Margaret thatcher

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Vladimir Putin meets the Munchkins

Late on Friday my editor at the Observer called and asked me to dash off a few words on what was wrong with the Mail and some Conservative MPs demanding that the BBC ban ‘Ding, dong the witch is dead’, a Munchkin chorus, from The Wizard of Oz. I was stuck on a train to Glasgow, but how could I resist? The partially successful attempt to stop the BBC playing a clip from a 1939 children’s film is one of the most surreal cases of censorship I have seen. Right wingers were not demanding that the BBC blacklist the song because it was pornographic or libellous. The lyrics the merry

Monday

Steerpike

US Senate strangely silent over Margaret Thatcher

In deference to Lady Thatcher’s immense popularity across the Pond, the US House of Representatives paid tribute to her. But the US Senate has been oddly reluctant to follow suit. Sources in Washington tell Mr Steerpike that a Republican resolution is ‘on hold’ because Democrat majority leader Harry Reid, with the help of a Senator Schumer, is blocking the move. This is poor show, as a quick history lesson will prove. US senators were slow to authorise President Reagan’s attack on the late and unlamented ‘Mad Dog’ of the Middle East. But the Gipper wasn’t worried because the Iron Lady allowed the assault to be launched from these shores. That’s

James Forsyth

Once civil servants have praised one Prime Minister, they must praise them all

Sir Jeremy Heywood and Sir Bob Kerslake have penned a civil service tribute to Margaret Thatcher in today’s Telegraph. They laud her as the ‘best kind of boss.’ They are full of praise for her habit of producing home-cooked shepherd pie for civil servants working late, a hint—perhaps—to the current occupant of Downing Street. But I have to say that the whole thing makes me slightly queasy. These two men place a huge value on civil service neutrality but applauding her for the fact the ‘civil service was modernised’ on her watch does seem to be, or risks being seen, as a political statement. While their warm words about how

Sunday

James Forsyth

Grant Shapps on the Tories and Thatcher

It is one of the paradoxes of modern British politics that in the post-war era the power and hold of political parties have declined and our system has become more presidential. But the two most electorally successful leaders of this era have both been deposed by their respective parties. This has created problems for both parties, as today’s Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil demonstrated. After John Reid had been on to discuss Tony Blair’s comments on Ed Miliband, Grant Shapps was up to be questioned on Margaret Thatcher’s legacy for the Tories. Shapps was reluctant to declare that the Tories are a Thatcherite party. Trying to suggest that it is

Sebastian Payne

No battle at Trafalgar in the name of Margaret Thatcher

Ever since the Poll Tax riots and Margaret Thatcher’s exit from Downing Street, the Iron Lady’s most fervent opponents have been talking about how they’d descend on Trafalgar Square the first Saturday after her death. Although a washout only in the literal sense, last night’s ‘celebration’ to mark the end of Thatcherism was nothing like the carnage of the 1990 protest. The crowd consisted of the usual few troublemakers, bemused observers, hurt miners and the anti-everything brigade. At the gathering’s peak (~7:30pm) roughly 2,000 seemed to be present: Like the impromptu Brixton party, on which I dropped in earlier this week, many of the attendants were simply there to mess about and

Saturday

James Forsyth

Where are today’s titanic Cabinet battles?

Reading Norman Fowler’s recollections of the Thatcher years in the Telegraph, whose coverage this week has been simply superb, is to be reminded of how much debate there was in her Cabinet. Take Fowler’s account of the pre-Budget Cabinet in 1981: “Jim Prior described the proposals as ‘disastrous’, adding that they would do nothing for growth and send unemployment figures above three million. He was supported by the so-called economic ‘wets’, such as Ian Gilmour and Peter Walker, who on this occasion were joined by Francis Pym and Christopher Soames. Even Keith Joseph had his doubts as he argued for more private investment in public industries. Seldom can a Chancellor

