Both Houses have been recalled tomorrow (Wednesday) for the tributes to Baroness Thatcher. The occasion in the Lords will be especially interesting given that most, though not quite all, of those who served in the Thatcher Cabinets sit in the House, as do Lord Powell of Bayswater (her Private Secretary) and Lord Armstrong (Cabinet Secretary), among others.
The recall of both Houses is unusual, but far from unprecedented. Both were recalled on 11 August 2011 for statements on civil disorder and the global economy. The House of Commons was recalled the previous month – having already risen – to discuss on 20 July public confidence in the media and the police. Both were recalled on 24 September 2002 to consider a statement on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Both were also recalled during the Easter recess that year – on 3 April – for tributes to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Both were recalled in 2001 following the events of 9/11.
Since the Second World War, Parliament has been recalled just over twenty times, some of the recalls being for more than one sitting, as for example in October 1961 to discuss the Berlin crisis, September 1956 to discuss the Suez crisis, and in 1949 to discuss devaluation. Procedures are in place for the Speaker of the Commons and the Lord Speaker (previously the Lord Chancellor) to agree to requests for a recall and, given technology nowadays, members can be informed swiftly, including by text, of a recall.
On Margaret Thatcher, I have penned a short assessment which can be read here.
Margaret Thatcher’s gaffs need to be kept visible upon the Table:
(i) We no longer need ‘a Society’;
(ii) There is no evidence of Global Warming;
(iii) I am a trained scientist, trust me;
(iv) the German people are more deserving than the British Mining Communities who forced me to destroy them; and
(v) her covert ‘borrowing’ of ‘innovative’ economic policy from a leading USA thinker’s published work
but, that her overall record was not a total failure, should not be inflated into this inverted parliamentary “roasting”.
In effect she is being dragged posthumously, as a “red herring”,
to distract both Public and Professionals from the Ominously-Onsweeping, Rapidly-Failing Lifesupports Realities of this once Great Britain and indeed of the whole Human Race around the World.
Why do the constituted rich so splendidly dance around the roasted-departed’s Life-Display Bonfire ?
Do all our Neros have such Rights to fiddle
whilst our Homes burn ?
With our non-renewable and renewable Lifesupportive Resources now being fast consumed, utterly-wasted and destroyed, and extincted away, due to Thatcherian-like broadsides “There is no evidence – ”
that our Resources, Lifesupports or Magic-Money-Trees, are running out.
Recalling both Houses,
merely to wallow in false-glorification of a partly-successful
but also largely-failed
party-politician
who had already cost this Nation too heavily in human, environmental, timeframing, strategic-purpose, and monetary terms,
but during the many decades of her career nonetheless been overpaid and over-trumpeted many times over,
will surely be seen by long-term History as one of The British Establishment’s most-blind stupidities and uncalled for foci and expenses.
Just watch the commentators.
“Thatcher is evil for destroying the mines.”
Same commentators.
“We must stop producing CO2, and that means no coal fired power stations”.
They are just hypocrites of the worst sort. If they believed their current positions they would be destroying mining communities, for the public good.
(looks shocked)
I agree in part with something LB has said :-
You would be surprised.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf
Check out the big problem that dwarfs others. The debts.
Since the debts are the same as the total wealth of the UK, the state can’t pay. As soon as it raids the kitty, the wealth goes. Cyprus is a good experiment for what happens when you go after weatlh, it disappears.
Now once you’ve taken on board the level of state debt, work out the consequences.
1. They can’t take it from people because that destroys the golden goose.
2. That means they can’t pay their pension promises. (or welfare in its place)
3. That means people are going to be destitute.
I knew this would be up here this morning and I’m glad to see it.
First and foremost, pushing this lady’s death down the throats of people by using her once again, for political advantage is foolish. A person who lived by dividing a country as she did cannot be honoured in death, the way all you Conservatives are trying so hard to grasp onto.
She was loved or hated. And that hatred cannot and will not die with her. Especially when the population is facing a re-run of her horrendous mistakes. And getting the Queen and Prince Phillip in tow, hoping to lessen the blow of the truth of her policies, is fanciful indeed. All the pomp and circumstance will change nothing.
