Labour can win without David Miliband

Poor David Miliband.

In some quarters, he was seriously considered as a possible successor to Tony Blair in 2007. But he was barely forty then. The general consensus then was that he was too young and inexperienced for the top job.

However, now only six years later and having come within a whisker of the Labour leadership in 2010, he seems to be leaving British politics forever. He is standing down as MP for South Shields and leaving for a job with a leading charity in New York. As Michael Foot once said of another notable David (Owen): “He’s passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever.” The problem is not, of course, the former Foreign Secretary’s age – he is a year younger than the Tories’ “rising hope” Boris Johnson – but the fact that he lost, however  narrowly in 2010, and worse, lost to his brother.

The sibling rivalry element to the story complicates everything and probably explains why David Miliband’s chosen to leave the political scene now. There is no reason at all why a defeated candidate cannot seek the leadership again – Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Michael Foot all became leader on their second attempt – but this now seems unlikely to happen.

There is an element of mythmaking about the Miliband Saga, however. The Tory press will tell you, Labour made a historic mistake in September 2010 akin to their error in electing Michael Foot over Denis Healey in October 1980.

This is absurd. We are not now in a spring 1983 scenario. Labour has not split or plunged into the civil war which traditionally plagues it after being ejected from government. Ed Miliband is not obviously leading Labour to a crushing defeat as Foot was by this point in his ill fated leadership.

The truth is David Miliband is no Denis Healey nor is Ed Miliband, Michael Foot.

Ed Miliband vanquished fears that he might be in thrall to the trade unions in his 2010 acceptance speech. The “Red Ed” nickname did not last. He responded to the News International Scandal well. His “One Nation” speech last autumn won widespread plaudits from the public and media. And perhaps most importantly, thanks in no small measure to UKIP, Labour are likely to be in power (perhaps as the lead party in another Coalition) in a little over two years time.

Would they be doing better under David Miliband? Probably. The older brother comes across better on TV, a fact not insignificant in the media age. But let’s not get carried away. Like his friend Hillary Clinton in 2008, he fatally supported the Iraq War and acted as if the leadership was his almost by divine right in 2010. He also has mild image problems too and dithered fatally over whether to support Gordon Brown at the height of his leadership troubles in office.

Make no mistake: the same Tory press which heaps praise on David Miliband now would be lambasting him were he actually Opposition leader.

It is sad to see him go, yes. But he is not Denis Healey. Labour can win without him.

Boris Johnson: the man who won’t be King

Don’t get me wrong. There is undoubtedly much to like about Boris Johnson.

He is, after all, by some way, the most colourful and popular figure in early 21^st century British politics.  He is undeniably highly intelligent, his buffoonish to some extent a façade presented to entertain the electorate. He has been generally successful as Mayor of London.

But the recent speculation that Boris might one day succeed his fellow old Etonian David Cameron as Tory Prime Minster should be a cause for concern.

Currently, this prospect seems some way off. Johnson’s second term as mayor – assuming he sticks to his word and serves it out in full – will end in 2016, soon after the next General Election. Returning to parliament in a by-election after that, should be easy enough. The next step would be to unseat whoever is party leader by then (it might, of course, still be Cameron). I am assuming the Tories will be in Opposition by then. It is then not hard to envisage a scenario in which Boris Johnson, by then in his late fifties (a similar age to Gordon Brown when he came to power) could be leading the Tories back into power circa 2020.

For all his charm, however, there is a cloud over Johnson’s character. At the risk of seeming po-faced, he has behaved badly in his private life in the past. His stance on the Leveson Report suggests he is more compromised even than Cameron by his close ties to the sometimes dubious forces which run the British press. His buffoonish is not entirely an act either. He is genuinely gaffe-prone.

Most worrying is the sense that many people want Boris to get into power because “it’ll be a laugh”. At the risk of sounding boorish, that is not a reason to elect a Prime Minister. This isn’t The X Factor. It’s a serious job. It matters. And the fact is: Boris Johnson is not a serious enough figure to occupy Number 10.

Why there are no conservative comedians…anywhere.

