I have just watched The Iron Lady, a film about Baroness Thatcher’s life. It does not deal with her period in the House of Lords at all, but focuses on her rise to, and tenure of the position of the first and, so far, the only female Prime Minister of this country. In most ways, the title of the film is a misnomer because it is not about her lasting influence, and it certainly is not a deep analysis of her policies. It is about her life with Denis, and the tensions of maintaining a family life together with a life in politics. There are brief and rowdy scenes depicting the Falklands War, the poll tax protests, the assassination of Airey Neave and the Grand Hotel bombing, which make the film compelling viewing for anyone of my generation who remembers all of this vividly. But the most interesting flashbacks for me were the scenes showing Mrs. Thatcher, as she was then, standing as a lone woman in the Commons, and facing up to the scorn and barracking of the entirely white male MPs. I am not sure that this is historically correct – there must have been several women MPs at that time, if no black ones – but the scenes were a reminder of how the Commons has changed. Maybe not enough, but the presence of women in the House is now substantial and normal, and I think the practice of sneering and jeering has died down a bit, although not as much as it should. The Lords, by way of contrast, has about 25% women and does not often descend to rowdiness, although it is not unknown, as occasionally new peers bring with them their Commons habits and then come to realise that the Lords take a different approach.
Most poignant, and ringing true, were the film’s depictions of the union of Denis and Margaret and how much he did to support her, at some cost to himself and his expectations of family life. Nevertheless I felt uneasy that a film should be made during someone’s lifetime, purporting to show their physical and mental decline. In that sense it was rather like the film about Iris Murdoch’s Alzheimer’s, made after her death. The difference is that The Iron Lady is made during its subject’s lifetime, and that seems to me to be wrong. It is inappropriate, and the premature nature of the film prevents proper historical judgments from being made, and may even affect them when they come to be made in the future. Many prime minsters and Presidents declined and became ill in their old age (Wilson, Churchill, Roosevelt), as we all do, but that decline should not be projected backwards to make it appear that it affected them at their peak. That is derogatory, and it is ironic that the focus of the Mrs. Thatcher film is on the weaker years. But go and see it anyway.
Put up with things like that! The wages are good … for life.
Dennis was a laugh. He was a man about town like any other, and with a good sense of humour too, the one person who kept the show on the road.
Baroness, do you believe her position would have been different had it been an all black male contingent there at the time?
If not, why did you feel your comment had to be colour coded? Do you find white people’s actions very different from black people’s?
Your remark was rather similar to Diane Abbot, who feels white people exploited her ancestry, yet makes no comment on how she feels she would have faired under her black ancestry. Both in the past and today.
This woman is, as all politician’s are, an opportunist. Using what she feels will keep her in her constituents good books. But does it?
The fact that she is not so very high on the IQ level and that ‘white’ politics made it possible for her to make such a ‘good living’ regardless of that fact, seemingly hasn’t entered her mind.
The colour of peoples skin is not a reason to discriminate on ay grounds, however the actions of a person or a people, culture or group, certainly is. To discriminate against or be selective was once considered ‘good sense’ as it kept you safe from danger. Now that all seems to have changed.
And strangely, it has changed to where it is acceptable to discriminate against the white race but not the black. Example. all black police clubs. All black political association, and so on. However, all white associations would be illegal. What inequality we have in our country now and i don’t see how it is tolerated.
As if somehow the white race is more evil or manipulative or just plain disgusting and others are not culpable for what they do.
How did that come about? How is one man’s murder, because he was black and killed by white teenagers, become more important than a white man’s murder who is killed by black teenagers? Surely the crimes are equal. Or, are you implying white men are not as equal as black?
This is a hole big issue and one that needs to be addressed fully. Not in the slanted and cunning attempt at a sneer as you have made in your post. But a head on view of reality.
Are white governments harder to live under than black? Is that what you are saying? Would Mrs Thatcher have been treated better or more fairly had she been living in a black country or had her colleagues been black or Abrown?
It is people like you, with remarks like this that creates discontent as well as promoting ill feeling between the peoples of our country, and this has to be looked at in the round and the time is now to do this. Don’t you feel?
Maude Elwes,
I know you are offended by the idea that other people than the Baroness Deech read your comments. Offended if in a public blog they respond — although you respond to other people’s similar comments:
Nonetheless, I think I must respond to a bit of this:
“And strangely, it has changed to where it is acceptable to discriminate against the white race but not the black. Example. all black police clubs. All black political association, and so on. However, all white associations would be illegal. What inequality we have in our country now and i don’t see how it is tolerated.
