By chance I knew Margaret Thatcher rather better than a junior civil servant might have been expected to, not least from giving her some maritime briefings during the First Gulf War. On another occasion Denis and I once got absolutely blind drunk in Lagos – I had been given him to look after for the day, and the itinerary started with the Guinness brewery and went on to the United Distillers bottling plant, before lunch at the golf club. I had to reunite him with his spouse for the State Banquet and quite literally fell out of the car. Happy days.
I can say I was on first name terms with her – she always called me by my first name. Except unfortunately she thought that was Peter. I recall she came out to Poland when I was in the Embassy there and I was embarrassed because she knew me, and thus greeted me more warmly than my Embassy superiors. The problem was lessened by her continuing to call me Peter very loudly, even after I corrected her twice.
In person she was frightfully sharp, she really was. If you gave her a briefing, she had an uncanny ability to seize on the one point where you did not have sufficient information. She also had that indescribable charisma – you really could feel when she entered a room in a way I have never experienced with anybody else, not Mandela or Walesa, for example. You may be surprised to hear that in person I found her quite likeable.
Yet she was a terrible, terrible disaster to this country. The utter devastation of heavy industry, the writing off of countless billions worth of tooling and equipment, the near total loss of the world’s greatest concentrated manufacturing skills base, the horrible political division of society and tearing of the bonds within our community. She was a complete, utter disaster.
Let me give one anecdote to which I can personally attest. In leaving office she became a “consultant” to US tobacco giant Phillip Morris. She immediately used her influence on behalf of Phillip Morris to persuade the FCO to lobby the Polish government to reduce the size of health warnings on Polish cigarette packets. Poland was applying to join the EU, and the Polish health warnings were larger than the EU stipulated size.
I was the official on whose desk the instruction landed to lobby for lower health warnings. I refused to do it. My then Ambassador, Michael Llewellyn Smith (for whom I had and have great respect) came up with the brilliant diplomatic solution of throwing the instruction in the bin, but telling London we had done it.
So as you drown in a sea of praise for Thatcher, remember this. She was prepared to promote lung cancer, for cash.
“The Belgrano was not in a war zone at the time of its sinking and it was sailing away from the Faulkland Island at the time.”
It was not in the Exclusion Zone but that’s not the same thing.
In the mid-1990’s the Argentine Navy admitted that they launched a pincer style attack on the British Task Force, Belgrano and her (Exocet armed) escorting destroyers were to launch a diversionary attack from the south whilst the Argentine carrier group sent in the real attack from the opposite direction. Fortunately the wind was not strong enough for the carrier to launch it’s aircraft so both groups withdrew for the night with the intention of having another go the following morning. It was whilst doing this that the Belgrano was torpedoed.
Even though she was sailing away from the Falklands she still represented a threat to the Task Force and her sinking was a legitimate act of war.
Re. “nil nisi bonum”….big up for Mao Zhedong, Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin. Who did a lot (the experts disagree on its value) for their countries. And are also dead.
More recently, I hope the admirers of Thatcher can bring themselves to speak well of the late Jimmy Savile, and practise as they preach. He’s dead too, and deserves not to be calumniated by you bad bastards on account of it isn’t nice.
Pfft.
She was a cow. End of.
Giles spat, “I am a bit of a fence-sitter when it comes to Thatcher, but her policies won the day, whether you approve of them or not. The sheer vitriol and nastiness of many of the sneering lefties is down to the fact that she effectively destroyed their socialist politics. So spitting on her grave and organizing silly street parties are all they have left.
Pathetic”
For someone who throws down insults like this so freely, Giles, you are remarkably thin skinned when it comes to receiving criticism of your own lot.
“Her policies won the day” you say, as if that were somehow a profound observation. Hitler’s policies “won the day” when it came to most of Europe. Stalin’s policies “won the day” in the Soviet Empire for many long, dark years. “Winning the day” is not any affirmation of rightness, no more than the policy to invade Iraq “won the day”.
