"If Scotland votes No, how could I ever look a working-class English person in the eye? We blew it. We chose the Children of Thatcher."
Comedian and actor Brian Limond, creator of 'Limmy's Show'.
Showing posts with label Margaret Thatcher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Margaret Thatcher. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Wisdom on Wednesday : Popular sovereignty
"And what if that other voice WE ALL KNOW SO WELL responds by saying 'We say no, and we are the state'? Well, we say yes, and we are the people!"
Canon Kenyon Wright, chairman of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, speaking at the body's opening meeting. The "we" was an ironic reference (and instantly recognised as such by the audience) to Mrs Thatcher's use of the royal "we" when announcing that she (they?) had become a grandmother.
Canon Kenyon Wright, chairman of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, speaking at the body's opening meeting. The "we" was an ironic reference (and instantly recognised as such by the audience) to Mrs Thatcher's use of the royal "we" when announcing that she (they?) had become a grandmother.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Sagacity on Saturday : A Non-Sagacity Special
"A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us."
Said by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I'm not making this up - she had honestly convinced herself the world was LESS dangerous as a result of the existence of weapons capable of wiping out most of the human race within a matter of minutes.
Said by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I'm not making this up - she had honestly convinced herself the world was LESS dangerous as a result of the existence of weapons capable of wiping out most of the human race within a matter of minutes.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
This is the bit where everything changes - sensational ICM poll shows pro-independence campaign just 7% behind
At moments like this you're supposed to punch the air in delight, but I'm so dumbfounded that I think I've only managed to do it in my head so far. ICM, regarded by many as the 'gold standard' of UK pollsters, have released the first referendum poll of 2014, and it shows that the pro-independence campaign have slashed the No lead from 17% to 7%.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 37% (+5)
No 44% (-5)
I had a funny feeling a couple of hours ago that something special was in the offing. Normally when a new poll is on its way, the anti-independence campaign's troll-in-chief Blair McDougall can't resist a "scene-setting" tweet, but there was only deafening silence from him tonight, which left open the possibility that he'd seen the figures and knew that this time there was absolutely no way he could spin them in his favour. Some of the other usual suspects (notably our old friend Mike "can't be arsed" Smithson) indicated that they had no idea what the poll showed, suggesting an unusual level of secrecy that you wouldn't expect for a poll with a routine result.
So what does this mean? For years now, there has been an ongoing 'intra-nationalist debate' between those who think that polls are basically meaningless ("OK, they asked 1000 people, but what about the other five million?"), and those of us who think that we can certainly be critical of polls and point out their mistakes and limitations, but that there's no point in sticking our heads in the sand and trying to convince ourselves that polls don't matter at all. After all, there is a perfectly straightforward scientific basis for the idea that you can ask 1000 people for their opinion and get a result that is representative of the general population to within a margin of error of 3% (but only if you have your methodology absolutely bang on, which is the caveat that is too often overlooked). And perhaps more pertinently, I remember that when I took part in the For A' That podcast back in September, I made the point that the prevailing media narrative that is so unfavourable for the Yes campaign has been largely driven by poll results, and that everything would be completely different if we could only get those numbers to change. Make no mistake about it - a transformed narrative matters. Voters who previously thought that there was no point in wasting their mental energy thinking about the arguments for independence because Yes were too far behind will think again. Newspapers and other media outlets who previously thought that they were playing it safe and giving the audience what it wanted by churning out relentless anti-independence propaganda will realise that their interests are not quite so clear-cut. More specifically, a spontaneous surge for Yes in the polls is probably a prerequisite for securing unambiguous newspaper endorsements for independence in September.
