A final word, perhaps.

Taking full advantage, as one does, of modern technology I recorded the whole broadcast of the Baroness Thatcher funeral for two reasons; I was unable to be home for the first sector, and I wished a permanent reminder of the ceremony afforded my long-time political heroine. We are not often able to claim that we lived through a defining change in the history of this Nation of ours, but with those eleven years in which she bestrode the Westminster and indeed the World stages, I reckon that it is indeed a justified claim. She was a strange mix; a scientist, a deeply religious person, heavily involved in politics from a comparatively early age; and of course the largest handicap of all, for most people who have been involved in either local or national politics: she was, obviously, a woman.

Many people danced and sang as she was slowly carried onwards to Wren’s masterpiece for a final farewell, and they expressed hatred for both the woman and her politics, and I regard them with a quiet pity, mainly because it is obvious; to myself at least, that they refuse to simply take one step back, and view her policies, politics, actions and beliefs with a dispassionate gaze.

Yes, her economic policies and ‘who governs’ approach to the stranglehold held on the British economy by the Unions generated massive antipathy, but she was supported in her endeavours by the ordinary working-class voters who saw, in her and her approach to the ‘British disease’, possibly the only saviour of a once-proud Nation slowly sinking into decay. Remember, she won three General Elections in a row after winning the Tory leadership from a moribund crew of no-hopers who had not an original idea between them.

When she was told of the invasion of the Falkland Islands by the Argentinian General’s forces, her immediate response; after ensuring that the Armed Forces were ready and available, was to order a Taskforce south to re-establish the right of the Falklanders to choose their own Government; nothing more and nothing less. The rights of that issue can be tested by viewing the results of an Island-wide Referendum held on March 10-11 this year, where the replies were an overwhelming 99.8% in favour of remaining a British Overseas Territory.

In the decade of Thatcher’s domination of British politics, she oversaw changes to many things which we, today, consider normality. Imagine a country where, if you wanted a telephone with a private line, you went on a six-month waiting list; and if you simply agreed to a ‘party’ or shared line, you maybe got a phone after three months. Imagine a country where the majority of the trucks and cars were built by a State-run organisation; and most products were so badly made that the call went out, ‘please ensure my car is made on a Wednesday’. Also imagine a car industry virtually run by its Unions, with feather-bedding rampant, quality control non-existent, management useless; and where a delivery date was routinely scheduled ‘give-or-take a month’, due to the strikes which were routinely scheduled. Imagine a shipbuilding industry where the agreement and presence of eight different types of artisans had to be arranged before a single weld, hole or bolt could be made, burnt or tightened; and where a six-week strike was called over a disagreement as to which type of artisan plucked the string of a chalk line marking a steel plate.

We have maybe lost some of the fires which were lit in the heady days of Thatcherism, but we are considerably free-er in a thousand different ways. The world is different because of Baroness Thatcher, and we should be proud of her achievements. As I have noted before, she was not perfect; with her negotiations which became the Anglo-Irish Treaty, she began the disgraceful process which resulted in murderers and their lackeys sitting in Stormont; she pushed through acceptance of the Single European Act without understanding the implications of that devious document, which resulted in the various Treaties which have removed so much of our National Sovereignty  and handed to Brussels, but as a Leader, as a Conviction Politician and a Prime Minister, she was, simply, without peer!

London marathon…a Prophesy

East & Central London hospitals and Emergency areas across the Capital will be overwhelmed with a huge influx of some seven hundred-odd marathon runners, all brought in at ultra-high speed by Paramedics and ambulances. All the patients will be admitted with notes stating that the diagnosis is a probable heart attack; as each patient was seen to clasp his chest with his hand as they crossed over the finish line. Only one patient will actually be admitted to the hospital for treatment, as the rest were able, once they had recovered their collective breaths,. to confirm that they were just trying to comply with the proposal that each runner held his or her hands to their heart as a symbol of solidarity with the Boston marathon casualties.

Please do not misunderstand me. I, and probably millions of others around the world, are aghast at the random ferocity unleashed upon unsuspecting runners and crowds of supporters when the bombs exploded without warning in Boston. But we simply do not feel the need to express our regret collectively, publicly, or with any flourish at all. What does the proposed wearing of black ribbons achieve? Will the injured recover faster? Will the family of that small boy, itself ruptured by more horrific injury, be comforted by the fact that lots of people held their hands to their hearts as they crossed a marathon finish line? Will the fanatical Muslim jihadis, already settling down in their madrassas for an afternoon’s bomb-making class and koranic propagands session be given pause for thought because a large bunch of sweaty clowns running in a road race make a ‘gesture’?

I doubt it very, very much indeed!

Fate is a Lonely Hunter.

We live, and sometimes we die, purely through chance. When we decide to do anything, we cannot possibly know what is to befall us in terms of accident, or malicious acts. The hasty work or maintenance item completed in a rush, the need to get on to the next task, or even to leave work on time, can have such tragic consequences for a complete stranger many miles from where that task was left only partially complete.

