'She made this country great again': Cameron leads Thatcher tributes in the Commons but Labour MPs boycott debate
Margaret Thatcher made Britain 'great
again', David Cameron said today as he lead moving Commons tributes to
the former Prime Minister.
MPs and peers have returned from their Easter break for a special debate which could last up to seven-and-a-half hours.
While scores of Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs packed into the government benches, there were several empty rows of Labour benches in the Commons as many of the party's MPs boycotted the tributes.
Mr Cameron hailed Lady Thatcher for overcoming the every challenge to rise from being the daughter of a grocer to leading Britain for more than a decade.
He told MPs: 'They say "cometh the hour, cometh the man", well in 1979 came the hour and came the lady.
'She made the political weather, she made history, and - let this be her epitaph - she made our country great again.'
Labour leader Ed Miliband said she was a 'unique and towering figure' whatever views are held of her while Lib Dem Nick Clegg said it was 'impossible to deny the indelible imprint Margaret Thatcher made on the nation and the wider world'.
Starting the debate, Mr Cameron told MPs: 'In the long history of our parliament, Margaret Thatcher was our first and so far our only woman prime minister.
'She won three elections in a row, serving this country for a longer continuous period than any prime minister for more than 150 years. She defined and she overcame the great challenges of her age and it is right that Parliament has been recalled to mark our respect.
'It is also right that next Wednesday Lady Thatcher's coffin will be draped with the flag that she loved, it will be placed on a gun carriage and taken to St Paul's Cathedral and members of all three services will line the route. This will be a fitting salute to a great prime minister.'
He paid tribute to her determination to face down threats to her life from the IRA, the battle to secure the Falklands and defeat the stranglehold of the unions over Britain's industries.
'Those of us who grew up before Margaret Thatcher was even in Downing Street can sometimes fail to appreciate the thickness of the glass ceiling she broke through - from a grocer's shop in Grantham to the highest office in the land.
'At a time when it was difficult for a woman to enter Parliament, almost inconceivable that one could lead the Conservative Party, and by her own reckoning virtually impossible that a woman could become prime minister, she did all three.'
After a morning dominated by
criticism from Labour MPs that public money was being spent on the
debate, party leader Ed Miliband gave a dignified speech to the Commons.
He paid warm tributes to the former prime minister highlighting a series of policy areas where 'she was right', including the Falklands war and parts of the privatisation programme.
Mr Miliband told the Commons: 'Whatever your view of her, Margaret Thatcher was a unique and towering figure.
'I disagreed with much of what she did but I respect what her death means for many, many people who admired her and I honour her personal achievements.
'On previous occasions to remember the extraordinary prime ministers who have served our nation.
'Today we also remember a prime minister who defined her age.'
Earlier former Labour minister John Healey sparked fury today after accusing Mr
Cameron of ‘hijacking’ Baroness Thatcher’s death and the recall of
Parliament for political gain.
Other left-wingers vowed to stay away, arguing it would be hypocritical to attend without attacking her achievements as Prime Minister.
Former Labour PM Gordon Brown also missed the debate to give a speech in France.
A spokesman said he and wife Sarah would attend Lady Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday.
Up to seven-and-a-half-hours have been set aside for the Commons debate to last until 10pm, unprecedented in modern times.
When Edward Heath died in July 2005, MPs spent 63 minutes paying tributes.
Mr Cameron left Downing Street at lunchtime wearing a navy blue suit and tie, to prepare to lead the nation's official tributes in the Commons chamber.
He posted a comment on Twitter setting the tone he hopes will dominate once the debate begins.
He wrote: 'I will be leading tributes to Lady Thatcher, Britain's greatest peacetime PM, in the House of Commons at 2.30pm.'
Mr Miliband earlier urged his
MPs to
respond to Baroness Thatcher’s death in a respectful way, but he was
defied by left-wing MPs determined to use today’s tributes to
attack her legacy as 11 years in Number 10.
Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair urged critics of Thatcherite policies to ‘show some respect’.
He said: ‘Even if you disagree with someone very strongly, you can still — particularly at the moment of their passing — you should show some respect.
After violent and angry street parties celebrated Baroness Thatcher’s passing, Mr Blair appeared to accept their could be similar scenes after his death.
‘When you decide, you divide. I think she would be pretty philosophical about it, and I hope I will be, too,’ he told BBC Radio Ulster.
Friends of Baroness Thatcher challenged her political critics threatening to boycott Parliament to have the courage of their convictions and debate her achievements in the Commons today.
Parliamentary officials confirmed that MPs will be able to claim up to £3,750 each to return to Westminster.
MPs are allowed to claim up to £3,750 in expenses if they want to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher in Parliament today.
The money can be used by an MP to bring back their whole family early from a holiday overseas.