We can now expect the long-awaited changed narrative to begin to unfold as a direct result of this poll - on one crucial condition. If there is a second poll in the coming days (in theory a TNS-BMRB poll should be due before the month is out), and if that poll contradicts ICM, the media will be all too keen to believe the figures that give them the easiest life. But if the next poll doesn't tell them what they want to hear, all hell will break loose. There's one thing even the most die-hard of unionist scribes will know in his/her heart of hearts - if Yes really have closed the gap from 17% to 7% since the last ICM poll four months ago, they are perfectly capable of closing the gap from 7% to zero over the next eight months. That's especially true given that the official campaign period (with the regulations to ensure balanced broadcast coverage) has not even started yet. The "Yes has already lost" fairy-story so beloved of Ian 'Complacency' Smart and his ilk is now utterly dead in the water.
* * *
ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH FOR PRO-INDEPENDENCE CAMPAIGN IN SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
Regular readers will remember that I provisionally updated the Poll of Polls after an Ipsos-Mori poll was released on January 12th, and that I then reluctantly had to reverse it after it transpired that the poll hadn't asked a straight Yes/No question, and probably wasn't properly weighted. I say 'reluctantly' because it was rather a good update for Yes, but I'm delighted to say that the first genuine update of referendum year shows much the same story anyway, with the pro-independence campaign closing the gap for the fifth time in succession...
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 33.8% (+0.8)
No 48.0% (-0.8)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 41.3% (+1.0)
No 58.7% (-1.0)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 40.9% (+1.3)
No 59.1% (-1.3)
As ever, the Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of six polls - the most recent one from each of the six pollsters that have conducted properly-weighted nationwide referendum polls during the campaign, and that adhere to British Polling Council (BPC) rules. If any other BPC pollsters enter the fray at some point (for example ComRes or Populus), they'll be taken into account as well.
Obviously, with only one-sixth of the sample changing with this update, it's not possible for the movements to be as dramatic as seen in the headline ICM figures. However, Yes have still reached another new landmark, breaking through the psychological 40% threshold on the median average for the first time. The median was previously calculated as the mid-point between TNS-BMRB and ICM (as the 'middle' pollsters), but ICM have astonishingly just replaced Panelbase as the outright most favourable pollster for Yes, meaning that the median is now the mid-point between Angus Reid and TNS-BMRB.
On the headline average figures, Yes are left requiring a swing of just 7.1% to draw level - but the reality is that it'll almost certainly be much less than that by now if the trend picked up by ICM is genuine. Indeed, on that trend it's quite possible (arguably likely) that Panelbase would be showing either a dead heat or a narrow Yes lead at the moment. If I was a decision-maker in the SNP, I'd be sorely tempted to commission another Panelbase poll right now - the impact on the media narrative could be huge.
* * *
"You're better together with a Tory government you didn't vote for!" say panto stars John Barrowman and the Krankies. "Oh no we're not!" retort the audience.
When the news of this poll broke, I was in the middle of writing a post about the rather more trivial matter of John Barrowman's characteristically self-effacing Burns Night 'Address to the Nation', but I don't think I'll bother finishing it now. Suffice to say I spent my own Burns Night at the Hydro in Glasgow watching pro-independence singers Dougie MacLean, Rachel Sermanni and Karine Polwart performing for Celtic Connections. In particular, Polwart brought a tear to my eye with her beautiful rendition of Green Grow the Rashes. (I mean, obviously it wasn't a patch on Barrowman's timeless cover of Baby Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band, but we can only make do with the scraps of entertainment that are actually available to us here in the far provinces.)
Oh, and I think I would have been left with marginally more respect for Barrowman if he'd done his faintly pathetic "kilts, Irn Bru and Salmond is fat" routine in the American accent he uses on every other occasion he's on television. His weird decision to go Scottish for one night only reminded me a bit of the advice Margaret Thatcher apparently received in the 80s with a view to improving her dismal personal ratings in these parts. It was suggested that she adopt a mild Scottish accent on her forays north - a comic spectacle of truly epic proportions that we were cruelly denied from witnessing.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes 37% (+5)
No 44% (-5)
I had a funny feeling a couple of hours ago that something special was in the offing. Normally when a new poll is on its way, the anti-independence campaign's troll-in-chief Blair McDougall can't resist a "scene-setting" tweet, but there was only deafening silence from him tonight, which left open the possibility that he'd seen the figures and knew that this time there was absolutely no way he could spin them in his favour. Some of the other usual suspects (notably our old friend Mike "can't be arsed" Smithson) indicated that they had no idea what the poll showed, suggesting an unusual level of secrecy that you wouldn't expect for a poll with a routine result.