As if somehow the white race is more evil or manipulative or just plain disgusting and others are not culpable for what they do.
How did that come about? How is one man’s murder, because he was black and killed by white teenagers, become more important than a white man’s murder who is killed by black teenagers? Surely the crimes are equal. Or, are you implying white men are not as equal as black?”
In fact, your concerns are fairly well expressed in this regard even if they may not be fair to Baroness Deech’s remarks. A great deal of this problem results from a deeply flawed historical sensibility. Few people in the West who are aware of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (and even the Triangular Trade) are aware that Turks enslaved many white subjects of the Russian Tsars in raids and sold them throughout the Muslim world including to Black African Muslim potentates and in general they and their descendants fared worse or no better than the blacks traded to the Atlantic colonies. The very pale skinned people of Western and Northern Europe do not choose to see a racial war against the swarthy whites of old Armenian, Greek and North Arab communities by the Afro-Arab powers throughout much of the Hellenic world. White colonists killed in Africa today are seen in a false context. People choose not to understand that the recent Black Power movements of the nineteen seventies have had as great an influence as the Civil Rights movements and are the expressions of Black Supremacist ideas of those candidly seeking Black dominance over all other people’s in a given modern society such as the US. White Supremacy on the other hand is made into a caricature illustrated by the worst abuses and most poorly conceived ideas. In addition, to these views there are larger destructive forces shaping race relations throughout the world which cannot even be mentioned in a brief comment.
The interplay of human concerns and interest with those of groups of humans of any kind is a complex interplay. The struggle for a society of legitimacy, justice, balance and other values of family, order and property is difficult. However, living in world as portrayed in a fantastical animated film is certainly part of the problem. The basic frame of reference for racial politics is so distorted that all efforts based on that reference are doomed to fall well short of the ideal.
You know, Frank, you just don’t get it do you? Well let me spell it out for you.
What I don’t like is when another answers to a post I wrote which required a direct answer to the post that person made. If I write in reply to one of the Lords or Baronesses, as a response to ‘their’ post, and I would like ‘them’ to reply to my query on their view, then it is ‘their’ view and not your view I seek. You only think you know their answer. Which is an insult to them.
So, your answer for one of the Lords or Baronesses is not their view at all, it is your view. And I don’t hold you as expert on their subject. To answer for another’s thinking is very disrespectful. And I never ever do that. But you do, and consistently.
I am not interested in what you think the Lord or Baroness has on their mind. As far as I am concerned, what you think and feel is only important to me if I respond to your post. Or, if your post pertains to a subject I feel you have an authority on.
How is it you simply do not understand that? Have you no sense of propriety? And you continually suggest I mirror you, which is extraordinary, as you think with a distorted American viewpoint. Which could not be further from my reality.
I sincerely hope you now have it clear.
Maude: I understand that you want the Baroness to respond to your post in the first instance but this is also a place for discussion amongst everyone and anyone who wants to participate. Frank is entitled to respond to what you say in the same way you are to his posts or anyone elses. If you don’t wish to converse with him then say nothing!
Can I also remind you of our principle condition of participating in the blog?
1. Debate should be lively but also constructive and
respectful. Thank you.
Beccy Allen,
Thank you for your kind and thoughtful words.
@Beccy-Hansard:
I feel that you as well have missed the gist here.
I don’t want to stop, or, feel Frank should ‘not’ put up his point of view. That is indeed his prerogative and good on him. But why does he consistently direct them at me in response to mine directly addressed to another? It is bizarre.
Others here do not do that, and neither do I, yet he accuses me of it. And you appear to be supporting him in that accusation.
I do not like being invited to join his Facebook or any other of his personal hobbies. And wish for it to desist.
No one else does that. So why does he and why do you feel it is okay when it is me it is aimed at? I’d say that is a bit overbearing on your part.
I would not presume to tell you that what you dislike being subjected to must be accepted whether you like it or not. That wold be far beyond my remit.
Maude Elwes,
1. You do respond to other people’s posts and are not designated as exceptional in any official way.
2.Because this is a public and free blog failing to respond on some matters is a kind of statement even if there is a difference between this and another form of response and therefore a response is sometimes right despite your feelings.
3. Although I put your name and do address you in reality it is also a form of bookkeeping in this medium and many of us are primarily addressing the arguments in a given comment. All these are derived from the discussion launched by a particular post.
4. I hope you do not find these detailed answers a way of saying that I am in personal need of your friendship and goodwill that is not the case.
I do not hope you have my message clear but yet I type it anyway. You of course need my permission for almost nothing I can think of off-hand. Perhaps for nothing you are actually ever likely to do. I do not mean to give an opposite impression.
