It has been called “a state funeral on the sly”, and Wednesday’s £10 million-worth of ceremonies for Baroness Thatcher has even been decried by a senior columnist in the Daily Torygraph.
Pass the sick bag, Alice…
What is becoming increasingly clear is that David Cameron, with his Conservative party trailing by 10 per cent in opinion polls, seems determined to milk public sympathy for the death of an old lady and general ignorance of the history of the 1980s, in a desperate effort for his party’s political gain.
This weekend, Croydon Tory party members have even been urged to line the streets of central London for the procession, a manipulative stunt that is worthy of Pyongyang.
What began as undertones of politicisation of the death of the Blessed Margaret has become more blatant as the week has progressed.
Why else would Cameron recall parliament, at considerable unnecessary public expense, for “tributes” to be paid to Thatcher, and therefore by default, to his Conservative party?
When Sir Winston Churchill died, the party leaders said their respectful bits, and that was it, all over in less than an hour. Yet last week, Cameron indulged in a saccharine-sweet seven-hour love-in of a Conservative leader who was so unpopular among her MP colleagues that by the end of her term that she was ousted by her own cabinet.
Rather than speak ill of the dead, many Labour MPs opted to stay away on Wednesday. Woe betide anyone who dared utter anything other than praise of the dear departed leader. Thank goodness, then, for Glenda – whose speech has received more than 1 million visits on YouTube in a matter of a few days.
The anti-Thatcher protest in Trafalgar Square yesterday, not coming to a TV screen near you any time soon
The utter hypocrisy over Thatcher’s death, and life, from the Conservative party this week has reached Orwellian levels of news management, and has translated elsewhere.
The BBC, cowed by allegations from the Daily Wail of its “left-wing bias” (What? With Nick Robinson as political editor? And with former Tory party chairman Fat Pang as the BBC Trust’s chairman? Seriously?? Puhleez!), has not only decided to pervert the week’s Chart Show over Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead, but they have distorted their news values by failing to report an anti-Thatcher mass protest in Trafalgar Square yesterday.
It is often claimed that Thatcher herself requested not to have a state funeral. If any such request was made, it will have been done in the sure knowledge that for a state funeral to be granted requires parliamentary approval. Would that really have been forthcoming?
In a typically trenchant piece on Thursday, the Torygraph‘s Peter Oborne wrote: “The official line from Buckingham Palace and Downing Street is that Margaret Thatcher is not being granted a state funeral… If something looks, smells and tastes like a state funeral, then it is reasonable to conclude that it is one. The truth is that Lady Thatcher is getting very similar treatment to Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 or the Queen Mother in 2002.”
A state funeral ought to be just that: a state occasion in which the nation can unite in grief. When Churchill’s coffin processed down the Thames in 1965, the London dockers dipped their cranes in respect. It is a fair guess that no such gesture would be made by any group of workers – save, perhaps, City bankers – for Thatcher.
Thatcher as her anti-Europe supporters try not to remember her – supporting Heath’s referendum in the 1970s
Yet the Conservatives seem determined to turn Wednesday’s funeral into an event to boost their ratings.
Grant Shapps, the vacuous chairman of the Tory party, sent this in an email to Croydon members on Friday:
“Lots of people have asked how they too can get involved and pay their respects. Next Wednesday, Party supporters and all those who have been inspired by Lady Thatcher, or who have had their lives touched by her enduring legacy, have their opportunity to pay tribute by lining the route of her coffin…
“…Please arrive early as significant crowds are expected.
“This will be a unique and very special occasion. I encourage all Party supporters – and all Margaret Thatcher supporters – to make every effort to come to London and pay your own respects to her memory by lining the Procession route. I can think of no better way to show our profound gratitude.”
By turning a state occasion into a party political one, have the Conservatives effectively legitimised the protests against Thatcher by other groups?
It certainly makes the case against the funeral being paid for by the country all the stronger. The Tax Payers Alliance has been oddly quiet on this one…
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Party political? Well, I just saw someone on the Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil say that the spending was actually agreed and the plans drawn up under the last Labour government. That wouldn’t surprise me.
Because this isn’t just about party politics. This is about the existing political class sticking together … because however much vituperation she does or doesn’t deserve… one thing’s for certain – they’re next.
There are some who suggest that, after 18 years of Thatcherism, we had 13 years of… Thatcherism.
Yes i wonder if room will be left for Tony in the Thatcher mausoleum. Isn’t it apt for the Thatcher memory that a library will be opened for her just as the public service is being devastated.
There are those who think it would be a fitting tribute to Thatcherism to put the funeral out to tender.
Bit off topic but UK Coal have lots of disused mine shafts
At least twice yesterday, once from Cameron himself on the Today programme on R4, and once by Nigel Lawson, the phrase “she saved the country” was used. Odd.
It was as if they had been briefed by Tory Central Office to get over the message that, like Churchill, Thatcher had galvanised the nation against an invasion from… Galtieri? Or maybe they considered Scargill to be “the enemy within”?
And throughout the service, the way in which Thatcher had planned her own funeral was made clear – perhaps inadvertently – even down to the way it had copied large elements of Churchill’s funeral in 1965.
There was, though, no real comparison between the two, much as she would have liked to think there was.