Margaret Thatcher sold Britain out to the American financial chicanery we are all paying for dearly today. And better you had decided this funeral was to be low level acknowledgement of her time in power, than the coup you are trying to mismanage.
She did not save this country as Cameron so naively put, she was the catalyst of ruin. Deregulation began in earnest with her and her fanatical infatuation with Ronnie the actor. And it was this deregulation that went on to bring down the stability of the western banking industry. Greed is good was her mantra and it cut the society in half.
The single good I feel she did, was to prove that the need women have been convinced, by those who cannot rise without it push, by demanding special dispensation to force their way to the top, is nonsense. Politically correct assistance is not needed by the genuine leaders of any country. Only the duff hang on to this as their ambition is thwarted without it.
Only those who are inferior need a politically correct answer to their incompetence. She was a woman who used every trick in the book to make her way to the top. And did it whilst remaining a very truly feminine woman on her way. She never once took up the cudgel of cross dresser or masculine demeanor. Didn’t feel she had to and knew instinctively it would do more harm than good to do so.
The first time I saw her, it was this that stood out for me. How very female she was. As she spoke her tiny physique exuded the female message. She raised her leg as if being kissed when addressing the house at question time. And I loved seeing it. It was this that inspired me no end. And that is the crown she should be putting on her head in death. Woman, in all her glory.
So, did she put 736 bn a year on the state’s debt like Brown and Blair?
@LB:
But, didn’t you know, Blair, and as a consequence of him, Brown, were her favourite converts. Didn’t she always boast, Blair, was her greatest mental high and should be acknowledged in epitaph as her finest hour.
So, yes, she is the one ultimately responsible for the massive dept we are in. And the public know it. Even if you do not.
Black is white. Truth is lies.
Maude you are prime example of newspeak where what you want is defined as the truth.
Labour is responsible for increase the debts well over 736 bn a year. That 736 bn a year is your pension.
It’s gone to the likes of Philpot and others who’ve had a life on benefits when they could have been working.
Phillpot and his brood of stay at home mothers whom you seem to like, have cost the rest of us 4 million quids worth in benefits and services.
It’s your pension. It’s gone, never to come back.
Oh, no you don’t Blagger, stick to the thrust of the thread. Philpot was a nut and it had nothing to do with welfare or his being on it. That is a gross insult to the people of this country who are in need of benefit and are entitled to it, as that is what we pay tax for.
I feel IDS who married an heiress, gets all he needs from her money and its influence. How about those onions? He is on benefit as well.
Margaret Thatcher boasted continuously that she was the reason Blair and New Labour had lost its way. And she was very proud of her influence over those weak people in that party. She laughed about it endlessly. They got hooked on politically correct dogma from Sweden and the US and couldn’t see what their pandering to the Financial Services was doing to the people of Britain.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/margaret-thatchers-legacy-spilt-milk-new-labour-and-the-big-bang–she-changed-everything-8564541.html
Philpott is everything to do with welfare.
Philpott is cheap for a welfare claimant when measured on a per head basis.
Philpott and his brood and wifes have received over 4 million’s worth of services and cash from other people.
It’s people like Philpott that result in welfare cuts, and cuts to disability payments.
It’s your pension they have received.
Now, there is a 5,300 bn pensions debt and to put that in context, the total wealth of the uk is 7,000 bn.
On top you’ve got PFI at 400 bn, the borrowing at 1,200 bn, …
Wake up Maude, there are no bankers in that. They don’t run the state pension scam.
It’s politicians.
The welfare state has impoverished people. Just wait and watch.
Philpott not have been working but both his wife and his live in girlfriend were. They were claiming tax credits for their very large family. He is a very evil, self centered man and if he’d had more than a couple of brain cells, you would have found that he would have been a Tory politician with his money in tax havens just like Thatcher and the like, in and amongst all the other selfish peoople of the UK who are helping themselves to climb up the ladder of wealth and security at the expense of others.
When you’re busy blaming labour for all our woes, you’re deliberately missing the true reason why we’re all in big trouble. Big greedy corporate types hoarding all the available money in tax havens and greedy, gambling banks.