Or they can claim to return to Westminster and then jet back to their holiday resort.
The decision was announced in an email to all 650 MPs from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Peers are able to claim their £300 daily attendance allowance.
When Parliament was recalled after the summer riots in August 2011, extra costs also included £32,228.56 for extra Hansard staff to record the debates, £5,000 in overtime for Met Police and £6,039 for tour guides.
Foreign Secretary William Hague defended the cost of the debate, and next Wednesday's funeral.
'It's right Parliament meets and commemorates such a leader of historic proportions in our country's history,' he told BBC Breakfast.
'She changed the course of our history and there have been many comments over the last few days from all corners of the political spectrum.
'When it comes to money, the rebate she negotiated for this country from the EU has brought us so far £75 billion - which is twice the size of our annual defence budget.
'I think that puts money in perspective... so I think we can afford to contribute to a funeral.'
Mr Hague said he believed many people on the left's biggest problem with Lady Thatcher was "they could never beat her'.
But left-wing Labour MPs defied their leader's call to be dignified in their response to the former Premier's death.
Mr Healey, a senior Labour minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, condemned the decision to ask MPs to return to Parliament at all.
And in a highly controversial move, he accused Mr Cameron of seeking to use Baroness Thatcher’s death to bolster his own political popularity.
Mr Healey said: ‘He’s wrong to recall Parliament, and wrong to hijack it in this way. I will play no part and I will stay away, with other things to do at home in the constituency.’
He said that in areas like South Yorkshire, where he is MP for Wentworth and Deane, ‘can’t forget. Or forgive’ the closure of coal mines in the 1980s.
‘So many abhorred her government’s actions, and detest her memory. They want to celebrate her death not her life but basic British decency holds people back in public, as it should. You don’t speak ill of the dead at their funeral.’
However, he condemned the decision to ask MPs and peers to return to Parliament today.
Writing for PoliticsHome, he said: ‘Her death could and should have been marked when the Commons returns next week… Parliament is being used today for narrow political gain by the Prime Minister, as a platform for his Party’s ideology not just eulogy.’
Mr Healey claimed Mr Cameron’s tribute to Baroness Thatcher’s achievements, including taking on the unions, privatising industry and rescuing the economy, was ‘partisan, divisive and diminishes the Prime Minister’s Office’.
‘Her impact and influence is indisputable, but her legacy is too bitter to warrant this claim to national mourning.’
Ronnie Campbell, MP for Blyth Valley in Northumberland, told BBC Radio 4 he would 'rather be put in the torture chamber' than attend today's debate.
'Why we’re being recalled at all this expense beggars belief. We could have done it next week. All this this afternoon is to heap praise on Margaret Thatcher. We could have done that next week.'
David Winnick, veteran Labour
MP for Walsall North, insisted it would be ‘absolutely hypocritical if
those of us who were opposed at the time to what occurred – the mass
unemployment, the poverty – were to remain silent when the house is
debating her life’.
He told The Guardian: ‘This will be an opportunity to speak frankly. Obviously when a person dies one regrets it. But what I do regret first and foremost is the immense harm, certainly in the West Midlands where deindustrialisation occurred.
‘Even if it could be argued that some of it was inevitable, the manner in which it was done – the brutal contempt towards those who were innocent victims – was absolutely disgraceful.’
However, Tory MPs insisted Baroness Thatcher would have relished the debate over her legacy.
She famously enjoyed boisterous debate in the Commons chamber, declaring 'I'm enjoying this' during her final appearance at the despatch box after announcing her intention to resign as Prime Minister.
Conor
Burns, a Tory MP who visited Lady Thatcher weekly, said that the views
of her Labour critics did not 'matter much to Margaret when she was
alive... I don’t think they’ll bother her very much now that she’s
dead'.
He told BBC Radio 4: 'I actually think the people who are celebrating her death are actually paying her an incredible tribute. I remember discussing with her a couple of years ago the idea of a state funeral and she was delighted that the concept of just living was annoying the left.
'She always believed that there were two types of people who went into politics. There were those who went into politics to be something and those who went in to do something. Margaret was definitely a doer, and Tony Blair was right, when you decide, you divide, Margaret was a divisive figure, she did do very difficult things.'
Conservative Andrea Leadsom added: 'She never wanted to be a consensus politician. She set out to save Britain and she did it and the fact that, you know, if you want to make an omelette, you’ve got to crack a few eggs and she accepted that fact.
'In order to get to the end goal of turning Britain around, which she did, she had to cause some pain along the way, and she was prepared to do that.'
MPs and peers have returned from their Easter break for a special debate which could last up to seven-and-a-half hours.
While scores of Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs packed into the government benches, there were several empty rows of Labour benches in the Commons as many of the party's MPs boycotted the tributes.