That is such a feeble argument, I’m still astonished to hear any adult make it.
Yes, Thatcher did destroy socialist politics – we ended up with Blair and “New” Labour. A lot of the social structure to this country was destroyed. A class divide is now quite enormous, in-your-face inequality taken as quite acceptable – far more than we see in more civilised, happy and successful parts of “old” Europe.
Maybe you’re satisfied seeing banksters drunk on champagne, bragging about their bonuses, while child poverty is greater than ever.
Maybe the increased suicide rate among the despairing poor, increased homelessness, alcohol and drug abuse, increased prison population, increased debt – maybe that just doesn’t matter to you.
But even you should understand that it does matter to people who actually do have compassion, who believe in society and fairness, and that is why the passing of this cruel woman is celebrated in some quarters. And quite rightly too.
UK H7N9 guidelines for GPs
http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1317138620910
Controversial Respect MP George Galloway launched a brutal attack on Lady Thatcher yesterday, saying: “May she burn in hellfires.”
He also tweeted: “Tramp the dirt down”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-dead-george-galloways-1818564
Oh dear!
Frazer
9 Apr, 2013 – 3:04 pm
“The Belgrano was steaming full ahead just outside the 12 mile limit and had been repeatedly been warned to reverse course..it did not so it was torpedoed….end of story really!”
Another liar
Frazer I judged from reliable Naval sources that commander-in-chief Thatcher on waking Sunday morning, 2 May first heard of the Peruvian peace plans and was confronted by messages of serious peace proposals emanating from the United States and Peru, based on what was happening in Argentina.
The brutal truth is that on or near her waking hour, Sunday morning 2nd May, Minister Thatcher was in receipt of serious peace proposal messages emanating from the United States and Peru, based on what was happening in Argentina.
Over a period of at least five hours Thatcher deliberately and knowingly elected to create a global reality jurking, catastrophic sinking of the ex-US cruiser Belgrano (with no ASW capability and no sonar (a sitting duck) and the subsequent killing of 323 naval personnel and civilians.
Her waking up in the morning corresponds to midnight in Peru. Not until 15-16 hours after that, did the UK Government admit to its having heard of the Peruvian peace plans: three hours after the sinking.
Two American commentaries on Counterpunch, one on the film ‘The Iron Lady’ by Gail Dines
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/24/the-feminism-of-maggie-thatcher/
and the other by Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/08/the-queen-mother-of-global-austerity-financialization/
The trolls are coming out of the woodwork now! Take note of their pseudonyms
The above was confirmed in Tam Dalyell statement to the House (House of Commons 21.12.82, TT p.23) and Northwood engineering contacts.
Regarding the Belgrano and Thatcher’s determination to wage war (while peace proposals were on the table) did you notice how she used that 30 year policy to try and cover her sins. It’s got even worse since then. Hutton, in the Dr Kelly murder (oops!) case, has put a restriction of 70 years to cover the hide of liar Blair. Do these prime ministers have to pass a “How to lie with impunity test” before being installed as party leaders?
As to Kempe, Frazer, Giles et al, they will all be singing from the same hymn-book right up to the funeral of the dear old lady nod doubt with with chants of “Ding Dong Merrily on High”. While others rejoice, rather blasphemously, with choruses of “Ding, dong the wicked witch is dead.” She, like Thatcher’s friends Pinochet and Pol Pot, had their supporters too. So did Adolph Hitler. You have to have sympathy for Thatcher’s supporters, since they will take the cyanide capsule before admitting their Fuhrer was in the wrong.
