Today’s debates in Parliament about Baroness Thatcher were supposed to be a tribute to the first female Prime Minister. If you were looking for the most faithful rendition of this, you should have been sitting in the House of Lords, not the Commons this afternoon. In the Other Place, the debate is always rather more civilised and measured, though it has grown rather rowdier in recent years. But today the speeches painted a fascinating picture of Margaret Thatcher, not least because many of them came from those who worked with or in opposition to her when she was in power. Some were notable by their silence: Lord Howe arrived with notes, but left without speaking. Lord Heseltine was nowhere to be seen. The Chamber was packed to begin with: the Tory benches crammed to bursting, the Labour benches nearly full.
The most powerful speech came from Lord Tebbit, who appeared to struggle rather sincerely with emotion, sighing heavily as he told peers that his great regret was, because of the commitments he had made to his wife (who was left permanently disabled by the Brighton bombing), he left her government and did not return as a minister when she asked.
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