Ooh! Naughty BBC Radio 4! Apparently they’ve been producing approximately five times as many jokes about the Tories as they have about Labour! It seems the Daily Mail were right about the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation all along! Go back to Moscow, commies! If you love China so much (or indeed anywhere that’s actually communist these days. such as er… Laos?) why don’t you go and live there? Why don’t you marry Raul Castro? Come on BBC! We know you want to.

Well, no. Actually the BBC have an excuse and to be honest it’s a pretty good one. It seems that there are not enough comedians of a conservative ilk around. Caroline Raphael, Radio 4’s comedy commissioner admits they have trouble recruiting comics from the Right. And before anyone splutters at this, think about it. It may well be true.

I’ve bored Chortle readers on the subject of the dearth of conservative comedy talent before (http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2011/12/02/14451/clarkson_has_taught_us_one_thing%3A_right-wingers_arent_funny) and do not intend to repeat myself. But last time I did not really seriously consider why there are so few famous funny Tories about.

The obvious explanation is that the Tories are the leading party in government. Were Labour in power there would clearly be more jokes about them as indeed I am sure there were, were a similar study to be have been commissioned before 2010. This also explains why the Sunday Telegraph (who conducted this recent count) also found a larger than expected number of jokes about the Lib Dems.

This doesn’t fully explain why there are five times as many jokes about the Tories than Labour though. That is a wide margin, after all.

Could it be that Labour are less inspiring comedy targets than the Tories are? This too seems plausible. But it also seems odd. If the Opposition is struggling, they would surely provide ripe targets for satirical bullseyes. Spitting image, after all, didn’t let Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party off the hook in the Eighties. Is the public really so enamoured with Ed Miliband as in the days of early Blair or Obama, no satirical barbs can touch him? I very much doubt it.

Is the Beeb itself the problem? It would actually seem not. The issue extends way beyond the BBC. As I’ve discussed before, the entire comedy circuit inclines to the Left, not just the studios of Radio 4.

The Telegraph suggests that the left-wing environment of many comedy clubs might be preventing right wing comedy talent getting through. But why should the comedy world be any more left-wing than anywhere else?

Telegraph writer Dominic Cavendish suggests this might be because the circuit tends to favour younger comics. But even assuming older people are more likely to be conservative (something I don’t necessarily accept anyway), this doesn’t explain why older comics tend to be more left-wing. Even assuming that they have any viewpoint at all.

It’s not hard to imagine a conservative comedian. The tabloid-sequel views of Jeremy Clarkson would fit the bill even though he’s not technically a comedian. Are we ever likely to see a popular comic who defends the bankers and the Tories and who rails against the unemployed, benefit “scroungers”, the EU and asylum seekers? I don’t know. I’m also disinclined to think many comedians deliberately stifle their conservative views for public consumption. I don’t think they ever had those views in the first place.

Perhaps it’s simply the case that the bohemian creative world of the arts will always spawn more socialist firebrands than conservative cheerleaders.

Or to risk an old joke myself, if you really want to see a bunch of conservative comedians, take a look at the government.

Total Recall: can remakes be better?

Why are so many remakes made in Hollywood?

Lack of creativity is often blamed but perhaps a bigger factor is the name recognition advantage a remade TV or film automatically has. Nick Love has, after all, made several crime dramas. But do the names The Business or Outlaw resonate as much as The Sweeney? And why bother promoting a brand new supernatural comedy when most people already know Ghostbusters?

Remakes come in different shapes and sizes:

Remakes that attempt to follow the original exactly: This sounds like a flawless strategy. But as Gus Van Sant’s pointless 1999 remake of Psycho demonstrated, the results are at worst bad (Vince Vaughn going through his “serious” phase as Norman Bates??) at best, pointless. See also: Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

Remakes that are nothing like the original: The Italian Job (2003) really isn’t a bad film at all. But aside from minis, crime and Italy, it bears no resemblance to the original whatsoever. No comedy clifhangers, self preservation society, no bloody doors blown off. Nothing. But if the film hadn’t technically been a remake, I wouldn’t be discussing it now.

Remakes of non-English language films:  A bit silly, of course, as most people can read subtitles. However, with the exception of The Vanishing, the record here isn’t too bad. Let Me In (a remake of the recent Swedish vampire classic Let The Right One In) and David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were all very close to being as good as the original, if not as good. Even The Birdcage (La Cage aux Folles) was pretty decent. But people do get snobby about this sort of thing.