So what does this mean? For years now, there has been an ongoing 'intra-nationalist debate' between those who think that polls are basically meaningless ("OK, they asked 1000 people, but what about the other five million?"), and those of us who think that we can certainly be critical of polls and point out their mistakes and limitations, but that there's no point in sticking our heads in the sand and trying to convince ourselves that polls don't matter at all. After all, there is a perfectly straightforward scientific basis for the idea that you can ask 1000 people for their opinion and get a result that is representative of the general population to within a margin of error of 3% (but only if you have your methodology absolutely bang on, which is the caveat that is too often overlooked). And perhaps more pertinently, I remember that when I took part in the For A' That podcast back in September, I made the point that the prevailing media narrative that is so unfavourable for the Yes campaign has been largely driven by poll results, and that everything would be completely different if we could only get those numbers to change. Make no mistake about it - a transformed narrative matters. Voters who previously thought that there was no point in wasting their mental energy thinking about the arguments for independence because Yes were too far behind will think again. Newspapers and other media outlets who previously thought that they were playing it safe and giving the audience what it wanted by churning out relentless anti-independence propaganda will realise that their interests are not quite so clear-cut. More specifically, a spontaneous surge for Yes in the polls is probably a prerequisite for securing unambiguous newspaper endorsements for independence in September.
We can now expect the long-awaited changed narrative to begin to unfold as a direct result of this poll - on one crucial condition. If there is a second poll in the coming days (in theory a TNS-BMRB poll should be due before the month is out), and if that poll contradicts ICM, the media will be all too keen to believe the figures that give them the easiest life. But if the next poll doesn't tell them what they want to hear, all hell will break loose. There's one thing even the most die-hard of unionist scribes will know in his/her heart of hearts - if Yes really have closed the gap from 17% to 7% since the last ICM poll four months ago, they are perfectly capable of closing the gap from 7% to zero over the next eight months. That's especially true given that the official campaign period (with the regulations to ensure balanced broadcast coverage) has not even started yet. The "Yes has already lost" fairy-story so beloved of Ian 'Complacency' Smart and his ilk is now utterly dead in the water.
* * *
ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH FOR PRO-INDEPENDENCE CAMPAIGN IN SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS
Regular readers will remember that I provisionally updated the Poll of Polls after an Ipsos-Mori poll was released on January 12th, and that I then reluctantly had to reverse it after it transpired that the poll hadn't asked a straight Yes/No question, and probably wasn't properly weighted. I say 'reluctantly' because it was rather a good update for Yes, but I'm delighted to say that the first genuine update of referendum year shows much the same story anyway, with the pro-independence campaign closing the gap for the fifth time in succession...
MEAN AVERAGE (not excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 33.8% (+0.8)
No 48.0% (-0.8)
MEAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 41.3% (+1.0)
No 58.7% (-1.0)
MEDIAN AVERAGE (excluding Don't Knows) :
Yes 40.9% (+1.3)
No 59.1% (-1.3)
As ever, the Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of six polls - the most recent one from each of the six pollsters that have conducted properly-weighted nationwide referendum polls during the campaign, and that adhere to British Polling Council (BPC) rules. If any other BPC pollsters enter the fray at some point (for example ComRes or Populus), they'll be taken into account as well.
Obviously, with only one-sixth of the sample changing with this update, it's not possible for the movements to be as dramatic as seen in the headline ICM figures. However, Yes have still reached another new landmark, breaking through the psychological 40% threshold on the median average for the first time. The median was previously calculated as the mid-point between TNS-BMRB and ICM (as the 'middle' pollsters), but ICM have astonishingly just replaced Panelbase as the outright most favourable pollster for Yes, meaning that the median is now the mid-point between Angus Reid and TNS-BMRB.