Dalibor Rohac

What Margaret Thatcher did for Eastern Europe

When Václav Havel first visited the United Kingdom as Czechoslovak President in March 1990, Margaret Thatcher hosted a dinner in his honour at 10 Downing Street. By then, Havel’s team, populated partly by chain-smoking dissidents, had been in active politics for only a couple of months. The Prime Minister did not hesitate to use the opportunity to coach the group of unlikely Czechoslovak leaders. ‘She was very direct in giving us advice about economic transition, about what we should and should not be doing,’ remembers Havel’s former press secretary, Michael Žantovský, who is currently serving as the Czech Ambassador in London. As last week’s street parties in Glasgow, Liverpool and

Rod Liddle

Adolescent metro liberals dance on Thatcher’s grave while her real enemies are respectful

I was up in Mansfield on Thursday, interviewing retired miners for a film on the good old days of 1985, UDM v NUM and so on. The miners who stayed with the NUM in Nottinghamshire were, as you might guess, very militant indeed and very left wing. They still are. I asked one of them, off camera, what he thought of the whole Thatcher funeral business – there can’t be a group of people in Britain who more painfully copped her wrath, regardless of whether you think the strike was right or wrong. ‘I won’t be wearing a black tie,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s wrong, isn’t it, to revel in

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

For 79p a download you can outrage the Establishment!

During the period when Ireland  had its own sort of censorship, a version of the Vatican’s Index of Forbidden Books, there was an ugly rush by publishers and writers to get their books onto it. The novelist Flann O’Brien used to complain that the chances of literary success for a book that hadn’t been banned were very slim. The lesson seems not to have been learned by some of Lady Thatcher’s friends, the ones who are urging the BBC not to broadcast ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ if it gets to the top of the charts. For some reason it’s been doing awfully well since her death. Headlines in

Fraser Nelson

Is UKIP posing as the new party of the British working class?

How seriously should we take Nigel Farage? He’s an exceptional politician but when UKIP did so well at Eastleigh I suspected they may have peaked. I went along to test my theory at a UKIP rally in Worcester last week, expecting to find a few hardline Eurosceptics huddled together in a room and I wondered how the audience would compare with that of the old BNP rallies. What I found was quite different: it was mobbed, Farage spoke very well – speaking about housing, unemployment, school places – essentially, UKIP is trying to reposition as a patriotic party of the working class. I write about this in my Telegraph column

Thursday

Toby Young

Margaret Thatcher vs the intelligentsia

On a warm summer evening in 1986, the crème-de-la-crème of London’s literary establishment met at Antonia Fraser’s house in Holland Park to discuss how they could bring about the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. Among their number were Harold Pinter, Ian McEwan, John Mortimer, David Hare, Margaret Drabble, Michael Holroyd, Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie, who referred to Thatcher in The Satanic Verses as ‘Mrs Torture’. With characteristic lack of modesty, they called themselves the 20 June Group — a reference to the plot to assassinate Hitler that was hatched on 20 July 1944. ‘We have a precise agenda and we’re going to meet again and again until they break all

Barry Humphries

Diary - 11 April 2013

Whenever feminists have complained in my presence about neglect of female high-achievers, other than rock singers and courtesans, I always like to mention brilliant Margaret Thatcher. It always makes them furious. They can’t bear to think of her as one of the most successful women of the 20th century. I had afternoon tea with her and Denis once in their chintzy flat at No. 10, where she expressed a great interest in Rupert Murdoch, whom she rather admired. My father-in-law, Stephen Spender, was also a Maggie fan and once, after he had delivered a speech about Henry Moore at Westminster Abbey, she repeated the whole speech back to him at

Charles Moore

The Spectator's Notes | 11 April 2013

It is strange how we are never ready for events which are, in principle, certain. The media have prepared for Margaret Thatcher’s death for years, and yet there was a rushed, improvised quality to much of the coverage when she actually did die. We have a curious habit of all saying the same thing, and feeling comforted by that, when really it is our job to say as many different things as possible. The BBC, which Mrs Thatcher, and even more Denis, detested, has been straining itself to be fair, but fairly bursting with frustration in the attempt. The way for it to express its subliminal opposition to her is

The Spectator

Mrs T’s unfinished business

Soon after Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative party she came for lunch at The Spectator and our then proprietor, Henry Keswick, wanted to offer his congratulations — and his advice. It was time to crush the trades unions, he told her. ‘Mr Keswick,’ she replied. ‘You have spent the past 14 years in Hong Kong, where such things may be doable. I have spent them in Britain, where things are very different.’ She was advocating a simple principle: practicality comes before ideology. The only point in fighting battles is to win them. Her victories were so decisive and spectacular that it is possible — as we have

James Forsyth

Thatcher knew the Tories had to be the anti-establishment party. Does David Cameron?

