We Need Thatcher's Iron Will To Defeat The Union Militants

Chain smoking feverishly as he lay naked on the floor of his Downing Street office, Britain's top civil servant babbled incoherently about Armageddon.

- Leo McKinstry

It was 1974 and Sir William Armstrong was in the grip of a nervous breakdown, brought on by mounting industrial turmoil and economic crisis.

This extraordinary episode was a symbol of Britain's slide into chaos in the 1970s. Battered by strikes, debts, inflation and mismanagement, the nation was known as "the Sick Man of . As and taxes soared, businesses lost confidence and politicians cowered before the bullying unions.

Sir William recovered and went on to become Chairman of the Midland Bank. But the country was less fortunate.

The decline accelerated, culminating in the Winter of Discontent at the end of the decade, when mass industrial action meant that rubbish piled high in the streets and bodies went unburied.

The shadow of that grim time is beginning to loom over today's society, with the unions flexing their muscles against the backdrop of rising inflation and falling standards of living.

This week the members of the RMT union voted overwhelming in support of a nationwide strike over job losses and pension changes.