On the headline average figures, Yes are left requiring a swing of just 7.1% to draw level - but the reality is that it'll almost certainly be much less than that by now if the trend picked up by ICM is genuine. Indeed, on that trend it's quite possible (arguably likely) that Panelbase would be showing either a dead heat or a narrow Yes lead at the moment. If I was a decision-maker in the SNP, I'd be sorely tempted to commission another Panelbase poll right now - the impact on the media narrative could be huge.
* * *
"You're better together with a Tory government you didn't vote for!" say panto stars John Barrowman and the Krankies. "Oh no we're not!" retort the audience.
When the news of this poll broke, I was in the middle of writing a post about the rather more trivial matter of John Barrowman's characteristically self-effacing Burns Night 'Address to the Nation', but I don't think I'll bother finishing it now. Suffice to say I spent my own Burns Night at the Hydro in Glasgow watching pro-independence singers Dougie MacLean, Rachel Sermanni and Karine Polwart performing for Celtic Connections. In particular, Polwart brought a tear to my eye with her beautiful rendition of Green Grow the Rashes. (I mean, obviously it wasn't a patch on Barrowman's timeless cover of Baby Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band, but we can only make do with the scraps of entertainment that are actually available to us here in the far provinces.)
Oh, and I think I would have been left with marginally more respect for Barrowman if he'd done his faintly pathetic "kilts, Irn Bru and Salmond is fat" routine in the American accent he uses on every other occasion he's on television. His weird decision to go Scottish for one night only reminded me a bit of the advice Margaret Thatcher apparently received in the 80s with a view to improving her dismal personal ratings in these parts. It was suggested that she adopt a mild Scottish accent on her forays north - a comic spectacle of truly epic proportions that we were cruelly denied from witnessing.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Warning on Wednesday : The true meaning of the UK's 'best of both worlds'
"The first thing is to stop the Scots grumbling. Emasculate them. That would concentrate their minds. The Scots are getting too much."
Said by Tory darling Bernard Ingham in 1990 while still Mrs Thatcher's Press Secretary, giving us fair warning of what London's attitude to Scotland will revert to once the referendum is over, and the need for all the honeyed words about "Scotland's contribution to the United Kingdom" has passed.
Said by Tory darling Bernard Ingham in 1990 while still Mrs Thatcher's Press Secretary, giving us fair warning of what London's attitude to Scotland will revert to once the referendum is over, and the need for all the honeyed words about "Scotland's contribution to the United Kingdom" has passed.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Can 'freedom and democracy' cope with independence?
I have a new article at the International Business Times, which attempts to put the significance of the independence referendum in some kind of international historical context. You can read it HERE.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Did the Bishop of London feel something on his shoulder?
Compare and contrast (well, perhaps not the latter)...
Tony Blair at the negotiations that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement -
"A day like today is not a day for soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders..."
The Bishop of London's address at the funeral of his friend Margaret Thatcher -
"There is an important place for debating policies and legacy; for assessing the impact of political decisions on the everyday lives of individuals and communities. Parliament held a frank debate last week – but here and today is neither the time nor the place. This, at Lady Thatcher's personal request, is a funeral service, not a memorial service with the customary eulogies...She was very aware that there are prior dispositions which are needed to make market economics and democratic institutions function well: the habits of truth-telling, mutual sympathy, and the capacity to co-operate. These decisions and dispositions are incubated and given power by our relationships. In her words: "The basic ties of the family are at the heart of our society and are the nursery of civic virtue"...Life is a struggle to make the right choices and to achieve liberation from dependence, whether material or psychological. This genuine independence is the essential pre-condition for living in an other-centred way, beyond ourselves. The word Margaret Thatcher used at St Lawrence Jewry was 'interdependence'...Her remark about there being no such thing as 'society' has been misunderstood..."
