bedroom we use. The rest can go back into stock. MT.”
The notes, revealed as part of a mass release of government documents from the National Archives, also show Thatcher’s concern that her expenses could be used by her opponents.