According to newspaper reports this morning there’s been a huge row between Number 10 and the speaker, John Bercow, over Mrs. Thatcher. Bercow didn’t the recall of parliament or the changing of the parliamentary time-table for next Wednesday – the day of the funeral.
Comments
Ding Dong the witch tops I tunes listing. MGM must be raking it in as they toast MHT.
Following restoration, the foundation persuaded Merkel to lease the property as the official guesthouse of the Germany government with Bush being the first notable guest.
A touch grander than Chequers, we all hope the young Cams are not overawed by their new surroundings.
[Creation Commons licence for photo permitting sharing]
PBers unfortunate enough not to receive an official invitation may sample some of the delights of the castle at cost.
See: http://www.schlosswirt-meseberg.de/
But she is certainly a divisive figure.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9984619/Margaret-Thatcher-This-is-a-state-funeral-and-thats-a-mistake.html
The whole point of deterence is it creates uncertainty....Cameron gave exactly the same answer as his predecessors.....
"Margaret Thatcher deserves a ceremonial funeral with full military honours like the Queen Mother and Princess Diana"
It's quite obviously asking the responder to draw a comparisson between Thatcher and Queen Mother/Diana. Even I'd have to think whether Thatcher really deserved a send off like the lovely Queen Ma and the saintly Diana...
If you asked the question without comparing Fatch to the Queen M and Di I bet you'd get a more neutral answer.
Typically sneaky of The Mirror.
That all said, I agree with Gin that Dave can hardly be blamed for it given that the Labour administration approved the thing.
The system sucks and should be binned forthwith – it's killing the site, as the lack of posts show.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22109759
Does Barroso have the decency to find a similar excuse? Will Gordon Brown be cross checking his engagement book and praying at the same time...
Margaret Thatcher changed Britain for the better: Net agree: +4
Cameron was right to describe MT as greatest British peacetime PM: +5
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/April-Mirror-Tables-Thatcher.pdf
I remember when he wrote that Gordon Brown was going to bring in a new era of honesty and transparency after the Blair years. :^O
So will have your new political hero ed miliband mr Smithson,some of your comments about miliband lately = pass me the sick bag.
;-)
in looking in the Mirror this morning (don't ask - ok it was for the funeral route, as you asked), I noticed they had a picture of a state funeral (as evidenced by the sailors) and not a ceremonial funeral (as would have been evidenced by the presence of King's Tp, RHA) to show which one, according to the Mirror, she shouldn't have.
Confused?
Ding Dong!
What a grand statement to remind us that leaders should lead. The concept of rule by opinion poll is abhorrent.
The constant use of focus groups and the fear of bad opinion polls is killing leadership. Discuss.
Hurst , sounds reasonable to me. I pay £114 per month ( gas and electricity ) for a 4 bed detached up here in the frozen North. Must say I hardly ever look at the bills so no idea how much it is per quarter but it does cover me over the year which seems a bit of a bargain to me..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/11/cyprus-bailout-leaked-debt-analysis-bill
I hope Mike will rid us of this dire system soon. It really is a dreadful piece of software.
"I want to mention three areas where we are still grappling with her legacy, and with which Members on both Front Benches have not managed to come to terms. First, there is the great question of riches. She was not satisfied with the results of her Government, so should we? Secondly, despite all the gains that the market economy has given this country, there are clearly some areas—part of my constituency is one of them—that its powers cannot reach. We have not come up with policies that can move those areas back to full employment. How do we raise demand in those areas specifically, and how do we ensure that the supply side, to which most of us are now committed, can also take effect through our schools?
The third big area is a problem in our country that she thought she had solved but that now appears in a different guise. We have mentioned, even quite properly on the Opposition Benches, that one of her great struggles was to bring the trade unions within the law decided by this House—not the law that they thought they would abide by. I have been perplexed by some of the recent newspaper coverage of her stewardship, much of which has stated that the country was previously ungovernable. It was governable all right, but not from here and not by the Government elected by the people.