Words fail me.
Tony Blair at the negotiations that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement -
"A day like today is not a day for soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders..."
The Bishop of London's address at the funeral of his friend Margaret Thatcher -
"There is an important place for debating policies and legacy; for assessing the impact of political decisions on the everyday lives of individuals and communities. Parliament held a frank debate last week – but here and today is neither the time nor the place. This, at Lady Thatcher's personal request, is a funeral service, not a memorial service with the customary eulogies...She was very aware that there are prior dispositions which are needed to make market economics and democratic institutions function well: the habits of truth-telling, mutual sympathy, and the capacity to co-operate. These decisions and dispositions are incubated and given power by our relationships. In her words: "The basic ties of the family are at the heart of our society and are the nursery of civic virtue"...Life is a struggle to make the right choices and to achieve liberation from dependence, whether material or psychological. This genuine independence is the essential pre-condition for living in an other-centred way, beyond ourselves. The word Margaret Thatcher used at St Lawrence Jewry was 'interdependence'...Her remark about there being no such thing as 'society' has been misunderstood..."
Words fail me.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Ding-a-dong listen to it, maybe it's a big hit, even when your lover is gone gone gone, sing ding-dang-dong
I couldn't quite make up my mind how I felt about the controversy over whether Radio 1 should broadcast Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead on its official charts show yesterday. On the one hand, we're forever being told that Thatcherism was all about "freedom" (except for Chileans, Cambodians and non-white South Africans, naturally), and therefore the logic that good Thatcherites should simply accept that people have the freedom to offend seemed inescapable. And of course that was exactly the line we heard from many conservative commentators during the debate over the offensive Danish cartoons a few years ago, so it would have been nice to see a little consistency of principle from them. On the other hand, the idea that the song could be played in full by the state broadcaster when everyone would know exactly what it represented in this context (direct celebration of an individual's recent death) seemed just a bit too in-your-face. So, on the whole, I came round to feeling that an acknowledgement of the song's chart position, an explanation of what it was doing there, plus a clip of the song, was probably a fair enough compromise.
But that was before the decision to play I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher in full earlier in the same show. Above all else, Radio 1 needed to demonstrate that it was being politically even-handed, so either both songs should have been played in full, or neither should have been. It's not good enough to say that the pro-Thatcher song was not intended to offend - it had only reached its lowly chart spot as a direct result of a campaign designed to counter the one that had got Ding Dong! to number two. If one song required a news report to put it in its correct political context, then they both did.
In purely practical terms, without making any moral judgements, it has to be said that the success of a Facebook campaign in getting an intensely annoying song from a 1930s musical to very near the top of the charts is an incredible achievement. There was a time when campaigns like the "it'll be hilarious if this works" one for Rik Waller to win Pop Idol fell flat on their face as a matter of routine, so the mobilising power of social media really seems to have come of age.
But that was before the decision to play I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher in full earlier in the same show. Above all else, Radio 1 needed to demonstrate that it was being politically even-handed, so either both songs should have been played in full, or neither should have been. It's not good enough to say that the pro-Thatcher song was not intended to offend - it had only reached its lowly chart spot as a direct result of a campaign designed to counter the one that had got Ding Dong! to number two. If one song required a news report to put it in its correct political context, then they both did.
In purely practical terms, without making any moral judgements, it has to be said that the success of a Facebook campaign in getting an intensely annoying song from a 1930s musical to very near the top of the charts is an incredible achievement. There was a time when campaigns like the "it'll be hilarious if this works" one for Rik Waller to win Pop Idol fell flat on their face as a matter of routine, so the mobilising power of social media really seems to have come of age.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Did Mrs Thatcher do any good things?
Above all else, today is a terribly sad day for Margaret Thatcher's family, her friends, and all those who feel a sense of loss as a result of her passing. I'm beginning to wonder if the former PM's ideological opponents ought to have restricted themselves to offering personal sympathy and condolences on that basis, because even the most generalised of tributes to her political talents and achievements have been cynically leapt upon by some on the right as 'proof' that she was correct all along.