Remakes/sequels which attempt to improve upon a flawed original: Perhaps the best argument for remaking anything. Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk was close to being a sequel to Ang Lee’s Hulk but with a different cast. The recent Dredd was also an improvement on the terrible Judge Dredd (1995) starring Sylvester Stallone. But none of these remakes were great either. And why the remake of The Amazing Spider Man (2012) so soon after Spider Man (2002)? Was the new film good? Yes. Did the new cast work well? Yes. Was there anything wrong with the original? No. this was a remake when a sequel would have worked just as well. Did we really need to see how Peter Parker became Spiderman again? I can see the argument for remaking the flaccid Superman Returns (2006)as Man of Steel though. Most people have forgotten it already.

Remakes that are so terrible they shame the memory of the original: Get Carter. Alfie. Fame. Shaft.  The Fog. The Stepford Wives. Poseidon. A Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween. Rollerball. The Ladykillers.  Straw Dogs. The Time Machine. Sadly this is by far the biggest category. Even when a good director attempts to put a new spin on a classic as with Neil La Bute’s The Wicker Man or Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, the result is still often appalling.

Remakes which surpass the original: Yes, this does sometimes happen! True Grit, Ocean’s Eleven or Total Recall. The trick seems to be to try to remake something that wasn’t great in the first place. David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) or John Carpenter’s The Thing are also solid examples.

Did Arnie really seem convincing as an ordinary construction worker at the start of Total Recall? No. Colin Farrell is less good with the catchy pay offs but much more convincing as a real man. And thank God there was no more of that “suffocating in the Martian atmosphere” bollocks. But yes, the original score was better.

Here are some films that are ripe for the remake treatment:

1. Network (1976): A news network exploits one of its anchorman after he goes bonkers on air. By no means a bad film but flawed by an unnecessary voiceover. Could be redone well provided it doesn’t veer to close to comedy. Anchorman II is already being made after all. (Also: Broadcast News).
2. Time After Time (1979): HG Wells travels in his own time machine to the present. No. it wasn’t very good in reality but the idea is a good one.
3. Sleeper (1973): A man (Woody Allen) wakes up in the 22^rd century after a spell in suspended animation. The original’s a hoot but who watches it now? It also introduced the Orgasmatron to the world.
4. Barbarella (1968) Fairly pervy space opera with Jane Fonda. It could work. Jessica Alba? Kate Beckinsale? Anyone you fancy.
5. Dune (1984). A truly great science fiction novel. Neither the David Lynch film or the TV series did it justice.
6. Slaughterhouse Five (1972) Brilliant time travel novel. The film has not been watched by anyone since an old man watched it in 1995. He died shortly afterwards. So it goes.
7. Duel (1971) Spielberg’s lorry themed debut.
8. The Day of the Triffids: Neither TV or film have served John Wyndham’s classic plant takeover sci-fi well.
9. Westworld (1973) Robots go berserk in a theme park. As parodied on The Simpsons.
10. Village of the Damned (1960). Alien children take over a village. This John Wyndham classic (yes, I like him!) The Midwich Cuckoos has already been remade by John Carpenter. Badly. As revenge, Carpenter has since seen two terrible remakes of his own early works (Halloween, The Fog).

Is 76 too old to be Pope?

The new Pope Francis I is 76 years old.

Yes, that’s right. At the start of his tenure as Pope, he is already older than most people are when they retire. He is the ninth oldest Pope to have been elected since 1295. Would you be happy if your doctor, dentist, solicitor or bank manager was 76? Perhaps not. However, if you are Roman Catholic, you have no choice. He is now the head of the Church.

Let’s put things in perspective. Only three monarchs in the whole of British history have exceeded the age of 76,: Victoria, Elizabeth II our present  Queen and George III during his mad phase when his son ruled as Regent.

In elected situations, only one US president Ronald Reagan has exceeded 76 years while in office. He was arguably in the first stages of dementia when he left office aged 77 in 1989. In Britain, both William Gladstone and Winston Churchill ruled into their 80s. Both were great leaders, but both were past their best by this point.