Mr Cameron hailed Lady Thatcher for overcoming the every challenge to rise from being the daughter of a grocer to leading Britain for more than a decade.
He told MPs: 'They say "cometh the hour, cometh the man", well in 1979 came the hour and came the lady.
'She made the political weather, she made history, and - let this be her epitaph - she made our country great again.'
Labour leader Ed Miliband said she was a 'unique and towering figure' whatever views are held of her while Lib Dem Nick Clegg said it was 'impossible to deny the indelible imprint Margaret Thatcher made on the nation and the wider world'.
Starting the debate, Mr Cameron told MPs: 'In the long history of our parliament, Margaret Thatcher was our first and so far our only woman prime minister.
'She won three elections in a row, serving this country for a longer continuous period than any prime minister for more than 150 years. She defined and she overcame the great challenges of her age and it is right that Parliament has been recalled to mark our respect.
'It is also right that next Wednesday Lady Thatcher's coffin will be draped with the flag that she loved, it will be placed on a gun carriage and taken to St Paul's Cathedral and members of all three services will line the route. This will be a fitting salute to a great prime minister.'
He paid tribute to her determination to face down threats to her life from the IRA, the battle to secure the Falklands and defeat the stranglehold of the unions over Britain's industries.
'She made the political weather, she made history, and she made our country great again'
'What she achieved even before her three terms in office was remarkable.
David Cameron
'Those of us who grew up before Margaret Thatcher was even in Downing Street can sometimes fail to appreciate the thickness of the glass ceiling she broke through - from a grocer's shop in Grantham to the highest office in the land.
'At a time when it was difficult for a woman to enter Parliament, almost inconceivable that one could lead the Conservative Party, and by her own reckoning virtually impossible that a woman could become prime minister, she did all three.'
The Prime Minister posted a tweet ahead of the debate in Parliament when MPs and peers will debate Baroness Thatcher's legacy
The government benches were packed with MPs
wanting to speak in the debate, but many of the Labour benches on the
left were empty
VIDEO Watch special session in honour of Baroness Thatcher LIVE here
LIVE: Parliamentary tributes to Baroness Margaret Thatcher
He paid warm tributes to the former prime minister highlighting a series of policy areas where 'she was right', including the Falklands war and parts of the privatisation programme.
'Whatever your view of her, Margaret Thatcher was a unique and towering figure'
But he also said it was important to
reflect where she had been wrong - singling out the closure of mines and
her position on Nelson Mandela and South Africa.
Ed Miliband
Mr Miliband told the Commons: 'Whatever your view of her, Margaret Thatcher was a unique and towering figure.
'I disagreed with much of what she did but I respect what her death means for many, many people who admired her and I honour her personal achievements.
'On previous occasions to remember the extraordinary prime ministers who have served our nation.
'Today we also remember a prime minister who defined her age.'
Labour leader Ed Miliband said Baroness Thatcher was a 'unique and towering figure'
Other left-wingers vowed to stay away, arguing it would be hypocritical to attend without attacking her achievements as Prime Minister.
Former Labour PM Gordon Brown also missed the debate to give a speech in France.
A spokesman said he and wife Sarah would attend Lady Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday.
Up to seven-and-a-half-hours have been set aside for the Commons debate to last until 10pm, unprecedented in modern times.
When Edward Heath died in July 2005, MPs spent 63 minutes paying tributes.
Mr Cameron left Downing Street at lunchtime wearing a navy blue suit and tie, to prepare to lead the nation's official tributes in the Commons chamber.
He posted a comment on Twitter setting the tone he hopes will dominate once the debate begins.
He wrote: 'I will be leading tributes to Lady Thatcher, Britain's greatest peacetime PM, in the House of Commons at 2.30pm.'
Up to seven-and-a-half hours has been set aside
for the debate in the Commons, much longer than the hour usually used to
pay tribute to former Prime Ministers
Mr Cameron spoke of his honour at welcoming Baroness Thatcher to Number 10 shortly after he became PM
Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair urged critics of Thatcherite policies to ‘show some respect’.
He said: ‘Even if you disagree with someone very strongly, you can still — particularly at the moment of their passing — you should show some respect.
After violent and angry street parties celebrated Baroness Thatcher’s passing, Mr Blair appeared to accept their could be similar scenes after his death.
‘When you decide, you divide. I think she would be pretty philosophical about it, and I hope I will be, too,’ he told BBC Radio Ulster.
Friends of Baroness Thatcher challenged her political critics threatening to boycott Parliament to have the courage of their convictions and debate her achievements in the Commons today.
Parliamentary officials confirmed that MPs will be able to claim up to £3,750 each to return to Westminster.