Don’t you love the cartoon at the foot of this article? No offence Guano!
http://belgranoinquiry.com/
A Thorn in Their Side: The Hilda Murrell Murder
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thorn-Their-Side-Murrell-Murder/dp/0473196859
Robert Green
About the Author
Robert Green served for twenty years in the Royal Navy from 1962-82. As a Fleet Air Arm observer/ bombardier-navigator, he flew in Buccaneer nuclear strike aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters. On promotion to Commander in 1978, he worked in the Ministry of Defence before his final appointments as Staff Officer (Intelligence) to the Commander-in-Chief Fleet. Having taken voluntary redundancy in 1981, he was released after the 1982 Falklands War, and trained as a roof thatcher in Dorset. In 1984, the murder of his beloved aunt and mentor Hilda Murrell led him to examine and then challenge the hazards of nuclear electricity generation. This, plus the break-up of the Soviet Union, followed by the 1991 Gulf War caused him to speak out against nuclear weapons – the first ex-Commander with nuclear weapons experience to do so.
The book
In 1984, at the age of 78, world-renowned rose grower Hilda Murrell was found brutally murdered in the Shropshire countryside. She had just gained approval to testify on the unsolved [problems of radioactive waste at the first British planning inquiry into a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell, Suffolk. The police theory that a lone , panicking burglar robbed and abducted Hilda in her own car for petty cash erupted into a sensational political conspiracy involving prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s plans for British nuclear energy and the controversial sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano in the 1982 Falklands War. The West Mercia police took until 2005 to secure the conviction of Andrew George as Hilda’s unlikely murderer – in 1984 he was a 16-yeat-old truant from a local foster home who could not drive. The case spawned numerous books, plays and TV programmes as it became one of the most baffling British murders of the 20th century. Now, Hilda’s nephew Robert Green – a former Royal Navy Commander who operated nuclear weapons before holding a key position in Naval Intelligence during the Falklands War – tells the story of his extraordinary pursuit of the truth. Believing that Hilda was abducted by those who wanted to find out what she knew about the Falklands conflict and problems in the Sizewell nuclear power plant, and undeterred by ongoing harassment, Green exposes the implausibility of the police theory and uncovers explosive new evidence that should have acquitted Andrew George. This is the incredible true story of Hilda Murrell – and one man’s quest to find out how and why his beloved aunt met such a violent and bizarre death.
~~~
There are some interesting and intelligent comments on the Amazon page.
Off topic but a subject close to Mrs Thachers “heart”.
“Israeli army vehicles have crossed into the Gaza Strip and destroyed Palestinian farmland, witnesses in the besieged territory said.”
“Palestinians say several Israeli military bulldozers backed by tanks crossed the border in the southern Gaza Strip, near Khan Yunis, on Tuesday and began bulldozing farmland.”
The only logical reason for this attack by Israel is to goad the Palestinian militants into firing rockets. That would give the bastard Zionists another excuse to bomb Gaza.
I am just amazed at the rambling, unfocused discussion of the ‘Iron Lady’ which completely ignores her political demise – i.e., why former Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe was sacked suddenly in July 1989 – what completely baffled Thatcher insiders like Alan Clark, and led to the resignation of SoD George Younger in protest who had organized previous campaigns for her election as Party Leader.
Seems that Howe and Younger were expected to keep Captain Simon Hayward, the former leader of the 14 Intelligence Company’s South Detachment in Northern Ireland who for some unexplained reason had been set up as drug smuggler in Sweden, under wraps, and failed to do so when his autobiography, Under Fire: My Own Story, was published in Britain. In it, he complained bitterly not only about how the FO and MoD had treated him in prison, but also about how he had been set up before in Ibiza, especially by DUKE apparently aka ‘Steak Knife’, a British tout in the PIRA Council.
Howe, Younger and their supporters did not take kindly to what the PM had caused, and the rot a year later brought about her forced resignation.
The question seems to be: why was Hayward such a hot item that Thatcher reacted in this most destructive way?
Nevermind, 9 Apr, 11.14am
Good post.