Another potential approach at a moment like this is to single out one or two specific achievements that we do genuinely admire - for example the saving grace of John Major's premiership was the substantial progress towards peace in Northern Ireland. With Mrs Thatcher it's more challenging to do that, but after a long, hard think, here is my short list of the good things that I think she did.
The resolution of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe crisis in 1980. Many would have expected her to intervene to thwart Mugabe's ascent to power (on anti-communist grounds or whatever), but she correctly allowed the democratic process to run its course.
Standing up for the Falkland islanders' right to self-determination. Whether it was really about that for her is dubious, and the loss of life was utterly horrendous (the equivalent of half the population of the islands), but nevertheless a vitally important principle was affirmed.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement. Again, she probably did this for the wrong reasons - she was seeking security cooperation from Dublin above all else. But nevertheless it was a small signal to the nationalist population that their moderate political representatives could make progress without recourse to bombs or bullets.
Approving a rational HIV awareness campaign. With her social conservative background, many expected her to insist that the government campaign should emphasise sexual abstinence. But she didn't, and probably saved many lives in the process.
Progress towards European unity. This is the most ironic of the lot, but two of the most significant milestones on the road to European integration occurred on Mrs Thatcher's watch - the breaking of the logjam caused by the 'Luxembourg Compromise', and the Single European Act.
Can you think of any others?
Another potential approach at a moment like this is to single out one or two specific achievements that we do genuinely admire - for example the saving grace of John Major's premiership was the substantial progress towards peace in Northern Ireland. With Mrs Thatcher it's more challenging to do that, but after a long, hard think, here is my short list of the good things that I think she did.
The resolution of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe crisis in 1980. Many would have expected her to intervene to thwart Mugabe's ascent to power (on anti-communist grounds or whatever), but she correctly allowed the democratic process to run its course.
Standing up for the Falkland islanders' right to self-determination. Whether it was really about that for her is dubious, and the loss of life was utterly horrendous (the equivalent of half the population of the islands), but nevertheless a vitally important principle was affirmed.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement. Again, she probably did this for the wrong reasons - she was seeking security cooperation from Dublin above all else. But nevertheless it was a small signal to the nationalist population that their moderate political representatives could make progress without recourse to bombs or bullets.
Approving a rational HIV awareness campaign. With her social conservative background, many expected her to insist that the government campaign should emphasise sexual abstinence. But she didn't, and probably saved many lives in the process.
Progress towards European unity. This is the most ironic of the lot, but two of the most significant milestones on the road to European integration occurred on Mrs Thatcher's watch - the breaking of the logjam caused by the 'Luxembourg Compromise', and the Single European Act.
Can you think of any others?
Friday, June 18, 2010
The ugliness of being right
Total Politics marks the fortieth anniversary of Edward Heath's elevation to the premiership with an overview of 'the good, the bad and the ugly' of his term of office. Actually, 'the ugly' has got far more to do with what happened after Mrs Thatcher deposed him as Tory leader, and is summarised in the following terms -
"Withdrawal: Heath delivers a comprehensive lesson in how to best ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’. He refused to take part in Thatcher’s shadow cabinet and later declined the post of British Ambassador to the United States, going on to criticise the ideological direction of the Conservative Party."
Hmmm. Heath may have made a mistake by refusing the initial offer of a place in the shadow cabinet (although his successor was hardly the model of good grace when she was toppled in a similar manner fifteen years later), but the rest is a transparent attempt to rewrite history from a Thatcherite worldview. He was practically begging for a role in Mrs Thatcher's cabinet on the night of the 1979 election, but was totally rebuffed, and if he'd accepted the offer to become the ambassador to Washington he would have been completely sidelined from British politics. As for "going on to criticise the ideological direction of the Conservative Party", that wasn't so much "ugly" as...well, right.