Maude Elwes,
I am sure you can find technical (perhaps real distinctions) but I direct you to the copy below of my comment addressed to Baroness Deech and your response to that comment here in this discussion on the current post.
“Baroness Deech,
I have not yet seen the film. However, while I do not know what claims it makes in dialogue etc. I can assure you that it is visually correct in that on US television there were numerous images of large groups of MPs in the House of Commons in which Thatcher, now Baroness, was the only woman.
maude elwes
POSTED ON 10/01/2012 AT 4:20 PM | PERMALINK |
@FWS3:
And at that time, how many women did your US senate and congress have?
And today they don’t fare well either do they? …”
I have no idea why Maude is writing about race. All I noted was that the way the Commons looked in the film is rather different from the way it looks now.
Baroness Deech,
I have not yet seen the film. However, while I do not know what claims it makes in dialogue etc. I can assure you that it is visually correct in that on US television there were numerous images of large groups of MPs in the House of Commons in which Thatcher, now Baroness, was the only woman.
@FWS3:
And at that time, how many women did your US senate and congress have?
And today they don’t fare well either do they?
Most take over the seat when their husband dies. Without election so I believe.
Maude Elwes,
In the 1917-1934 period women in Congress were very few and could be suspected to be filling a husbands term. Thirty-six women entered Congress between 1935-1954 and there profile was more like men and more diverse in origins. 39 women entered Congress between 1955- 1976. These women held a variety of major posts. From 1977 to 2006 139 women served in both Houses of Congress at some point and they formed the Congresswomen’s Caucus which later changed its name.
Today we have 17 women in the Senate including one of the two from my State and I believe 77 women in the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi was the only woman ever to serve as Speaker of the House for the 110th and 111th Congresses which was about from 2004 to 2008.
That is the basic state of things. For detail see: http://womenincongress.house.gov/
Maude Elwes, your original comment makes no sense and is meaningless, unless its meaning is to hint that black people are somehow dangerous:
“the actions of a person or a people, culture or group, certainly is. To discriminate against or be selective was once considered ‘good sense’ as it kept you safe from danger.”
If that is your intention I think it is racist.
Barones Deech’s point in that the House of Commons of mid 1980’s wasnt at all representative of the population as there were no black MPs at all untill 1987. This has improved somewhat especially since the last election but we still have someway to go.
@Dave Edwrds:
Well, how good of you to answer for the Baroness. And how would you know what it is she meant? Are you inside her mind? And how low of you to play the ‘racist’ card.
I stand by what I wrote, and I believe it is it is you who is the racist not I. For you see it as acceptable that a woman in high office should feel it is good form to allude to an idea that white men were and are unacceptable as a group because of the colour of their skin and not by the ‘content of their character.’
In 1987 did any black men run for office here? And if they did, were they excluded from taking up their seat by the white men in Parliament at the time? That group who accepted Mrs Thatcher as their leader but who today are scorned for the sin of their skin as ‘too many white men’ by the Baroness.
And then you add that I am racist because I wrote that to discriminate against a person or a group or people on the grounds of their actions, was acceptable. Now why does that line lead you to believe that is a racist view? For if that is how you feel then you will have to call all men racists. As sensible individuals regularly discriminate against those who are deviant.
And if you truly feel that way, then you must find Martin Luther King a racist also, as his speech said just that.
You know, the line I mentioned above about being ‘judged’ by the content of your character rather than the colour of your skin. A man should be judged by the content of his character and not by the colour of his skin, as the Baroness and Diane Abbot judged when they wrote their remarks in the way they did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQucZKToFXE&feature=related
And do you feel Martin’s idea was that white men should be treated differently from black men? That they should be deemed unworthy if they collectively decide on an issue without having another race with them making that decision?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk&feature=related
You are a racist because you assumed when I wrote my discrimination line that I was referring to the ‘colour’ of the skin of those individuals whose actions it is necessary to discriminate against. Now why would you feel that way if you are not a racist? Do you see only men of ethnicity ones to be avoided because of their actions? Because I certainly do not.
Bernie Grant was elected in 1987.
Bernie Grant was elected in 1987.
No earlier? He was great writing pals with my frater in Ky, since they both went to IC (mines) at about the same time. He was quite upset about Bernie’s early demise. I think we all were.
We are all but grains of sand or specks of dust in time, but I sometimes wonder about the staying power of midges in flight in the middle of winter. They have got something we have not.