Put some numbers and names to it. Which companies, how much and where.
Now for the state.
5,300 bn in pensions debts with no assets.
1,200 bn in borrowing
…
Total 7,000 bn with no assets that can be sold or which generate a profit to pay for it.
Total UK wealth, coincidently, 7,000 bn.
The state is bankrupt. There isn’t enough money to pay for it. Period. There isn’t enough money in tax havens either.
Look at Cyprus for the reason. You go after bank accounts. That’s just a fraction of the wealth of the UK. They threatened 6.7% of balances under 100K EUR. That’s screwed the Cypriot economy for many years. Completely screwed.
So where are you going to get the money to pay the interest on 7,000 bn of inflation linked debt?
@LBlagger:
So, if Philpot is all about welfare and benefit, what was the murdering, Dr Harold Shipman, all about? Middle class professionals sense of entitlement to murder whilst funded by the state? That same state that can only pay its friends from our collective pocket. Or, lets go one further, Lord Lucan savagely murdered his Nanny in the basement of his Belgravia home. What does that tell you about his aristocratic ruling class? They are the killers of the underclass or of those who talk about divorce or threaten reputations. All whilst being boosted by the state purse. As he mistakenly believed his long suffering Nanny was his wife, according to reports. And more than that, it was felt he was helped to remain hidden by his gambling aristocratic friends, who kept feeding him money they gleaned through ‘not paying tax’ which keeps their top dog status going.
We should be rid of the lot of this benefit claiming murderous bunch who indiscriminately keep their fat fingers in the public purse. Layabouts and fiends the lot of them. Especially those who marry up in order to live off of their wives money and influence. Marrying a rich heiress is the expected in that breed. The name for it is gigolo.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gigolo
What will we do about those middle class professionals akin to Shipley, remove their benefit of being master of all they survey, which is paid for by the public purse? And as far as the Lord Lucan class is concerned, the only answer their is to remove their right to inherit a penny or their titles or any other benefit they have from being the scroungers they are?
Nice try at a distraction.
Philpott. Ignore his crimes for a moment. He has taken 4 million from other people in cash and the cost of services.
Philpott is not unusual. In fact, Philpott is cheap. 20 people in his clan. That is cheaper than 10 single mothers with one child each. Both are 20 people, Philpott cost less.
Now, scale that up across all the welfare claimants. They collectively are taking trillions. That’s the issue, nothing about his crimes.
It’s all come from people’s pensions. Now there is no money to pay the pensions its going to be very ugly. I presume you’re still expecting a pension even though as a guess you aren’t working yourself.
As for Shipman, the real issue is why the NHS didn’t discover him.
That’s why the NHS is killing 40,000 a year (avoidable deaths). They aren’t monitoring, allowing the slaughter to continue.
I have read Norton’s view, but I wish I could read some others than the usual old windbags like Maude Elwes who believes that Lady Thatcher was “Tiny”. She was a stocky woman. Hansard Society should stop pretending, and find some more regular bloggers.
I agree mainly with Norton’s view.
The chaos of the Brighton bmb, where I was invited at one point in the evening to take a room on the fourth floor, persuaded me that the conservative party was no longer for me, and I have only been a party member of anything for three years out of all the time since.
(I shall enter on the right)
Although the government seemed to be in control, The IRA succeeded in showing it, in fact, in complete chaos.
Her government privatized any number of things which did not even belong to the state at all. I found that very offensive to right minded people,
and the Conservatives lost a great deal of support because of it, including mine.
Like so many people, I was glad on one occasion to be invited by her to a reception at Downing St, and on another, had the pleasure of attending the Saints day service at St Margaret’s alone with her and Dennis, which I also enjoyed.
It was Dennis who made her what she was, the power behind the woman at the Dispatch box, spending plenty of time, as he did, taking coffee at the Ritz! What better place to run the UK government?!
Death should surely be a time for reconciliation of all people, of old enemies and old friends. Paradise and Heaven is not for those who bicker and bitch against those who have gone on before them.