Times have changed since the 81 year old Churchill faced the 72 year old Labour opponent Clem Attlee in the Commons in 1955. Leaders have got younger since then. Perhaps it is as well. Three PMs retired in a row on grounds of ill health in the fifties and sixties: Churchill in 1955, Eden in 1957 and Macmillan in 1963. All did live to a good age though (Macmillan and Churchill were both over 90 when they died) unlike Labour Opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell who died suddenly in his 50s in 1963.

Thereafter, leaders got younger. Harold Wilson may have looked portly and unglamourous next to President Kennedy when he visited him in 1963. But Wilson (born 1916) was actually only one year older than JFK. He was to be the youngest PM of the century so far when he entered Downing Street aged 48 in 1964.

Wilson retired aged 60 in 1976 and thereafter Labour leaders got older again. his successor Jim Callaghan, already prone to afternoon naps and stints on his rural farm, was 64  when he took over. Callaghan reportedly wanted to be succeeded by someone younger when he stood down in 1980 with Labour back in opposition. And, technically, he got his wish. Michael Foot was 67 and thus a full year younger than Callaghan. Indeed, Foot was two years younger than the dark haired charismatic Ronald Reagan who was elected president one month after  he became leader.

But Foot with his walking stick and long scruffy white hair seemed much older than his years. “Do you want this old fool to run Britain?” was the cruel Sun headline during the 1983 General Election. “Let’s kick Michael Foot’s stick away!” urged comedian Kenny Everett in front of an audience of cheering Young Conseravtives during the same campaign. Labour lost heavily.

It thus took until 1983 for Labour to elect a leader born after the end of the First World War. Perhaps overreacting slightly, they elected Neil Kinnock, a man of 41 with no cabinet experience. Kinnock never got to Downing Street either but the trend towards younger leaders has continued (with a few exceptions notably sixtysomethings Michael Howard for the Tories and Menzies Campbell for the Lib Dems) ever since.

John Major became the youngest Prime Minister of the 20^th century, taking over at 47 in 1990. But his successor Tony Blair (who, like Kinnock, had become Labour leader at 41) was younger still in 1997. William Hague was only 36 when he became leader in 1997 and is widely seen as having peaked too early in this regard.

But Cameron was only 39 when he became Tory leader in 2005. He had no Cabinet experience at all and had barely been in parliament for four years. He was younger than Blair or Major had been when he succeeded to Downing Street. Today all three party leaders are in their 40s. George Osborne, the Chancellor is barely 40.

What does all this mean? Much was made, after all, of Tony Blair’s youth and inexperience in 1997. But, in practice, even his opponents would agree, he actually took to the job of being Prime Minister with far more ease than ostensibly more experienced souls like Callaghan and Eden had done.

Old age need not be a disadvantage either and it should be noted that the Queen continues to do her job very well. But the Papacy is starting to resemble the last days of the USSR with one elderly leader such as Brezhnev – who once famously addressed an audience of communists while facing in the wrong direction – being succeeded by another (Andropov) and then another (Chenenko) within a couple of years.

Happily, the Vatican is not a nuclear power. And it is worth remembering that the upshot of the succession of geriatric leaders in the USSR was that it eventually led to the appointment of a younger man Mikhail Gorbachev, a reformer who presided over the destruction of a corrupt and archaic regime.

Is it too much too hope that history might repeat itself?

 

–

House of Cards Revisited

“Nothing lasts forever,” muses Francis Urquhart as he looks at a picture of Margaret Thatcher. ”Even the longest, the most glittering reign must come to an end someday”. 

So begins House of Cards, one of the finest political dramas in British TV history. It has recently been remade for the US by Netflix.

Based on a book by Tory insider Michael Dobbs and brought to the screen by the more left wing British dramatist Andrew Davies in 1990, House of Cards centres on Francis Urquhart, the Tory Party Chef Whip superbly played by the late Ian Richardson. Taking the audience into his full confidence – Urquhart has a disarming and involving tendency to talk directly to the audience, often offering nothing more than a wry smile or a raised eyebrow in response to events – we become fully involved and even complicit in Urquhart’s activities as he skilfully manoeuvres his way to the top of the Tory tree an into Downing Street.