What lessons can today’s Tories learn from Margaret Thatcher is one of Westminster’s discussion points this week. In terms of detailed policy prescriptions, not that much: current circumstances are too different from those of 1979. But they can learn an awful lot from the spirit of Thatcherism. One thing that Thatcher grasped was that deference was dead, that the Tory party couldn’t be the political wing of the establisment. Instead, it needed to be an anti-establishment force: siding with the citizen against over-mighty government, rejecting corporatist stitch-ups and redistributing power. As I say in the politics column this week, today’s Number 10 could learn a lot from this. It has,

Sebastian Payne

The difficult legacy of Margaret Thatcher in Sunderland

Margaret Thatcher remains a truly hated figure in the north of England. The 1984 Miners’ Strike and retrenchment of the shipyards had a phenomenal social impact which has pretty much written off a generation (or more) of voters for the Conservative party. Sunderland makes a good case study of the challenges faced by Tories in the wake of Thatcherism. As this anecdote from a Tory activist on the stump highlights, voters in the neck of those woods seem unable to forgive her: “I met a man in his mid 60s from Morton. He started to call Thatcher all the names under the sun for no apparent reason — I had

Charles Moore

The 'Thatcher should quit' splash that never was

When Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher did not have a great deal to do with The Spectator. She was not hostile, but slightly suspicious and perplexed. ‘This is Charles Moore,’ I remember her saying edgily as she introduced me to the Turkish prime minister at a reception. ‘He supports us some of the time.’ After the sinking of theBelgrano in May 1982, Ferdinand Mount, then the political editor, wrote a column deploring the incident and calling for a ceasefire. The then editor Alexander Chancellor, who had incited the piece when Ferdy had really wanted to fall silent altogether, put it all over the cover. Ferdy’s was an act of near-suicidal courage, as he was just

Jamie Reed

'We insisted on making it easier for her': How the Left helped Thatcher succeed

The eulogies and condemnation following Baroness Thatcher’s death are coalescing into two clear truths. The first is that her legacy will always be contested: the nationwide reaction to Margaret Thatcher’s death – if viewed honestly – is one of embittered polarisation. The second is that the British Left must always recognise the pivotal role it played in enabling Thatcher to succeed and prosecute a political programme that damaged so many of the people that progressive politics exists to serve. The lessons of Labour’s failures during the dominant Thatcher period are as relevant today as they were during her time in office. The British Left fostered, enabled and created Thatcher’s premiership.

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Francis Maude and Liz Truss on Margaret Thatcher

How does Margaret Thatcher’s legacy impact Tory MPs today? This week’s Spectator magazine contains a 16-page supplement considering the premiership of Baroness Thatcher, both high and low points. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Francis Maude debates whether Thatcher was the original moderniser. One of the few ministers to serve under both Thatcher and David Cameron, Maude offers his insights into what Thatcher thought of the present-day Tory party, why she actually avoided some particular battles, and how she is seen by the Prime Minister, who Maude suggests is completing the Thatcherite project. The Children and Families minister Liz Truss — a self-proclaimed Thatcherite — also joins us to

James Forsyth

The Tory modernisers are Margaret Thatcher's true heirs

Margaret Thatcher’s death has inevitably prompted intense reflection among Tories about what lessons the party should learn from her time in office. ‘We must finish the job’ is the refrain on the lips of Thatcherite ministers, and there are more of those today than there were a year ago. The experience of office has had a radicalising effect on the Cameroons. To be sure, today’s circumstances are not the same as those of 1979 or ’89. Her exact policy prescription is not what is required. This is something that Thatcher, a politician who relished fresh thinking, would have appreciated. But what the party does need is the spirit of Thatcherism,