The Iron Lady comes to Manchester Town Hall

I didn't expect to leave Manchester Town Hall last night feeling sorry for Mrs Thatcher.

After all with clear memories of economic crisis,the death of manufacturing,rampant greed,miners strikes,the Falklands and the poll tax,those of us who were around in the 1980's would barely shed a tear for the Iron Lady.



Yet the film,on general release at the beginning of January,starring Meryl Streep as Lady Thatcher and Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher leaves one almost shedding a tear for a fallen warrior.

The screening,in the orange lit Great hall with Maddox's paintings offering a reflective glow,starts with a confused old lady battling to buy a pint of milk from the local shop,struggling to come to terms with her dementia.

She is not recognised and returns to her flat to a conversion with her dead husband ,brilliantly played by Jim Broadbent.

She's living comfortably but not luxuriously, surrounded by what's left of her life and an armed guard, while under the care of nursing staff.

It is Denis who almost leads the film with his continued conversation and reminiscing until at the end Margaret banishes him from the flat and her mind.

The flashback through her career are good.Her attempts to become a candidate in the 1950's finally successful in breaking into a man's world,her first appearance in Parliament,St Francis of Assisi in front of No 10 in 1979 and the Brighton Bomb where for an instance you believe that her husband has been killed.

The reason for the showing at the Town Hall was that the scenes in Parliament were filmed there,as filming is not allowed in Westminster and you get glimpses of the corridors as Thatcher hurries along,handbag waving,her able minsters behind.

It is difficult to fit the 30 year career of a top politician into an hour and a half,yet with the focus being the flat,and Denis,opportunities and events were missed.

Whilst her final downfall resulting form a virulent attack on Geoffrey Howe who had stood by her so valiantly during the economic crisis,her fallout with Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine,played by Richard E Grant were ignored.

The film,written by award-winning writer Abi Morgan directed by Phyllida Lloyd and produced by Damian Jones will probably go onto win awards as will the brilliant acting of Streep,who gets the voice, the intonation, the posture and the movement with breathtaking precision.

But if you want to see a better representation of her character,then take a look at BBC4's portrayal of her early career,the Long Walk to Finsbury with Andrea Riseborough as the young Mrs Thatcher

1979 v 2009

Having managed to avoid most of yesterday's Thatcher Fest(for those who missed it, it was the 30th anniversary of her first election victory),I did read Mike Smithson who has

been trying to think of the lessons that might help us to predict the next general election

There are some similarities,notably an unelected Labour Prime Minister going to the country for the first time and seemingly waiting until the last possible moment.

The common themes are very marked. A possibility of the return of the Tory government; a Labour party that had some massive challenges on the economy to face and a big squeeze on the Liberals.

But perhaps more importantly

On a wider issue there’s little doubt that the outgoing Labour PM, Jim Callaghan, was much more popular than Gordon Brown is today. Amazingly given the final outcome he seemed to hold big polling leads on the “who would be best PM”. Brown used to have that in his favour but no longer

For all the present system's undoubted flaws......

The May edition of Standpoint magazine features a piece by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson on the creed of his former leader.

Lawosn argues that the notion of Thatchersism

can probably best be described as a constellation of values and beliefs, a mixture of the rule of law, sound money, free markets, financial discipline, firm control of public spending, lower tax rates, patriotism or nationalism (the distinction is largely in the eye of the beholder), Victorian values (of the Samuel Smiles self-help variety), privatisation and a dash of populism.

His essay reads as an adulation of at least the first two terms but he defends the 1986 Financial services act which is blamed for the situation that we now find ourselves in.

however flawed it may have proved to be (although the greatest failure has been the way in which it has been implemented under the present government), was an act of regulation, not deregulation. It replaced a patchy and informal system which had been rendered obsolete by the rapid development of the financial services industry in an era of increasing globalisation and the internationalisation of the City of London (to the great benefit of the British economy) following the so-called "Big Bang" reforms of the London stock exchange.

and adds that

for all the present system's undoubted flaws, every other method of economic organisation has proved to be infinitely worse.

