The abject hypocrisy of Harriet Harman and her ilk knows no bounds. Following the death of Lady Thatcher, Labour’s deputy leader paid tribute in a tweet, saying: ‘First woman PM, a towering figure.’
Yet it was only a few years ago that Sister Harriet omitted all mention of Maggie from a major document she had commissioned to salute the role of women in politics over the previous 100 years.
Less ‘towering figures’, though, were included, among whom were Labour’s Baroness Uddin (the first Muslim woman in the Lords, who was later suspended from the chamber for wrongly claiming more than £125,000 of expenses); the world’s first female head of government (Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960); Britain’s first woman councillor (Reina Emily Lawrence, who was elected in Camden in 1907); and Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP.
The Left can't bear the fact that Lady Thatcher was elected PM three times by voters while Labour has never had a woman leaderThe only reference to Lady Thatcher was: ‘1979: UK’s first woman Prime Minister.’ But, pointedly, there was no mention of Lady Thatcher’s name
Most embarrassingly, officials at Harman’s Equalities Office, which produced the ‘female milestones’ list, were forced to amend it in 2009 in order to add Maggie’s name.
Wrong witch, EdThis is proof yet again that feminists such as Ms Harman tend to celebrate only the achievement of women on the Left.
They can’t bear the fact that Lady Thatcher was elected PM three times by voters while Labour, despite its devotion to patronising stunts such as all-women shortlists, has never had a woman leader.
Wrong witch, EdWith unfortunate timing, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, asked how he spends his spare time, told the London Evening Standard: ‘I’ve been to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria five times in the past three years. I can’t wait to go again.’ The musical tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West — a parallel novel to The Wizard Of Oz which spawned the anti-Thatcher hate anthem, Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead.
The other thatcher At No 10Naturally, there have been countless reruns of the footage of a tearful Lady Thatcher leaving Downing Street for the last time as Prime Minister.
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Mr Roberts, from Clacton-on-Sea, was contacted by the then PM’s aides, who told him: ‘At the request of Margaret Thatcher, can one of the male figures be made into a thatcher?’
A confused Mr Roberts assumed Lady T mischievously wanted her own likeness in the frieze. But what she really wanted was a different thatcher — one who makes and repairs cottage roofs.
So, there remains a thatcher (albeit one with a small ‘t’) in No 10 Downing Street after all.
The Metropolitan Police, which has been forced to sell its HQ at Scotland Yard so as to meet budget cuts and which is also closing police stations across London, last year spent £1.5 million on chauffeur-driven cars for senior officers. Why on earth can’t they use the Tube like everyone else?
How times change! The latest list of trade unions, held by the Certification Officer (the public body for unions and employers’ associations), reveals that the National Union of Mineworkers has ceased to exist in North Wales, North Stafford and the Midlands. But there is a Pret-A-Manger staff union. Nowadays, we have a burgeoning coffee industry, rather than a coal one.
John Major had many faults, but I’ve come across criticism of him that I’ve never heard before. Leftie novelist Julian Barnes tells the New Statesman that the former Tory Prime Minister should be ‘boiled in oil throughout eternity for selling off the railways’.
Quote of the week: Conor Burns, Tory MP and a stalwart Thatcher supporter, recalls: ‘I remember once telling her about the TUC selling “Thatcher death party packs”. She remarked that the fact that some people still felt so strongly about her more than 20 years after she left Downing Street was a tribute — a recognition that she had done something in politics.’