What would Mrs Thatcher say about a global economy, part of which she was so responsible for creating, in which great world companies can choose whether or not they pay taxes and whether giving a donation to the Treasury might be an adequate performance of their duties instead? I would be very surprised if she did not see that as a challenge to our authority, and one with which we need to grapple. All three areas are part of the current agenda for our politics, and that is part of her legacy. I wonder whether she, if still in power, would not be tackling that in a more resolute way than we are currently."
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130410/debtext/130410-0001.htm#1304104000318
Thanks SO
Utter twaddle from Peter Oborne.
The Queen made the decision to grant a ceremonial funeral to Lady Thatcher on the advice of Tony Blair, a Labour Prime Minister supported by the Privy Council. This decision was subsequently supported both by Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
There are plenty of precedents for the grant of State Funerals to "divisive" leaders. Sir Edward Carson, the very contentious leader of the Ulster Unionists was given a State Funeral in 1936 as was Field Marshal Earl Haig, the very controversial WWI military leader.
Neither these two were even Prime Ministers. Of the latter, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Palmerston, William Gladstone and Sir Winston Churchill were all given state funerals.
So Oborne is talking utter nonsense by saying that turning Thatcher's funeral into a "state occasion" is a "constitutional innovation".
It is the mark of a civilised society that it honours its glorious dead.
"Less than a month after deal was agreed the bailout bill has risen to €23bn – larger than the size of the Cypriot economy"
Vanilla's working OK for me.
I do find myself having to login with annoying frequency and I have noticed of few funny glitches when you edit posts, but otherwise it seems a big improvement on New Disqus which become completely incomprehensible in the end.
Amazon predator or producer? Trendy Left download Tramp Down The Dirt and Ding Dong The Witch is dead pushing up sales, and profits. Are they unethical tax evaders or have they got to go back for re-education. After the death of The Ironic Lady.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307404/Labour-war-Tony-Blair-launches-strident-attack-Ed-Milibands-retreat-1980s-style-party-protest.html
I will admit,the attack by blair is good news for miliband,especially to the left and labours base support.
Leadership was once defined to me as, "Getting your people to do what their own sense of self-preservation tells them they shouldn't". Which would support your view, finding out what people want to do and then jumping in front shouting, "Follow me", ain't leadership.
On the other hand, lesson 1 on day 1 of the junior NCOs course is "Never give an order unless you are pretty sure it is going to be obeyed".
Like the summer riots, the aftermath of Lady Thatcher's death seems a big political story whilst it is happening, but will rapidly fade from consciousness.
JackW is a given. He was at Wellingtons seond off... He can't miss Thatchers.
Anybody else?
https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak/status/322335113587326976
Instead he goes for a sentence which says neither. I honestly can't see the problem which his reply.
Sorry, Mr. Pole, Haig was not a very controversial military leader in 1928 when his funeral took place. Witness the huge numbers of WW1 veterans who turned out to see the man off.
Haig became controversial later on, starting in the thirties, but the pendulum of opinion has been swinging back over the past twenty years or so as modern historians cut through the crap.
" Other than that no issues other than having to use one that is impossible to remember to get it strong enough to pass."
I changed mine after the initial complex one and it had no problem with a simple one.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/04/thatchers-victories-are-too-old-and-complete-help-cameron
"The problem that poses for the Conservatives is made all the greater by the confluence at the very top of party – incarnate in David Cameron - of the post-Thatcher economic consensus and a pre-Thatcher cultural and social class hierarchy. Cameron, a second-generation Thatcherite with patrician Shire Tory sensibilities and royal relations is about the least plausible candidate you might find to lead a transformative economic, social or political revolution."
And, I might add, Ed Miliband, scion of the North London Marxist elite and Brownian mastermind seems a similarly unlikely transformative leader....
Sir Philip Sidney (1586)
Admiral Robert Blake (1657)
Sir Isaac Newton (1727)
The Viscount Nelson (1806)
The Duke of Wellington (1852)
The Viscount Palmerston (1865)
Lord Napier of Magdala (1890)
The Rt Hon William Gladstone (1898)
The Earl Roberts of Kandahar (1914)
The Earl Haig (1928)
The Lord Carson (1935)
The Rt Hon Sir Winston Churchill (1965)
The Rt Hon Baroness Thatcher (2013)*
*Royal Ceremonial Funeral. All others full State Funerals.