I do think that the radical “agency” style privatization, even of some parts of the MOD,
which are now owned by USdefence companies, and the privatization of the utilities some of which are now owned by the proud citizens of Salt Lake City, was also a mistake, but it would be hard to imagine the telephone industry being in the hands solely of the state today!
All in all, a life well spent. A competent leader who was really only disliked by a certain kind of mysogynist male politician, with whom we would be best…. without!
@GHH:
She was tiny as in short, so was her consort Dennis. And he was a drunk. They both liked the whisky, in fact both were sots.
As you so cleverly put, she sold us down the river to the yanks and Blair came along and finished the job off for her. Both of them did very well out of it.
And the Falklands was and is a joke. What the heck are our soldiers doing half way around the world, dieing in order to pretend we are the country of giants long passed. We are a satellite of the USA. And the joke is, the US is what you love, an Hispanic country. It and Argentina are one and the same, therefore you should be content with it. But the majority of people in this country did not vote for the ‘Hawaiin’ Obama or his side kicks or any of the other blatantly Republican nut case they have there hiding under the banner of Democrat.
This woman in the Youtube clip below says it all, and her party should look to her to lead them out of the mess they are in, rather than the bunch of wimps they are clinging onto like lemmings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1gHp9ImyU
This is the difference between genuine politician and damp squid.
She was tiny as in short, so was her consort Dennis. And he was a drunk.
I’m not going to encourage ME any more.
But the majority of people in this country did not vote for the ‘Hawaiin’ Obama Interesting thing about US politics is that you have to have a senate seat before you can stand for president.(even the state governors?)
Where would we be in these islands if a contender for PM had to go the house of lords first and then go…. DOWN?!! Ha! Ha! Ha! As it is many of them never go UP!
Becoming a Senator is a question of being nominated in that place, and then getting “elected”. Democracy has its limits.
They go ‘down’ when it suits them. As did Alec Douglas Home. So they ‘up’ and ‘down’ at will. No holds barred there then.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/past-prime-ministers/sir-alec-douglas-home/#
Or, as in the present, Earl Howe, they stay put and rule from above. No mention of elections in case we get uncomfortable. Such a democratic way to live.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Howe
And the Senate before President. Well the overriding requirement there is plenty of dosh. You have to be in the multimillionaire class for that particularly ‘pursuit of happiness.’ So, it cleverly rules out their shout of ‘no taxation without representation’ doesn’t it?
Unless, of course, you are going to suggest ‘all’ Americans are millionaires.
Then we mustn’t forget corruption. It plays a big part in the favoured dynasties of that ‘freedom’ loving country.
Further I thought the two événements of the Grand hotel Brighton and the Falklands, were both misadventures, as though she wanted them to happen to give herself/themselves a heightened sense of drama.
I am an enthusiastic Hispanist and the name of the Islands is similar to the name of the port to which many ferry ships from Weymouth and Poole go every day throughout the summer,called St Malo. Stick to it!
To insist on the name of an old Lord, Falkland, being maintained is just an ongoing charade. The argument was brought upon the Brits, whose armed forces had not had any real conflict since the early 1950s, so it was a political and military adventure,
very much mistaken.
The one effect was to get rid of the Military junta in Argentina,(Galatieri?) which according to my recent reading really was very bad indeed, with all those “desaparecidos”, and martial law.
The people of these islands are in more belligerent mood now than they have ever been in my life time, and it was thanks to
Thatcher and her cabinet that they are so.
Look at you Blagger, having a go at the single mothers of etc. Yes there are single mothers out there. I am one of them. Why? cos men only think about one thing and when they get bored they go swanning off with the first person opening their legs. So let’s not blame the single mothers for the state of the country either.
Now then, you touch on Cyprus and the other countries. If our deficit is down to our welfare system then why is Cyprus in trouble? Gonna blame that on the single mothers of the UK are you? I didn’t think so. You and your like can talk the talk but your answer to all the problems is so one sided and so blinkered you can’t think outside the box.
Now that’s where Osborne comes in. He’s taking us down a one way street with blocked turn offs because his ego doesn’t allow him to make a left or right turn. Thatcher did the same thing and that’s why she had to be got rid of in the end. If it had affected you and yours you’d be writing this instead of I.
