h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Couldn't agree more with the article. I'm not a Tory, never will be, but we need an effective official opposition in this country badly. Who is going to supply it?

BTW, one fact that seems to have been glossed over by the Tories in their Little Englander frenzy is that the person who did the most to surrender sovereignty to the EU was, in fact, none other that Thatcher herself. She signed the Single European Act, abrogating our right of veto over EU policy, then proceeded to get apoplectically worked up about the Masstricht Treaty, which was nowhere near as important. Now she has since claimed that she didn't understand the implications of what she did.
FM

WHAT!?! Thatcher admitting to having been wrong about something? I thought she was totally incapable of that!

How Margaret Thatchwer's biography *should* have started:
"The only time in my life I can ever remember being wrong is once, along time ago, whe I thought for a fleeting moment that I might have made a mistake..."

I'd like to claim that one as an original 'Monk', however honesty compels me to admit it wasn't. I don't know who wrote it though, but it's bloody funny.

Seeing as you seem to be a politically aware chap, have you ever read 'One of Us' by Hugo Young? One of the best political biographies among the limited number I have read (which isn't very many). Not many laughs, I'm afraid, but did the Great Lady ever have a sense of humour, I wonder?

No, I haven't read that book, although I have seen it. (It has a picture of a vintage Thatcher sneer on the cover, as I recall). I haven't got much money to buy books at the moment, but I'll have a look for it in my local library. I can well believe that it's a great book - I enjoy Hugo Young's contributions to 'The Guardian'.

One of the many things that used to depress me about Thatcher was the way that, if ever you criticised her, so many people would say something to the effect that she was great because she was 'a strong leader'. Well, yes - but so was Hitler, so was Stalin, so was Pol Pot. Not that I'm suggesting that Thatcher is quite in that league of villainy, but 'strength' can soon become bullying arrogance, and it certainly did in her case.

Strength in a leader needs to be matched with a vision that can be appreciated and supported by her followers. Her vision may have worked for the Tory party but it didn't for the country as a whole. I think that Thatcher was very good at setting one half of society against the other: her policies were totally divisive and served to drive in the wedge between the haves and have-nots even deeper.

I didn't agree with the miners' strike at the time for instance, being an undermocratic means to overthrow a democratically elected government, even if it was a Tory one. For the same reason, I don't agree with the motives or actions of the fuel protestors, who have their own covert agenda. But I hated the way that Thatcher described the mining unions as 'the enemy within'. These were British citizens..sorry, 'subjects', and as such deserved respect.

She has, of course gone completely bonkers of late, supporting that murdering b*****d Pinochet and telling British Muslims that they aren't being strident enough in their condemnation of Sept 11th. Well, I'd suggest that if she can't hear them, it's for want of listening, as usual.