I am amazed at how people don’t appreciate how shareholders, usually public, are short term profit vampires who do nothing for sustainable industry. They don’t care how profits are made, so they send the signal through the board of directors and executive management, all the way down to the shop floor – make more profit this quarter than the last or else you’re fired. So people cut corners (fail to modernise), cheat (falsify product quality data), skimp on maintenance (and lie about it) and choke expenditure on vital supplies that also chokes productivity – all to squeeze a few more bucks to pay out a dividend and bump up the value of the shares. The unions were also crooked bastards who wanted to maintain the status quo.
The historians here who have been on tenterhooks since my comment at 9 Apr, 2013 – 12:46 pm may now relax. I can confirm that Thatcher really was at Hampden in 1989 and I really did tell her in person to “shove her f***ing poll tax up her a**e.”
In 2009, David Torrance wrote:
http://news.stv.tv/politics/94097-analysis-scotland-too-critical-of-margaret-thatcher/
Mary – As an intelligence officer Robert was privy to details of the sinking of the Argentinian ship the General Belgrano(those details are classified and unfortunately I have signed the OSA).
Hilda was very close to uncle Robert and knew those details… her death sadly was the ‘hit’ our grand-children will acknowledge in 100 years time.
Craig,
Is there any truth, that you are aware of, to the rumour that Britain lost nuclear weapons to the bottom of the ocean in the Falklands conflict?
The right-wing Taxpayer’s Alliance has nothing to say about the funding of Mrs Thatcher’s ceremonial funeral.
What a surprise.
I have just completed the following comprehensive imaginary cross referencing survey:
These are the results:
Matches = 100%
Average time before describing Chavez as “brutal” = … er, is there a smaller unit of time than a picosecond?
In deference to our contrarians; a word (or two) of praise from the States.
“I remember reading an article in the Washington Monthly back in the late 1980s by one of the smugger liberal British columnists, Polly Toynbee. It captured part of the true derangement that Margaret Thatcher brought out in her political foes. It was called simply: “Is Margaret Thatcher A Woman?” It’s still online. It was a vicious attack on her having any feminist credentials. It included this magnificent lie:
She has experienced nothing but advantage from her gender.
Toynbee’s case is worth hearing out, but it’s an instant classic of the worst British trait: resentment of others’ success. No culture I know of is more brutally unkind to its public figures, hateful toward anyone with a degree of success or money, or more willing to ascribe an individual’s achievements to something other than their own ability. The Britain I grew up with was, in this specific sense, profoundly leftist in the worst sense. It was cheap and greedy and yet hostile to anyone with initiative, self-esteem, and the ability to make money.”
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/04/08/thatcher-liberator/
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/05/captain-simon-hayward-the-making-of-olof-palmes-assassin-and-its-blowback/
Trowbridge H Ford
[..]
The trouble with these sometimes erroneous explanations of FRU/UDA murders is that they are dealt with in a disjointed, episodic fashion, an approach which seems completely unjustified when we are told by Davies that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was continually provided with Military Intelligence Source Reports (MISRs) regarding individual operations. This was no renegade, hit-or-miss campaign. We need to put these killings, and others in the changing counter-terrorist context of Northern Ireland, one which appreciates its evolving causes, objectives, strategies, organizations, operatives, and limitations. After the successful completion of the Falklands War, Britain was prepared to go all out with its own campaign of terror in order to defeat revolutionary Irish nationalism.[..]
[..]Hayward’s assignment was to expose the stockpiling of Libyan weapons in the Republic by means of Hegarty’s arrest while leading another series of so-called shoot-to-kill murders to meet the alleged PIRA threat which would give him a believable alibi for triggering the showdown with the Soviets, the shooting to Swedish statsminister Olof Palme in Stockholm at the end of February 1986. Hayward saw to it that McMichael and Stone disposed of joiner Kevin McPolin in Lisburn as the new campaign commenced. Then he apparently led the drawn-out assassination of arms mover Francis Bradley on February 18, 1986, one so outrageous that it was being hotly debated in the press when Palme was murdered. Hayward had been actively sizing up Bradley for the shooting, even having his picture taken in military battlegear outside McVeys’ cafe in Magherafelt during the process, ever since unknown parties had shot up the Castledawson Police Station on December 9, 1985.