The action opens in the aftermath of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s apparent retirement (at that point, an event still in the future). Indeed, Thatcher is the only real life figure (other than the Queen) referred to at any point. Urquhart assesses the likely candidates for the succession:

“Plenty of contenders. Old warriors, young pretenders. Lord Bilsborough, say — party chairman, too old and too familiar, tainted by a thousand shabby deals. Michael Samuels — too young and too clever. Patrick Woolton — bit of a lout, bit of a bully-boy. Yes, it could well be Woolton. Henry Collingridge — the people’s favourite, a well-meaning fool, no background and no bottom.”

Urquhart with splendid false modesty rules himself out:

“What, me? Oh, no no no. I’m the Chief Whip, merely a functionary. I keep the troops in line. I put a bit of stick around. I make them jump. And I shall, of course, give my absolute loyalty to whoever emerges as my leader.”

In fact, when the new leader Henry “Hal” Collingridge reneges on a promise to appoint Urquhart to the Cabinet, Francis turns against him, constructing a bogus scandal involving the Prime Minister’s wayward brother and demolishing all other rivals to not only bring down Collingridge but to ensure that he, Francis Urquhart, shall succeed him.

In this the role of young journalist Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) proves crucial. It is to her that he leaks information answering her questions not n the affirmative but couched in the coded evasive standard political answer: “You might very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.”

 

Timing

The series was blessed by remarkable good timing. In real life, Michael Heseltine announced his intention to stand against Margaret Thatcher, just five days before the first episode went on on November 18^th 1990. By the time of the fourth and final episode, Thatcher had been toppled and John Major had beaten both Heseltine and Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd to become Prime Minister. House of Cards thus became very topical indeed. The series had the good fortune to go out during the first change of Tory leadership in fifteen years and one of the most dramatic ends to a Prime Ministerial reign ever.

 

Real life parallels?

House of Cards is obviously fiction but some have suggested similarities to real life figures. Make of them what you will. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Francis Urquhart: Urquhart does not obviously resemble any one real life person strongly. He is nothing like Edward Heath, another Chief Whip who went onto Downing Street. Urquhart’s upper class background was also distinctly unfashionable by 1990. Douglas Hurd, would in fact be embarrassed by his posh background in the leadership contest that took place while House of Cards went out and no Tory leaders emerged from upper class background between 1965 and 2005 (between Alec Douglas Home and David Cameron). Urquhart’s ideological position seems to be closest to Thatcher. Yet unlike any of these figures, he is a murderer and probably closer to Shakespeare’s Richard III than anyone in real life.

Henry Collingridge: Both Dobbs and Davies were right to predict domineering figure like Thatcher would be succeeded by a moderate more conciliatory figure. A harsh critic might say Urquhart’s summary of Collingridge: “a well-meaning fool, no background and no bottom,” applied equally well to Thatcher’s actual successor John Major (or indeed, David Cameron). Major also won the 1992 election with a majority of 21 (Collingridge manages about 30). Unlike in the series, there are few immediate problems resulting from the Tory majority dropping so dramatically. John Major’s Tories had anticipated defeat in 1992 and were happy just to win at all. Major’s premiership would prove similarly troubled although more enduring than Collingridge’s. If anyone fatally undermined Major’s leadership, other than Major himself, it was his predecessor Lady Thatcher.

Bob Landless: A crude American media magnate. Clearly a composite of and Robert Maxwell, then still alive (although unlike Landless, a Labour supporter) and Rupert Murdoch.

Lord Bilsborough: Seems similar to William Whitelaw, who ran against Thatcher in 1975 but ultimately became her most loyal servant. But Whitelaw was much nicer than Bilsborough and much less tainted by “shabby deals”.

Michael Samuels: In some ways similar to Michael Portillo, then a dashing rising star in the party and with a history of left wing support and some homosexuality (then not known about) in his past. Portillo, although half-Spanish, isn’t Jewish as Samuels is though. In this respect, Samuels is more like another rising Tory Michael of the time and future leader, Michael Howard.

Peter Mackenzie: Health Minister. Physically very like John Major (he is played by Christopher Owen) although unlike Major seems to be racist and accidentally runs over a disabled protester.