Silly, silly Tories. You just couldn't help it could you - you couldn't let Thatcher's death and funeral be a quiet and dignified affair... you had to pump it up and milk it and use it for one last go at stamping Maggie onto everyone who didn't like her.
I started the week with a fairly positive view of Thatcher's legacy. But the hubris we've seen since has reminded me that the people who built and promoted Thatcherism are a generally unpleasant bunch with utter contempt for people who think differently.
Ultimately, as well as hurting your own polling, you're hurting her final memory, by consigning it to be yet another divisive circus.
Owen Jones tweets: "I see Tony Blair offering Ed Miliband advice. Maybe stick to giving Kazakhstan's dictator advice for the princely sum of $13m a year, Tony?"
Quite right, and so they should. So too does the motto of the army's leadership school (Sandhurst), "Serve to lead".
"Tony Blair can’t escape blame for the debt"
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/tony-blair-cant-escape-blame-for-the-debt/
interesting though - why now to come back with what he knew would be an inflammatory interview? Does he really believe that he is doing the best thing for Labour? Does he want to re-get involved in party politics? Is he somehow a bit miffed at all this "greatest PM ever not T Blair" thing?
Genuinely perplexed....
I started the week with a fairly positive view of Thatcher's legacy.
You could always try Roger's solution.
I don't think TBlair has an uncalculating breath in his body....
If you throw a party for a guest of honour, you don't send them an invoice afterwards for the cost.
Churchill was always going to criticise Haig though. Haig maintained that the only way WW1 could be won was on the Western Front. Churchill was always in WW1, and WW2 come to that, looking for an indirect route that would incur fewer casualties. The tragedy is both men were correct.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/blairs-warning-to-miliband-about-the-policy-abattoir/
After all, banging on about EU and immigration worked so well for them.
Cam on Thatcher: "Times change and diff approaches are needed".
EdM on Blair: "Pol parties hv to move forwards not backwards"
Though in fairness, one left office 23 years ago, the other 6.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22112198
As well as the excellent article in Private Eye a few weeks ago into Stafford, the LRB have devled deeper into the figures. Well worth a read.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n07/paul-taylor/rigging-the-death-rate
He was however a Kent boy.
- Hitler
- Thatcher
- Boob Job
- NHS
- Teacher
- Romany
And yet, its happened. Monkeys writing Hamlet seemed more likely...
Catch him before his last breath, bung him on a hospital trolley, leave him in place for three days in front of assorted onlookers, then get a bunch of porters to drag him to St Paul's Cathedral in the hope that he dies before the service.
Wisely, I understand Lord Attlee declined the offer.
Cameron spent most of his time in opposition tacking to the left. He presented and established himself as a centrist.
Moving to the right now looks fake.
Personally I think they're better off in the centre. But if the Tories are serious about moving to the right and think the election can be won there, they'll need a new leader to do it.
RT @eldahshan: Loving this. "#Qatar wins rights to host Margaret Thatcher funeral" http://www.panarabiaenquirer.com/wordpress/qatar-wins-rights-to-host-margaret-thatcher-funeral/ via @KarlreMarks
You might have expected it to sink in by now for Cammie and Osbrowne that all they and Crosby are doing is retoxifying while helping UKIP. But no, incompetence is still what they are all about.
Just when all those tory councillors are at stake they double down on the stupidity instead of finally letting Crosby off the leash to go after Farage and UKIP. It'll dawn on them eventually. Most likely after the May local elections.
Cheeky cable thief sent text to his mum saying 'WTF I'll see yous in a few days - in a police chase in a van', courtnewsuk.co.uk
One of the best books I've ever read on WW1 is Gordon Corrgan's 'mud, blood and poppycock'. It explodes all sorts of blackaddering myths about the British army in WW1 and Haig in particular.
One of the cleverest point Corrigan makes is that Haig had no precedent whatsoever. He commanded an army many times bigger than anything any Briton had ever commanded before.
Another brilliant point is executions of British servicemen. There were 300 or so, even though there were 3,000 sentences of death by court martial in the field that came across Hague's desk (he had the final say).
He commuted 9 in 10.
So an adopted son of Kent.