Margaret Thatcher dead: They'd have to put 30ft-high security railings around any statue
The sickening orgy of Maggie adulation on the Tory benches was too much to stomach. Dodgy Dave’s MPs puked tractor buckets of flattery
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I was once asked if I fancied my chances of becoming Labour MP for my home town of Normanton, a former mining constituency in West Yorkshire.
It was a serious move but nothing came of it, which was probably wise.I’d have been in a dilemma about the Commons debate on Baroness Thatcher.To attend or not to attend? To speak out or to keep shtum?Ed Miliband asked his MPs to turn up but behave respectfully.His predecessor, Thatcher-lite Tony Blair, demanded “some respect” for the Iron Lady. What, the same kind of respect she showed the miners? The respect she showed for Wapping printworkers sacked by her pet media mogul, Rupert Murdoch?I couldn’t have gone there and remained silent about the reign of Lady Cruella, so I’d have joined the boycott mounted by Labour MPs and said what I wanted to say outside the privilege of Parliament.The sickening orgy of Maggie adulation on the Tory benches was too much to stomach. Talk about laying it on with a trowel – Dodgy Dave’s MPs puked tractor buckets of flattery.
I didn’t join in the “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Dead! Dead! Dead!” chorus that greeted her passing away.Nor did I dance up and down the working men’s club. But I do understand, and sympathise with, the explosion of feeling that followed the death (in the Ritz, where else?) of the Tory politician who devastated their lives and wrecked their communities. Thirty years of pent-up anger just blew.It wasn’t necessary to hold the special session of Parliament this week. Nothing said on Wednesday couldn’t have been said on Monday, when MPs return from their Easter recess.So why bring back hundreds of peers on £300-a-day attendance allowance, and MPs at great expense from all corners of the UK? To promote the Thatcher myth, that’s why.This seven-hour Tory propaganda jamboree cost the taxpayer £2million-plus.Now there is talk of renaming Port Stanley in the Falklands, Port Margaret. The authorities could probably get away with that. But just let them try giving Heathrow a new name of Baroness Thatcher Airport, like John F Kennedy in the US, and the fur will fly.
As for putting her statue on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square, forget it. For some, it would become a place of pilgrimage, for others, a focal point for rage. They’d have to put 30ft-high railings round it, rather defeating the object but neatly encapsulating the divisive nature of her years in powerThe debate over Thatcher’s legacy will thunder down the years long after her £10million tate-style funeral. But some of us have made up our minds, without advice from Labour grandees. I know who I respect, and they won’t be wet-eyed when her military cortege winds through the capital next week.
The sickening orgy of Maggie adulation on the Tory benches was too much to stomach. Dodgy Dave’s MPs puked tractor buckets of flattery
. I was once asked if I fancied my chances of becoming Labour MP for my home town of Normanton, a former mining constituency in West Yorkshire.
It was a serious move but nothing came of it, which was probably wise.I’d have been in a dilemma about the Commons debate on Baroness Thatcher.To attend or not to attend? To speak out or to keep shtum?Ed Miliband asked his MPs to turn up but behave respectfully.His predecessor, Thatcher-lite Tony Blair, demanded “some respect” for the Iron Lady. What, the same kind of respect she showed the miners? The respect she showed for Wapping printworkers sacked by her pet media mogul, Rupert Murdoch?I couldn’t have gone there and remained silent about the reign of Lady Cruella, so I’d have joined the boycott mounted by Labour MPs and said what I wanted to say outside the privilege of Parliament.The sickening orgy of Maggie adulation on the Tory benches was too much to stomach. Talk about laying it on with a trowel – Dodgy Dave’s MPs puked tractor buckets of flattery.
I didn’t join in the “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Dead! Dead! Dead!” chorus that greeted her passing away.Nor did I dance up and down the working men’s club. But I do understand, and sympathise with, the explosion of feeling that followed the death (in the Ritz, where else?) of the Tory politician who devastated their lives and wrecked their communities. Thirty years of pent-up anger just blew.It wasn’t necessary to hold the special session of Parliament this week. Nothing said on Wednesday couldn’t have been said on Monday, when MPs return from their Easter recess.So why bring back hundreds of peers on £300-a-day attendance allowance, and MPs at great expense from all corners of the UK? To promote the Thatcher myth, that’s why.This seven-hour Tory propaganda jamboree cost the taxpayer £2million-plus.Now there is talk of renaming Port Stanley in the Falklands, Port Margaret. The authorities could probably get away with that. But just let them try giving Heathrow a new name of Baroness Thatcher Airport, like John F Kennedy in the US, and the fur will fly.
As for putting her statue on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square, forget it. For some, it would become a place of pilgrimage, for others, a focal point for rage. They’d have to put 30ft-high railings round it, rather defeating the object but neatly encapsulating the divisive nature of her years in powerThe debate over Thatcher’s legacy will thunder down the years long after her £10million tate-style funeral. But some of us have made up our minds, without advice from Labour grandees. I know who I respect, and they won’t be wet-eyed when her military cortege winds through the capital next week.