Afterwards

(SPOILER ALERT) Two TV sequels To Play The King and The Final Cut are worth seeing although neither quite scaled the heights of the original. Dobbs wrote two books which followed the first series. The first book ends differently with Urquhart, consumed by shame choosing to hurl himself to death rather than Mattie.

Michael Dobbs served as Deputy Tory Chairman under John Major and is now Baron Dobbs in the House of Lords. He has written many novels.

Already a prolific author Andrew Davies (A Very Peculiar Practice), Davies has become something of an adaptation-writing machine since the huge success of 1995’s Pride and Prejudice (which featured Mattie Storin from House of Cards as Jane). Incredibly, Davies has written over twenty series since including Mr Selfridge, Bleak House and Middlemarch.

Ian Richardson died in 2007.

A new US series of House of Cards (much altered) starring Kevin Spacey as House Majority Whip Frank Underwood is is available on Netflix.  

Reasons why the Left still hate Lady Thatcher

It’s a fact: Lady Margaret Thatcher remains one of the most reviled – as well as the most revered figures – in British politics today. That this is still the case, a full twenty-three years after she left office and when she has long since retired and is reported to be in a state of frail poor health, does in some perverse way mark something of an achievement. Did anyone hate Clement Attlee with any ferocity twenty-three years after he ceased to be PM after all (this would be in 1974)? Will anyone still be cursing David Cameron’s name in the late 2030s? It would seem unlikely.

Cristina Odone writing in the Daily Telegraph this week suggests two reasons why those on the Left might still hate Lady Thatcher, a figure the  late Tory MP Julian Critchley used to refer to as “the Great She Elephant.” http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100203198/two-reasons-why-the-left-hates-lady-thatcher/

Unfortunately, neither of her explanations really cut the mustard.

“First, she disproved Labour’s favourite myth: Tories appeal only to toffs,” Odone writes. “She led her party to win three general elections on the trot, and she didn’t need a military coup to do so.”

This would be convincing only if Thatcher had been the first Tory leader to command widespread working class support. In fact, to have been as successful as they had been the Tories must have been garnering the support of the lower orders since the age of Disraeli. Leaders as diverse as Lord Salisbury, Stanley Baldwin, Sir Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan were winning substantial Tory election victories with substantial working class support long before Thatcher first came on the scene.

Electoral envy might explain some of the hostility to Thatcher at the time, true. She won parliamentary majorities of 43, 144 (a post-war Tory peak) and 102 in the 1979, 1983 and 1987 elections, after all. But left-wing anger over this would have been partly eased simply by the fact Labour have done so much better since. Blair won Labour majorities of 179 (a post-war peak for any party), 169 and 66 in 1997, 2001 and 2005 respectively.

Cristina Odone’s second explanation is even less credible:

“Secondly, she’s a woman. The party that pays lip service to equality and feminism is, behind the scenes, deeply misogynist.”

This seems pretty rich when you compare the Tory record to the Labour one. Labour today has far more women MPs than all the other parties put together. Even during Thatcher’s time in office, the ambitions of other women politicians were kept firmly in check. Even today, with the notable exception of Theresa May, the Tories – unlike the party of Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper, the Eagles and Diane Abbott – remain firmly a party of men. Margaret Thatcher remains the exception that proves the Tory rule.

There is nothing outlandish about the hostility many on the Left and Right feel towards Lady Thatcher. Her regime arrogantly destroyed a fifth of the nation’s industrial base in her first three years in office. Elected off the back of a poster campaign attacking Labour’s record on unemployment, she proceeded to increase the levels of unemployment threefold. She brought the NHS to the brink of destruction. Crime more than doubled under her watch while Rupert Murdoch was allowed to gain a fatal toehold in British society. Homelessness and rioting, for so long distant memories, made a major return under Thatcher. The Poll Tax, the horrendously jingoistic aftermath of the Falklands bloodshed, the brutal suppression of the Miner’s Strike, the culture of greed and selfishness perpetuated by the government and the pre-eminence of the stock markets which would prove so fatal in 2008.

These are just some of the reasons, Lady Thatcher will never be forgiven by a significant portion of the UK population.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/01/margaretthatcherM