"Withdrawal: Heath delivers a comprehensive lesson in how to best ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’. He refused to take part in Thatcher’s shadow cabinet and later declined the post of British Ambassador to the United States, going on to criticise the ideological direction of the Conservative Party."
Hmmm. Heath may have made a mistake by refusing the initial offer of a place in the shadow cabinet (although his successor was hardly the model of good grace when she was toppled in a similar manner fifteen years later), but the rest is a transparent attempt to rewrite history from a Thatcherite worldview. He was practically begging for a role in Mrs Thatcher's cabinet on the night of the 1979 election, but was totally rebuffed, and if he'd accepted the offer to become the ambassador to Washington he would have been completely sidelined from British politics. As for "going on to criticise the ideological direction of the Conservative Party", that wasn't so much "ugly" as...well, right.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Tories in war with Planet Reality
The right's paranoia about the 'liberal' (ie. light on active Tory advocacy) BBC reaches a new height of absurdity today, with a bizarre claim in the Sunday Times that the corporation used Doctor Who as a vehicle for anti-government propaganda in the late years of Margaret Thatcher's rule. The paper has taken a characteristically mischievous comment from Sylvester McCoy (who played the Doctor in the three seasons before the show was 'put on hiatus' in 1989) and, using regenerative technology worthy of the TARDIS itself, transformed it into a full-blown BBC conspiracy to "hire left-wing scriptwriters" to write "propaganda into the plots in an attempt to undermine Margaret Thatcher’s premiership".
Sadly for the Sunday Times, the details of their own story make unmistakably clear that what was happening was not directed from on-high, but was simply the result of a young script editor following his own political idealism. What I find especially amusing about the paper's spin is the 'secret conspiracy, only just uncovered' angle - the idea that anyone could have missed the political message in those episodes is risible. Sheila Hancock's character Helen A in The Happiness Patrol, who ruled a planet where everyone 'had to be happy', was instantly recognised at the time as a not-very-subtle satire of Thatcherism. Any pro-CND slant in the story Battlefield (written by David Aaronovotich's brother Ben) was not going to easily go over people's heads either, given that at the conclusion of the story the Doctor screams as the villain "are these weapons YOU WOULD UUUUUSE?". Perhaps there were some viewers who came away thinking they had spotted a nod towards the case for proportionate nuclear deterrence in that outburst, but I have my doubts.
Even funnier is the article's rather desperate attempt to imply that the BBC's effort to foment a "TARDIS revolution" backfired and was responsible for viewers leaving the show in "droves", leading to its ultimate demise! As any Doctor Who fan of the right or left will tell you, the real reasons for the programme's dip in fortunes were rather more prosaic - shocking scheduling and almost zero publicity.
Sadly for the Sunday Times, the details of their own story make unmistakably clear that what was happening was not directed from on-high, but was simply the result of a young script editor following his own political idealism. What I find especially amusing about the paper's spin is the 'secret conspiracy, only just uncovered' angle - the idea that anyone could have missed the political message in those episodes is risible. Sheila Hancock's character Helen A in The Happiness Patrol, who ruled a planet where everyone 'had to be happy', was instantly recognised at the time as a not-very-subtle satire of Thatcherism. Any pro-CND slant in the story Battlefield (written by David Aaronovotich's brother Ben) was not going to easily go over people's heads either, given that at the conclusion of the story the Doctor screams as the villain "are these weapons YOU WOULD UUUUUSE?". Perhaps there were some viewers who came away thinking they had spotted a nod towards the case for proportionate nuclear deterrence in that outburst, but I have my doubts.
Even funnier is the article's rather desperate attempt to imply that the BBC's effort to foment a "TARDIS revolution" backfired and was responsible for viewers leaving the show in "droves", leading to its ultimate demise! As any Doctor Who fan of the right or left will tell you, the real reasons for the programme's dip in fortunes were rather more prosaic - shocking scheduling and almost zero publicity.
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