While the shooting of Palme, apparently by Hayward while reassessing the performance of his bodyguards, went off without a hitch, the problems with the South Detachment’s Ops Officer only increased for British officials as the Swedish police failed to find a likely suspect for the shooting, thanks particularly to SIS’s false leads. Jo Thomas of The New York Times published a belated story of the recent killings in the province, especially Bradley’s, to keep Hayward’s alibi going, and he added to it by helping entice Seamus McElwaine from across the border two months later, in the hope of catching the long sought-after James Lynagh, resulting in McElwain’s execution, and Sean Lynch’s wounding.[..]
A long piece, densely packed with names and facts.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/05/captain-simon-hayward-the-making-of-olof-palmes-assassin-and-its-blowback/
“…why former Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe was sacked suddenly in July 1989 ”
He wasn’t sacked there was a re-shuffle. He was offered the post of Home Secretary but turned it down and became Leader of the House instead. George Younger went on to run Thatcher’s leadership campaign in 1990.
Didn’t take long for this thread to dissolve into the usual conspiracy drivel.
Anon
Avian inuenza.
When a bird drops something on you, it is trying to tell you something.
Just the expected drivel from a disinformer.
Howe was sacked in July 1989 after the PM heard about what was in Hayward’s autobiography, and that it was to be published in Britain, resulting in Younger resigning from the Cabinet on July 24th.
Younger had been in charge of seeing that NATO’s Anchor Express Exercise was cooped into the assault that US Navy Secretary John Lehman, Jr. had organized to go across Norway Finnmark province to take out the Soviet forces on the Kola Peninsula after 44 of his attack submarines had taken out their boomers which were assumed to go on station in response to the surprise the Anglo-Americans had caused in Stockholm to Sweden’s stats minister on the night of February 28, 1986.
Younger had to convert that Anchor Express into naval exercises after the NATO forces ran into killing avalanches in the Vassdalen valley.
Little wonder that he felt more responsible for what had happened to Howe over Hayward, and not only resigned but refused to have anything more to do with Margaret Thatcher. As Alan Clark has written, as I recall, the failure of Younger to sponsor Thatcher’s re-election was the biggest cause of its failure.
Kempe: Don’t forget that when Lawson was chancellor, he was repeatedly undermined by Thatcher’s “special adviser” Alan Walters. They both resigned (Lawson & Walters) as a result of their rows.
It wasn’t simply that this or that minister became ticked off and deposed the sainted Thatcher, the truth of the matter is that she was completely unhinged by that point, and that is why she had to be got shot of.
Is Kempe banned or not? Somebody on the Nuclear Nightmare thread said that he had been banned.
She should have a state funeral, but for a fitting tribute, it should be put out to tender and the cheapest bid wins.
“Is Kempe banned or not? Somebody on the Nuclear Nightmare thread said that he had been banned”
The phrase Craig used was “Fuck off.”
Kempe is pretty skilled in the art of misinterpretation. He probably takes it to mean “Carry on with your sinister activities”
“How Thatcher Gave Pol Pot a Hand…… the bombing was a catalyst for the rise of a small sectarian group, the Khmer Rouge, whose combination of Maoism and medievalism had no popular base.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34539.htm
Here is a contrasting account:
“The Khmer Rouge experiment lasted only three years, from 1975 to 1978.
Surprisingly, Cambodians have no bad memories of that period. This is quite an amazing discovery for an infrequent visitor. I did not come to reconstruct “the truth”, whatever it is, but rather to find out what is the collective memory of the Cambodians….. The Pol Pot the Cambodians remember was not a tyrant, but a great patriot and nationalist, a lover of native culture and native way of life. …. The Cambodians I spoke to pooh-poohed the dreadful stories of Communist Holocaust as a western invention.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/18/pol-pot-revisited/