MPs and peers will return from their Easter
recess for several hours of debate on Baroness Thatcher's legacy as one
of Britain's most influential politicians
MPS CAN CLAIM £3,750 EACH TO TAKE PART IN THATCHER TRIBUTE
MPs are allowed to claim up to £3,750 in expenses if they want to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher in Parliament today.The money can be used by an MP to bring back their whole family early from a holiday overseas.
Or they can claim to return to Westminster and then jet back to their holiday resort.
The decision was announced in an email to all 650 MPs from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Peers are able to claim their £300 daily attendance allowance.
When Parliament was recalled after the summer riots in August 2011, extra costs also included £32,228.56 for extra Hansard staff to record the debates, £5,000 in overtime for Met Police and £6,039 for tour guides.
'It's right Parliament meets and commemorates such a leader of historic proportions in our country's history,' he told BBC Breakfast.
'She changed the course of our history and there have been many comments over the last few days from all corners of the political spectrum.
'When it comes to money, the rebate she negotiated for this country from the EU has brought us so far £75 billion - which is twice the size of our annual defence budget.
'I think that puts money in perspective... so I think we can afford to contribute to a funeral.'
Mr Hague said he believed many people on the left's biggest problem with Lady Thatcher was "they could never beat her'.
But left-wing Labour MPs defied their leader's call to be dignified in their response to the former Premier's death.
Mr Healey, a senior Labour minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, condemned the decision to ask MPs to return to Parliament at all.
And in a highly controversial move, he accused Mr Cameron of seeking to use Baroness Thatcher’s death to bolster his own political popularity.
Mr Healey said: ‘He’s wrong to recall Parliament, and wrong to hijack it in this way. I will play no part and I will stay away, with other things to do at home in the constituency.’
He said that in areas like South Yorkshire, where he is MP for Wentworth and Deane, ‘can’t forget. Or forgive’ the closure of coal mines in the 1980s.
‘So many abhorred her government’s actions, and detest her memory. They want to celebrate her death not her life but basic British decency holds people back in public, as it should. You don’t speak ill of the dead at their funeral.’
Former Labour minister John Healey (left)
accused Mr Cameron of hijacking Parliament's recall for political gain
while Labour MP Ronnie Campbell said he would rather be in a 'torture
chamber' than join the debate
Writing for PoliticsHome, he said: ‘Her death could and should have been marked when the Commons returns next week… Parliament is being used today for narrow political gain by the Prime Minister, as a platform for his Party’s ideology not just eulogy.’
Mr Healey claimed Mr Cameron’s tribute to Baroness Thatcher’s achievements, including taking on the unions, privatising industry and rescuing the economy, was ‘partisan, divisive and diminishes the Prime Minister’s Office’.
‘Her impact and influence is indisputable, but her legacy is too bitter to warrant this claim to national mourning.’
Ronnie Campbell, MP for Blyth Valley in Northumberland, told BBC Radio 4 he would 'rather be put in the torture chamber' than attend today's debate.
'Why we’re being recalled at all this expense beggars belief. We could have done it next week. All this this afternoon is to heap praise on Margaret Thatcher. We could have done that next week.'
MPs arriving for the debate will pass the bronze
statue of Baroness Thatcher by sculptor Antony Dufort in the member's
lobby outside the Commons chamber
The Union Flag was lowered to half mast over
Portcullis House on Monday to mark the death of the former Conservative
Prime Minister
He told The Guardian: ‘This will be an opportunity to speak frankly. Obviously when a person dies one regrets it. But what I do regret first and foremost is the immense harm, certainly in the West Midlands where deindustrialisation occurred.
‘Even if it could be argued that some of it was inevitable, the manner in which it was done – the brutal contempt towards those who were innocent victims – was absolutely disgraceful.’
However, Tory MPs insisted Baroness Thatcher would have relished the debate over her legacy.
She famously enjoyed boisterous debate in the Commons chamber, declaring 'I'm enjoying this' during her final appearance at the despatch box after announcing her intention to resign as Prime Minister.
Write caption here
He told BBC Radio 4: 'I actually think the people who are celebrating her death are actually paying her an incredible tribute. I remember discussing with her a couple of years ago the idea of a state funeral and she was delighted that the concept of just living was annoying the left.
'She always believed that there were two types of people who went into politics. There were those who went into politics to be something and those who went in to do something. Margaret was definitely a doer, and Tony Blair was right, when you decide, you divide, Margaret was a divisive figure, she did do very difficult things.'
Conservative Andrea Leadsom added: 'She never wanted to be a consensus politician. She set out to save Britain and she did it and the fact that, you know, if you want to make an omelette, you’ve got to crack a few eggs and she accepted that fact.
'In order to get to the end goal of turning Britain around, which she did, she had to cause some pain along the way, and she was prepared to do that.'