Burying Thatcher: MP's Response

Here's my MP's response to my enquiry about the justification for and expenditure on Margaret Thatcher's funeral (see earlier post). I'll let you be the judge of whether or not it is satisfactory.
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Thatcher, Saviour of the OU

A letter in today's Independent which argues that no one is ALL bad:

Insofar as comment has been passed on Margaret Thatcher’s time as Education Secretary in the Heath Government of 1970-74, this has usually related to her decisions to abandon free school milk and to shut down large numbers of grammar schools. What has been omitted is that Mrs Thatcher saved the Open University.

When Heath was elected Prime Minister in 1970, Ian Macleod, his Chancellor, was keen to rid the country of what he took to be Wilsonian financial albatrosses. Of all the decisions passed by his government, none was more associated with Harold Wilson than the Open University, and Macleod was keen to do away with it before it came into being, as were other Conservatives, who saw it as a further extension of state provision.

As a junior member of the Cabinet, ambitious and from the right, Thatcher might have been thought likely to support such a view. But after consultation, principally with the Open University’s first Vice-Chancellor, Walter Perry, she was persuaded that it was in fact an inexpensive and effective way of extending opportunity and creating new graduates. Much to Macleod’s chagrin, and with minimal support from her own department, she decided to move forward with the Open University.

John Campbell, in his much-acclaimed two-volume biography of Margaret Thatcher, argues that this was “her most remarkable feat” as Education Secretary, and that while Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee are usually credited with the conception of the OU “Margaret Thatcher deserves equal credit for single-handedly allowing it to be born when her senior colleagues were intent upon aborting it.”

Dr James Carleton Paget

Fellow and Tutor

Peterhouse, Cambridge

Burying Thatcher

Being somewhat of a bolshy individual and ever concerned with the proper use of taxpayers' money, I have written to my MP (who is a Tory and a junior Minister) about wossername's funeral. If you too are wondering where all the money went you may wish to do likewise:

I see that the late Margaret Thatcher is to be accorded what amounts to a State funeral. As a member of the Government you will (or should) have been involved in the decision to do so and I would be grateful if you could let me know the reasons for coming to this decision.

Please could also let me know the cost to the public purse of the funeral. Reports in the Press have put this as high as £10 million - is this correct? I would be grateful for an itemised list of expenditure, detailing things such as Police, transport, security and so forth. Please could you confirm that the Thatcher Estate will at least be paying the undertaker's and the church's fees.

Please could you also let me know the cost to the public purse of recalling Parliament to debate her death, and why this was considered to be necessary.

Thank you.

If I get a reply, I'll post it on t'blog. Meanwhile, here's hoping they remember to put a stake through her heart before they close the coffin lid.

[Addendum: The statistics boffins at The Guardian have calculated the opportunity cost of Thatcher's funeral. i.e. what else could you get for £10 million. Amongst other things, you could buy 72.65 average-priced houses in Warrington (15.48 in Camden, 92.01 in Peterborough). Or 6,079 duck houses for Peter Viggers MP.]

Thatcher

When I was working for Her Majesty’s Government, I was told Margaret Thatcher insisted that briefing had to comprise no more than a single side of A4; otherwise she would not read it. So (and also so as not to bore the pants off you chaps), I will stick to Thatcher’s diktat in summarising my view of The Old Bat.

Thatcher set out to cause division and to destroy consensus and she succeeded. The reaction to her death is testament to that. She remarked that there is no such thing as society - an indication that she did not recognise that outside her world, there were other views that were equally valid, nor did she appreciate the interdependencies between people and within communities. There was only her conviction that she was right. It did not matter if three million people were employed and entire communities had been shattered. As she saw it, there needed to be a shakedown of the industrial sector so Sheffield’s steel-based manufacturing, for example, had to go. She wanted to break the political power of the Unions, and particular of the NUM, so the mines had to be closed. If there is no such thing as society, then there’s nothing for Unions and manufacturing to be part of. Perhaps, unconsciously or not, Thatcher saw society and the concept of consensus as something to do with ‘Socialism’: to her, A Great Evil.

She had the blinkered view that to control inflation the money supply must be limited and did this rather crudely by increasing interest rates. This had the effect of causing businesses to go bust as many often operate on an overdraft to maintain cash flow. There certainly were inefficiencies in the economy, but these were as much due to poor management and lack of investment as they were to Union belligerence. But the Unions took all the blame.

Whether through incompetence or design, Thatcher allowed the Falklands War to happen; a conflict that was entirely avoidable. But she thrived on conflict and used the Falklands to generate a wave of patriotism that she could exploit electorally. She consigned hundreds to their deaths - she was the only beneficiary.

Thatcher did not ‘win’ three elections. Callaghan threw away his chance by delaying until May 1979; Labour shot itself (in the Foot) in 1983; and the SDP split the vote in 1983 and 1987.

Prior to Thatcher, education and health policies inter alia were arrived at by consensus and politicians would listen to professionals. She rejected this and imposed ‘market forces’, for example, school league tables and privatised services. Privatisation of social housing and utilities meanwhile meant that some individuals made short term gains – but society as a whole lost as there is now a shortage of housing and the utilities are making vast profits whilst services have not improved.

Thatcher deregulated the financial markets – the ‘Big Bang’ - ushering in the era of casino banking that produced the ‘credit crunch’ and the necessity for the State to bail out the banks. Society as a whole consequently now has to pay for the recklessness of the Thatcherite few.

[See also Annexes A001 to A194: Hillsborough, Pinochet, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Section 28 homophobia, Peter Wright Spycatcher, Censorship of Irish Republicans, Free School Milk, GCHQ, Mis-spent oil revenues, Poll Tax, Immigration, GLC, and many more. Further diatribes available on request.]

Margaret Thatcher