I was working some years ago, on a Central London construction site as a Mechanical & Electrical Manager, and as I lived just across the fence and a wide main road from Heathrow airport, sometimes I parked by the Underground station at Hatton Cross, and rode the train in to work, instead of driving in part way, and then using the Tube for the final stretch. I finished my day, hopped on the Tube, changing trains once, and grabbed a rare seat for the trip back west. Following the throng off the train, I paid for an evening paper, then walked, paper up but following the crowd, out of the station to stand at the traffic lights and pedestrian crossing.

The main road at which we stopped was the A30, and it was, even in those days, a very busy and fast-travelled 3-lane dual carriageway. You never took chances by crossing early, so we all waited until the lights turned ‘red’, and the green ‘pedestrian’ sign started flashing. Directly in front of me walked a lady wearing a beige raincoat, and she was being waved at by a young girl, whom I presumed was her daughter, standing on the central reservation with her father. I can still remember even to this day, so many years later, that I walked past a small Fiat which had stopped in the inside lane, and then a blue Mercedes in the central lane, with the outer lane still empty: the lady, still some five feet in front of me. Then a blur in front of my eyes, the newspaper was torn from my fingers; and with a massive rush of air but astonishingly no sound at all, a single-decker bus slammed straight across the junction, collecting the lady who was walking in front of us as it raced through the lights. I was left standing, stock-still, in the middle of the road, immobile for maybe a minute until a kind man took me by the shoulder and asked if I was okay.

I later discovered that the lady who died was indeed the wife of the man waiting with his happy daughter on the pedestrian reservation. I also discovered that the bus suffered a massive hydraulic failure of the braking system due to an over-stressed pipe connection which had worked loose. As I once wrote before, Funny how things sometimes stay in your mind long after the event!!

Ah-hh-hhh; the price of everything, and the value of nothing!

I want to echo the rising chorus of complaint regarding the cost of the funeral of the late Baroness Thatcher. I think that, in these days of austerity, of cutting costs, of reducing deficits; of slashing Welfare benefits to the needy, the deprived, the disabled: to spend an estimated £10 millions of public money on the funeral of this ‘divisive politician’ was appalling.

Some claim that to spend such an amount of cash on the Security, the gathering of members of the Armed forces, the many aspects of this, the largest ceremonial funeral for a politician since Sir Winston Churchill was wrong amd indefensible.

 

Personally, I would have brought over the Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial flight; I would have marched the massed bands of the Guards, the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force along the whole route, and literally rubbed her very name into the noses of that sorry band of losers who ‘protested’ against the Nation’s salute to a truly Great Lady.

 

£10 Million?

I would have made it £20 Million, and every penny well spent!

 

Maggie’s true legacy

In amongst the angst, bitterness and pure hatred spewed from all corners following the death of the Iron Lady, not too many commentators have reviewed her true Legacy, which she bestowed to this Nation during the time she bestrode the Westminster stage. Some of her targets were not from the Left, but from her own Party, who resented the very impertinence of being told the unvarnished truth by a ‘Grocer’s Daughter’. Not only did she tell the truth, not only did she figure out the roots of British decline; she made damn sure that change was seen as not only needed, it was made inevitable.

Consider her legacy with regard to the disastrous state of the British economy, when she came to lead the Tory Party. As one commentator reported in this acid-based documentary, in the days before the Thatcher revolution, you awoke to the voices from the State Broadcaster, otherwise known as the BBC, giving a slant on the news similar to Orwell’s Ministry of Truth but without the friendly atmosphere. You then ate a breakfast comprising food which had been transported by the State haulage company, whilst living in a house which you did not own, but which was allocated to you care of the National Housing schemes and Council housing lists. You then left to travel to work, either on a council-owned and operated bus or trolleybus, on a British Rail train, or in a car which was built by a State-owned company such as British Leyland. When you arrived at your work, a great many people worked in State-owned, subsidised and mis-managed industries such as British Telecom, British Steel, British Airways, British Gas: the list just went on. Whilst you worked, or sometimes pretended to work; you had to be a member of an appropriate Union, because the vast majority of State-owned companies were also closed shops. You also had to listen and agree with whatever the Unions proposed, such as strike action, because if you did not strike, and thus crossed  a picket line, you had committed the ultimate crime; and henceforth you were a SCAB, and no-one would speak to you at all. The Unions ruled, and their Communist leaders, along with their wide-eyed supporters from the Liberal Left, made sure that their members were featherbedded against all expensive rises in cost-of-living  statistics by threatening strike action if their constant demands were ever opposed. A threat, incidentally, the direct result of which brought some 29.5 million days lost to strike action in 1978-9.