The end of a 30 year cycle

Greg Dyke was on the sofa on Andrew Marr's show this morning reviewing the papers.

He made a good point during the discussion saying that when the history books are written,2009 will be seen as the end of the market capitalism that began in 1979 and the beginning of a new era of state intervention.

1979 was of cause marked by the start of Thatcherism and a year later saw the birth of Reaganism across the Atlantic.

Both left their mark on the world and successive governments no matter which side of the political lines continued that free market course.

Whether free market capitalism will be seen as the economic system that brought down 150 years of industrialisation and growth remains to be seen.

Many see Mrs Thatcher as the instigator of this brand of economic management as a result of the failure of the post war consensus but was she responsible for all that followed?

Writing in the Independent this morning,Alan Watkins certainly thinks so.

The Iron Lady launched an era of selfishness, greed and fraud which her successors have fostered with care

Beeb to make Thatcher amends

According to the Sunday Times,the BBC is to make it up to Mrs Thatcher over its alleged bias whilst she was in power.

The paper reports that it will broadcast

a two-hour drama depicting her as a heroic victim in the final week of her premiership.
In the drama, Margaret, to be broadcast on BBC2 later this month, the actress Lindsay Duncan portrays the former prime minister as let down by a gaggle of pusillanimous, scheming men

A must see show

Thanks to Bob Piper who reports that

Maggie's End, one of the most controversial and cutting edge plays of the decade is heading to London in April to mark the 25th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike. It will be performed for two weeks from April 6 to 18 at the 500-seat Shaw Theatre in Euston Road, an off West End venue near Kings Cross railway station

Read this brilliant review in the Newcastle chronicle which takes us back to the days of the Mid 1980's and the miners strike

THIS lady’s not for burning. The Iron Lady – may she rust in peace.
Just two of the glorious lines in Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood’s latest creation, Maggie’s End – NOT a play for any of you staunch Tories out there.

Mentioning Thatcher-Surely a mistake?

I only caught snippets of David Cameron's speech yesterday,but what horrified me was the mere mention of Mrs Thatcher's name.
Why did he do it?
Was it to keep the old side of the party happy?
With all the talk of financial irresponsibility why would you want to hark back to the days of Thatcherism when the days of financial de regulation began and the broken society began to be broken?

I think he may have made a mistake

Yes there is a problem but it is not the fault of Labour

Yes there is no doubt that we have a problem with society and the young and Andrew Lansley's analysis that

number of young people admitted to hospital for treatment because they have abused alcohol, cigarettes and drugs has soared.
Cases of sexually-transmitted diseases and abortions among schoolgirls have also rocketed

is probably correct.

But to use this as a political tool to attack Labour is not correct.This has been a growing problem in society.It didn't start in May 1997 and it won't end when the Party leaves office.

What the Conservatives forget is that the parents of these children are the product of Mrs Thatcher.The society that she created in which work became the number one priority and the family was pushed down came after the recession that she created in the 1980's.She produced an economy which forced people to work longer hours,forced both parents to work beacause of House Price inflation and put the emphisis on greed and personal gain.

These children are not the product of New Labour.

Did Mrs Thatcher know where she was last year

There has been much on Carol Thatcher's revelations about her mother's illness from views that it is a heartfelt written account of a struggle with Dementia(regardless of politics it is a sad situation where a women has to be constantly reminded of her husband's death) to accusations of Carol simply jumping on the gravy train.

The problem is of course the word Thatcher and its connotations.The furore over the possibility of her state funeral was one major example of this.

Over at Three Line Whip though James Kirkup explores another avenue and looks to her appearance o the steps of Downing Street with Gordon Brown last year.

He asks the question

reading the story of how she now regards Grantham as her home once again and the various other confusions and blank spots she experiences, I can't help but think back to her appearance in No 10 last year, a visit that Gordon Brown's team sought to use as part of his preparations for his aborted snap election.

