Five hours in to what must rank as the most pointless political assembly ever staged in this great crucible of protest, it was time for the big moment – the torching of the Thatcher effigy. And then – oops. Just one problem, comrades. The lady was not for burning.
The downpour had soaked the giant papier-mâché puppet and its mop of orange hair (fashioned from a bundle of irredeemably bourgeois Sainsbury’s plastic bags).
Urged on by choruses of ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Dead! Dead! Dead!’, the executioners did their best. After about quarter of an hour, a few Sainsbury’s bags started to smoulder and then fizzled out.
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Insensitivity: An effigy of Lady Thatcher is paraded through Trafalgar Square during a party held after the death of the former British Prime Minister
‘F****** bitch,’ growled a youth in combat trousers and ginger dreadlocks who can hardly have been out of nappies when Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street. Typical. You go to all the trouble of laying on a party and the guest of honour doesn’t even have the common courtesy to ignite.
In the end, the mob lost patience. They trampled their disobliging effigy to a squelching pulp and went back to dancing and drinking into the early hours of yesterday.
More... Football's weekend of shame continues as rioting breaks out on streets of Newcastle Speaker's wife Sally Bercow to snub Thatcher's funeral because 'last time I looked, it's the 21st century and I don't have to accompany my husband' Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead fails to hit number one in singles chart but BBC still plays offending lyricsIn recent days, people of every age, background and political allegiance have been unpleasantly surprised by some of the reactions to the death of Lady Thatcher. This weekend’s ‘Thatcher Death Party’ in London’s Trafalgar Square was the worst yet.
Youngsters brought to the 'death party' were heard chanting anti-Thatcher songsVarious hard-Left inadequates had been big-talking about it for more than a decade, planning a fiesta of vengeance on the first Saturday after her death, tinged with the promise of a re-run of the poll tax riot which helped precipitate her resignation.
The police weren’t taking any chances, with convoys of minibuses parked in the backstreets. Wisely, though, commanding officers had given the order for flat hats, not helmets. You could sense the disappointment among the element in the crowd who were itching for a spot of confrontation.
Busybodies in high-vis jackets marked ‘Legal Observer’ rushed around in search of an atrocity, frantically scribbling police numbers on clipboards. The cops stood back with the patronising insouciance of teachers at a school disco. Party poopers!
Occasionally, there was a scuffle. One brave class warrior, face shielded by a scarf, kept popping out from behind his mates and kicking one police officer on the backside. Finally, the policeman turned round, pointed and shouted: ‘Stop kicking me!’
He did. Compared to the poll tax mayhem of 1990, this was handbags. By close of play, 16 arrests had been reported.
The BBC put the numbers in attendance at 3,000, ITV and Sky less than half that. If you included the film crews, photographers, bloggers, Saturday night passers-by, baffled tourists and large numbers of London University students having a laugh – ‘Let’s start a conga!’ bawled one plummy voice – then the whole lot must indeed have been in the low thousands.
The genuine partygoers – a thousand max – seemed to split evenly between those wanting a party and those wanting to engage in earnest denunciation of the She-Lucifer of Grantham.
A handful had gathered under a National Union of Mineworkers banner, retelling war stories from the Eighties. But this was largely a gathering of what might be called Thatcher’s children.
The age span of those arrested was 18 to 44. As far as this lot were concerned, the ‘witch’ can be blamed for pretty much anything unpleasant over the past 30 years or so.
Sick celebration: The drinking and dancing went on until the early hours‘Look at the disgusting poverty around us,’ bawled Jess Bailey, dangling a Thatcher doll from a noose. ‘I can’t get a decent home for my family because of her.’ Ms Bailey said she had been eight when Mrs Thatcher came to power and ‘destroyed my life’.
As she spoke, a well-refreshed male friend started doing something disgusting to the doll. ‘You should show some respect for the dead,’ said a middle-aged tourist with a Spanish accent, finally unable to contain his shock.
‘She never showed no respect to me,’ spluttered a furious Ms Bailey, appalled anyone should be speaking good of the dead.
Up on the balcony of the National Gallery, a not wholly sober lady in a green ballgown teased police by dancing on the outside of the railings. Suddenly, insanely, she dived into the crowd from 20ft up. Fortunately, they caught her.
She turned out to be 39-year-old harpist Rosie Nobbs. Explaining her antipathy, she said: ‘I was a milk monitor and thought it was my fault that the milk stopped coming. I had a responsibility and she took it away from me.