Younger readers today have literally no idea of Union power, and the gross lunacies which grew from an idea which was, in itself, of great benefit to the working man. Place yourself in the boots of an electrician helping to build a ship at Swan Hunters’ shipyard on the Tyne. All he wants to do is to have a hole drilled through a bulkhead (a wall, to the uninitiated). He needs to get the hole cut or drilled because his heavy cable must go through the bulkhead. One side of the steel wall is covered by a wooden panel, the other side is covered by an asbestos panel. Firstly, he has to contact a carpenter, because only a carpenter can touch or drill through a wooden structure. Then he has to contact a boilermaker, because only boilermakers can use a oxy-acetylene cutting torch which can burn through the steel of the bulkhead. But then he also has to arrange for a shipwright to attend, because only shipwrights are authorised to mark up positions on steelwork. He also has then to arrange a visit by two fire-watchers, because a spark may catch another part of the woodwork, and cause fires. Two watchers because one must be standing on either side of the bulkhead. He then must also get an asbestos-qualified fitter to cut the asbestos insulation back around the hole which has been burned by the boilermaker. The electrician must then get a welder to fit and weld a steel collar around the circumference of the new hole in the bulkhead, so that the cable will not be damaged by lying on a sharp edge. If any workman, for want of simple speed, attempted to do anything for which he did not hold a Union card stating that he was qualified to undertake the procedure or task, he was warned, once, with the feared statement ‘you are depriving the family of a working man of the bread they need to survive’; and that was the force which ruled all of the State industries privatised by Margaret Thatcher.

An opponent of the working man? Rubbish, she freed that same working man from Union shackles, and allowed ‘freedom of choice’ to rule in their place!

Passports please.

Alongside most people who look upon the world from a right-wing perspective, I have always taken the BBC for what it is; which is an institution populated and dominated by Left-wing and creepily liberal minds, bound by Charter to be independent, but seeking always to inculcate its audience towards its own ‘common purpose’ mindset. But I have always also believed that some of the finest journalism and exposure documentaries have also made their way onto the BBC screens and airwaves, mainly because you cannot always keep the talent from making a solid programme. But I now feel that the BBC has not only overstepped the line in terms of deceit in  pursuit of a story, but also placed unsuspecting students in grave danger from the most oppressive regime in this world.

Allow me to explain. BBC Panorama producers were desperate to obtain good solid footage of life as it is ‘lived’ within the paradise which is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As all foreign reporters are barred from entering the People’s Paradise, they forged official documentation to state that John Sweeney and two colleagues were on the teaching staff of the London School of Economics, and so joined a students tour of DPRK organised by the LSE’s Grimshaw Club. During their stay in the dictatorship, Sweeney was continually called ‘Professor’ by the North Korean guides and military minders.

The BBC’s Sweeny writes of his experiences in the Mail today, and brushes away his lunacy with false documents by writing ‘North Korea doesn’t allow journalists here so I’m going in with a group of holidaymakers.’!

Just imagine what would have been the fate of the unsuspecting, and probably rather naive students from the LSE’s  Grimshaw Club if the regime had discovered that three of the party were actually engaged in making a documentary for BBC Panorama?

The empty benches!

Watching the tributes spoken within the Palace of Westminster as they were broadcast, the truths about the Labour Party, its whole approach to present history, its truly appalling attitude towards the late Lady Thatcher were laid bare. Over half of this collective group of time-serving slime couldn’t even abandon their vitriolic hatred of this dominant personality to the extent of turning up for the tribute she so rightly deserved; so that the empty green leather benches showed their disrespect for a Lady who had adorned to such purpose the same House which they did not enter today.

We watched with disgust as the morons danced drunkenly in celebration on the streets of Brixton and Glasgow yesterday, so typical of a belief system which defies all polite thinking when opposed by anyone who knew that they were wrong both in actions and beliefs. There may have been silence on the Opposition benches because the Labour MPs were absent, but that very silence was so noisy that it reverberated around the whole House. The small minds which represent so many Labour constituencies, by their absence, showed more about the fractious nature of these clowns than any acid speech which they may have spoken during this Tribute.

We were well served by the Lady during her time in office, just as we were betrayed by the jackals who attacked her and brought her down and voted against her in her own Party. Those same jackals whose voices are echoed by her enemies in the BBC, who of course consistently refer to this amazing Lady as being ‘divisive’. Rich indeed, those words coming from an organisation whose very Charter requires independence of thought; but that very independence is shaded and ignored as shown by the total lack of right-wing opinion and voice. They all seem to forget that to be ‘divisive’ requires two parties, and both parties should be heard from.

Lady Thatcher was that rare thing, a politician who believed that Her Country should be shown and led on the correct path, and all programmes, projects and policies should lead towards a better life for all of the inhabitants. She knew what she wanted; yes, she made mistakes both in policy and politics, but she made more progress towards the real freedoms than any of her predecessors or the inheritors of her Office.