I agree not a great film; it seems not to recognise that until the last two years Lady T was very active for a lady of her age. In addition the film skips many important issues of her premiership. It focuses too much of Baroness T as an old lady and not enough on her active political life. (6/10)
From a mind at about GCSE level (I do not claim I passed) I offer one hopefully objective and positivising comment about Baroness Deech and three about PM Thatcher under their respective State-Cloaks of Governance-Power and Privilege:
1. Baroness Deech, whilst to my mind always being short on one or more of the three principles of good-coomunication and honest-argumentation, has nevertheless here presented an overtly limited response to a below-the-belt forked shady characterisation of PM Thatcher’s performance:
(i) Whilst the title given is her popularised-political “Iron Lady”
(with which millions of people will associate “the lady is not for turning”, which is also unfortunate as I will show below)
the thrust of the ‘biography’ appears to be about the weakness not of PM Thatcher’s frontal Iron armour but of Mrs Thatcher’s weak and vulnerable ‘white underbelly’ and ‘private’ life.
As a journalistically specialist response therefore it can be judged quite positively, as having made at least one major and important public point, about both permitted derogatory professional-ethics in the non-fiction-publications sector, and the threat to the public-interest in matters of both defamation and historical-and-current governance-honesty.
—————
(PS I think the noble baroness should have refrained from instructing all of the British Public to “go and see the film”).
—————-
The rest of my comment (2. 3. and 4 about PM Thatcher) being likely judged by Baroness Deech’s moderator to be too long (total 600 words) may be seen on non-profit citizens democratic websites http://www.lifefresh.co/uk and http://www.minorityofone.net .
@Beccy – Hansard.
In fact what your last post to me is really saying, is, if I don’t like this man’s attitude toward me, I have to either indulge him, or, get off the website.
Not at all Maude simply that although this site is for conversation between Peers and the public it’s also a place for discussion between commentators. I don’t read Franks responses to your comments in the way you do but it sounds like there might be something else going on here that you are unhappy about. If so then please email me with details and we can discuss…
Beccy Allen,
You and Maude Elwes are of course able to do whatever you wish to do in this regard. However, FYI Maude Elwes and I have never met or corresponded directly except on LOTB and The Norton View. Perhaps she has read something else I have on line and I do not get detailed data on blogs are other matter which tells me who has originated a hit on such things. Otherwise antything I have ever communicated to Maude Elwes is on one of those two sites.
Baroness Deech,
The film has received some significant recognition. Ms. Streep won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Dramatic Film as awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press.
Meryl Streep’s method of study for every part she plays is so absolutely amazing that it is… incomparable; just the finest actress.
How she thinks herself so deeply in to the personality, and appearance, of her subjects, I really do not know!
Complete Dedication!
Gareth Howell,
Indeed, she is a very fine artist.
as there were no black MPs at all untill 1987.
Saklatvala was Asian and a communist member in 1947. In Apartheid terms that was black, and the only communist unless you include “Respect” member in the 2005 parliament!
Curiously enough I have had a very pleasant exchange of post with his grandson in the last week or so; a friendship between us of meeting more than 50 years ago. His cricketing skits are still etched on my memory.
Perhaps correspondents who argue unpleasantly should come to the next worthwhile Hansard society meeting sometime in February and make some friends.
I don’t know whether Frank will be able to make it… or not.
I wonder how many single passport UK subjects log on to his state senate/congress website blogs and express their opinions about their local matters?!
Never mind eh! Soon be spring time.
Gareth Howell,
When I turn on my public television programs in the United States in my State I find the BBCA and the regular BBC very heavily represented in the programming in news and entertainment and editorial categories. Peter Jennings who was the lead anchor at ABC for much of my life was a Canadian by birth and upbringing who never lost his profound attachment to the commonwealth. Jennifer Granholme who was recently Governor of Michigan has been a dual citizen in a country where your Queen is Head of State. The lobbying efforts of British corporations are more legal and meticulous than those of many other country’s but through extensive legal gymnastics there paid voice in my affairs in oil rich Louisiana is vast. BP has recently vastly impacted the place where I live. I could fill a library not a book listing instances of British impingement on my life’s local affairs. The internet, jet plane, ICBM, satellites and a hundred other factors mean that we really do live in a global village. However, I do consider myself informed that you find my discussions unpleasant. That is a datum which I will remember.
The film in question starred an American with a British director and is part of a larger juncture of national film industries. I doubt we will make friends Gareth Howell. However, unless they have recently left the Hansard Society are among my Facebook friends and a good number of British political groups do or have followed me on Twitter — although unlike Facebook I have few Twitter followers.