Thatcher didn’t fight for the islands for the good of the people, she did so because she wanted to be a war Prime Minister and her ego once again got in her way. This coalition we have in place (if you can call it a coalition these days, rarely see Clegg) is all about ego and control. No compassion. Doing the right thing seems to cross their lips regular but I never see it in action.
I wasn’t. I was having a go at the welfare system in general.
The problem is that millions have been handed out to Philpot in money and in services.
1. Do you dispute that?
Next, Philpott was cheap. Philpotts clan of 20 costs less than 10 single parents, each with one kid.
2. Do you dispute that?
So now scale it up across the numbers on welfare and you get an idea of what the problem is.
Now the money is coming out of people who are working pensions?
3. Do you realise that its people’s retirement money that has been spent on Philpott?
On the moral issue. Bar the issue of rape, if you, as you put it, open your legs to a man without taking personal responsibility for the consequences, namely getting pregnant, perhaps its time for you to grow up. Feminism means you have to take responsibility for your actions, not blame others
Cyprus is in trouble for the following reasons.
1. Their banks put their capital into government bonds as the ECB required them to do because government bonds are defined as risk free.
2. Greece got itself into a mess because it hid its debts off the books to get into the Euro (same as the UK government hides it debts)
3. The ECB bought lots of Greek bonds.
4. The Greeks can’t pay their debts.
5. The ECB now realises that it would be bankrupt if the Greeks default, so it unilaterally rewrites the law of bankruptcy so it takes no losses, but everyone else has to take the loss (ie. Haircuts for all bar the ECB)
6. With that haircut, the Cypriot banks are bust.
7. Now the Cypriots are really in it because the ECB/Germans order them to steal money from bank accounts.
Some come on, answer a very simple couple of questions.
1. How much does the UK government owe? (Pensions included)
2. What is the value assets does the government have that generate money, or can be sold to generate money to pay its debts?
Until you take on the answers to those two questions, you will delude yourself into all sorts of a mess.
No, Blagger, Greece is in the mess it’s in because Goldman Sachs lied about its financial status in order for the EU to adopt it, because the White house wanted Europe United in order to plunder it for next to nothing. Which is what it is doing now, including this island of ours. Don’t believe me. The multi rich are buying up Greece piece by piece for a song, an island here and island there. The IMF is making a fortune in interest charges and the rest is, as always, is easy pickings. And Greece unlike us, cannot print ‘fiat’ money the way we can.
Thatcher went to war because the department who makes a great deal of money out of war wanted her to. War is a nice little earner for individuals who sell arms and the UK is in the arms business big time. And yes, she wanted glory for herself. Heralded like Churchill.
Where I agree with you, in part, is single women should learn about the reality of the male psyche, and not love so easily or readily. Being desperate for a man, they convince themselves if they have his child he will stay around.
The British are getting as sad and frantic as Swedish women, always on the hunt and forever in disappointment, as were the two who thought they were in with Assange. They became deadly when they found he wanted both for the overnight relief but neither for any term relationship. Men find it difficult to commit to women whom they see as easy to bed. And when you make or demand no bargain with your self respect, then, they also cannot find respect enough to stay the course. It’s all to do with their need for masculine fulfillment, which is not sex it’s quest.
Women feel, if they are giving him what he wants physically and putting up with his whims, he will find he can’t live without them, that they have become indispensable, couldn’t be more wrong.
And Blagger this is what you are always talking about. Pension debt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFdYT8OI6b0
And the surveillance state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuET0kpHoyM
What ever story gets told, it doesn’t change the fact.
Tell the lie, tell the truth, and the problem is still Greeks not paying their debts.
Same problem as the UK. Everyone’s pension contributions have gone to the likes of you, people on welfare.
End result, they can’t pay the pensions.
Same excuse as the Greeks. They lied about their debts, UK government is doing the same.
So why shouldn’t women take responsibility for getting pregnant and the result in this age of contraception and feminism? Are you so weak you want to pick and choose when you are responsible, and when you are not?
Evidently we are all in mourning for the late Maggie Thatcher, which is not an unreasonable attitude of mind to be in.