That State Funeral Debate

There has been much debate about giving Margaret Thatcher a state funeral when she finally departs this world.Unsurprisingly the left see it as a political affront almost as if she would be trampling down on the graves of the coal miners from the 80's.

If you would asked me few years ago I would have been also eminently opposed to the proposition.But sometimes you mellow with age.Not that I have suddenly changed into a flag bearer for Thatcherism but instead indifference and does it really matter?

Some argue that the changes she made to British society warrant a display of horse drawn carriages thru the streets of London.Well to compare her to Wellington,Nelson or Churchill is stretching the point.

Read Quentin Letts this morning who accuses the left in the form of Guardian readers of a vengeful hatred of Mrs T.

On one level, these letters are merely the prattish words of small minds - people unable to accept that many of the battles of the Eighties were lost for good by Labour and that Lady T was a remarkable election winner whose titanic will reversed Britain's post-war decline and, incidentally, destroyed the class structure so loathed by the Left.

Letts' second level is that the left are a hateful bunch

Left-wingers like to talk of ' progressive politics', by which they suppose they mean open-mindedness, but historically they are far more dogmatic than the Right.
Factionalism and drunken intrigue were rampant in the trades unions of old.
On immigration, Left-wingers have been exceptionally illiberal. Commentators and politicians who questioned the pro-immigration consensus were shouted down as racists.

Surely not?

The reports this morning that Mrs Thatcher once tried to seduce Edward Heath are surely too good to be true.

A forthcoming Drama on the BBC,Margaret Thatcher – The Long Walk to Finchley,suggests that far from there's being an antagonistic relationship with each sitting on the opposite poles of Conservative political spectrum,Thatcher courted Heath in an attempt to rise up the greasy political pole.

If true then surely the scandal of the decade?

On Lady Thatcher's scare

The news over the weekend that Lady Thatcher was in hospital overnight for tests must have got the obituary writers dusting off their copy but she emerged for hospital waving to the crowds and looking in good health.

Charles Moore writes in yesterday's Telegraph that

Margaret Thatcher has always suffered from low blood pressure. As a result, she tends to faint, particularly if it is too hot.This is what seems to have happened at the House of Lords on Friday night. It turns out not to have been too serious. She is already out of hospital.
But when there is a scare like this - there was a similar incident when she went to hospital after fainting at her hairdresser's two and a half years ago - people re-examine their attitude to our first woman prime minister. They pause, and reflect

Whatever those reflections are,I confidently predict that the media will have seen nothing like it since the death of Diana

Still to break the Thatcher mould?

I caught up with Michael Portillo's programme on Thatcher's legacy last.

Generally the blogosphere is full of praise for the documentary which sought to establish Mrs Thatcher's legacy over her successors as leader of the Conservative Party.

Iain Dale calls it a "

gripping 90 minutes of political TV "

and says

His main theory was that the Party had still to recover from the way Margaret Thatcher was overthrown and that David Cameron is the first leader to look as if he can administer the necessary medicine

That was certainly the case and there was some brilliant double interviewing with Michael Howard which seemed to prove at least the first half of the sentance was correct.

Strangly conspicous from the interview was John Major,perhaps indicating that the rift over the "Bastards" comment has yet to heal

As to the second part of the thesis that Cameron is the first leader to bnreak put of the Thatcherite mould,Steve Richards writes an interesting piece in this morning's Independent,

Like the best evocations of the recent past, the film shone an unexpectedly bright light on the present. Gordon Brown and David Cameron should watch it. Tony Blair should get hold of a tape and reflect on what might have been.

And to Steve,Cameron and his party have yet to break the legacy

" Large sections of the party are still obsessed with Europe, immigration and tax cuts. Cameron knows that the message needs to be more rounded and less shrill, but he too cannot escape his past entirely, the years in which he first followed politics when Thatcher was the one walking on water. The over-excited way in which he and George Osborne described the pragmatic, reluctant nationalisation of Northern Rock as a leap back to the 1970s suggests that the voters have moved on more quickly from Thatcher than they have done.