Almost as odious as the vile street parties celebrating the death of Baroness Thatcher has been the sight of the men who destroyed her appearing on TV shedding crocodile tears.
There was Ken Clarke, who plunged the knife in her back, lapping up the applause on BBC’s Question Time as he described her courage and conviction.
And Francis Maude wrapping himself in the mantle of her greatness, knowing full well that, in years gone by, he stamped all over her memory as viciously as those hate-filled protesters today.
Ken Clarke (left) and Francis Maude (right) have both made public addresses praising Thatcher, despite both men having knifed her - either while in office or after she had left Downing StreetClarke was perhaps the most influential of those in her Cabinet who brought her down in 1990. Maude, who’s helped to organise her funeral, was among the first to try to airbrush her out of the picture once she had left office.
I had a ringside seat at the carnival of treachery that beset Lady Thatcher after she was ousted by the men Norman Tebbit sardonically called her ‘friends’.
As William Hague’s press secretary in the run-up to the 2001 election when he was leader, I saw first hand how Maude and his modernisers betrayed her.
Michael Portillo co-conspired with Maude against Thatcher, who they both felt was political poison, Portillo even tried to stop her appearing at an election rally in PlymouthTheir mantra was ‘concede and move on’. By concede, they meant accept the Left’s monstrous lie that Mrs Thatcher was nasty, divisive and old-fashioned. By move on, they meant remove every vestige of her extraordinary legacy.
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Which is why, as Robin Harris revealed in his riveting biography of Margaret Thatcher, serialised in the Mail this week, they wanted her to disappear from the face of the Earth before the 2001 election.
Portillo even tried to stop her appearing at an election rally in Plymouth — but Hague, who was always loyal to her, refused to allow this, to the delight of the faithful.
That, of course, was always the problem for the modernisers. Unlike them, and unlike the current crop of privileged public school boys leading the party, the shopkeeper’s daughter had an unerring instinct for what mattered to people in the real world.
She was a small-state, low-taxing, free market conservative determined to help hard-working families. Hers were the politics of conviction.
In contrast, all that interested the modernisers was making the Tory Party seem nice. So we had Theresa May’s ‘nasty party’ speech, Hague’s stupid baseball caps, and all manner of other vacuous attempts to appeal to a mythical, right-on electorate, including the embracing of gay marriage, overseas aid and the green agenda.
It sickens me to see these individuals on TV, and in other media, talking themselves up by praising Mrs Thatcher’s legacy when they did all they could to destroy it.
Harris reveals that the three men who really orchestrated her downfall were Clarke, Michael Heseltine — who stood against her in the leadership battle she eventually lost — and Geoffrey Howe, with his devastating resignation speech in the House of Commons.
All three have been invited to her funeral — and if they have a shred of decency, they won’t go.
I have more respect for her former adversary Neil Kinnock, who has said he won’t be at St Paul’s Cathedral, and for the Labour MPs who refused to turn up in the House of Commons on Wednesday to debate her legacy, than I do for these Tory hypocrites.
Chloe’s naked ambitionPosing in Now magazine with her personal trainer boyfriend draped around her, aspiring celebrity Chloe Madeley wears tiny bikini bottoms and nothing else, saying: ‘I never thought I’d pose topless, but I’ve been working so hard.’Chloe is a sweet girl, and the daughter of Judy Finnigan and Richard Madeley, one of the most successful and enduring couples in British TV history. Chloe Madeley strips off for the shoot with her boyfriend, read the full feature in NOW magazine, out now What a shame she didn’t follow her mum’s example — learn her trade, start at the bottom and work hard at her career (rather than her curves) before rising to national fame.Judy never exposed her breasts to get attention — except when they popped out accidentally.
No price for painSincere as I am in my admiration for Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian work, she can go rather over the top at times. In announcing that the UK was giving an additional £10 million in aid to rape victims in wars such as Bosnia, she said these women were ‘responsible for none of the harm, but bearing the worst of the pain’.
Angelina Jolie joined forces with Foreign Secretary William Hague as the UK pledged to spend a further £10million on tackling sexual violence and harm to women in war zonesGhastly as their experiences were, I’d hazard a guess that any woman who’d seen husbands, brothers and sons rounded up, blindfolded, shot and buried in a ditch — as thousands were in that war — has suffered just as much.
I refuse to believe Claudia Winkleman’s dopey fringe is the reason new series The Great British Sewing Bee has bombed, or that her hair is the most annoying style on TV. No, what’s really irritating is that a glamorous, savvy Cambridge graduate has to act as dumb as Holly Willoughby to get a prime-time slot on TV.
Paris Brown, Britain's first youth police commissioner has resigned over tweets she made Paris matchedThe first youth crime tsar, Paris Brown quit after her own police force had to launch an inquiry into her racist, homophobic tweets.
Now we learn that the next girl in line for the job, a student who declined to be named, has also been rejected.
She said: ‘They did say I’d have to pass the vetting process — but I had already told them about my past convictions.’
Third time lucky — they could offer the job to Chris Huhne.
The once-beautiful Kate Bush refused to pose for photographs after leaving Windsor Castle, where the Queen awarded her with a CBE for services to music. No doubt she was saving herself for her next outing — taking over from Dawn French advertising Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Ahead of tonight’s new series of Britain’s Got Talent, the gormless Alesha Dixon reveals the shocking truth that Patty The Painting Donkey couldn’t actually paint. ‘It just stood there and didn’t really do anything.’ Clearly, the ass was trained at the same drama school as Alesha was.
Caught smoking, mung-bean-munching Gwyneth Paltrow says: ‘It’s what makes life — finding the balance between cigarettes and tofu.’The health zealot insists she has only one fag a week. Yes, and Gazza used to limit himself to one pint a week, too.
Britain’s great creatorHis pioneering IVF technique delivered more than five million children into the world, yet when Robert Edwards began his groundbreaking work he was vilified as a murderer dabbling in infanticide.
His detractors said he would create monster children. Yet the first ‘test-tube baby’, Louise Brown — introduced to the world by the Daily Mail and now a mother herself — is living proof they were wrong.
IVF pioneer Professor Sir Robert Edwards has died aged 87 after a long illnessSir Robert died this week, and the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks defended him, saying he had worked alongside God in the creation of life — a sentiment no doubt shared by every childless couple whose lives he transformed.
Geri Halliwell tweeted about Margret Thatcher and then deleted her post +++++ Passing notes ++++++ Edwina Currie attacked Lady Thatcher for not promoting women. Perhaps the wily PM realised that Mrs Currie — who famously had an affair with Mrs T’s successor, John Major — was more suited to a leg over than a leg up.
+ Promoting her one-woman show, containing mostly 60-year-old memories of her time in Hollywood, Joan Collins said on the death of Margaret Thatcher that the great lady inspired her in everything she did. Given that Mrs Thatcher became PM in 1979 when Joan’s glory days were well and truly behind her, that’s about as believable as a Dynasty plot.
+ ‘Greed, selfishness, sharp elbows and sharp knees. A woman? Not on my terms,’ said Labour MP Glenda Jackson. The double Oscar-winning actress has been a complete flop as an MP, winning her seat last time by just 42 votes and briefly holding a front-bench job before resigning. Mrs Thatcher may have had sharp elbows, but Ms Jackson will be remembered only for her sharp tongue.
+ Has-been Spice Girl Geri Halliwell tweeted a tribute to ‘the First Lady of girl power’ then deleted it and said she was sorry to her 203,000 Twitter followers after she got abuse. She then apologised a second time, for being ‘spineless’. The ladette’s definitely for turning. How pathetic.
