Lady Thatcher’s club
Sir: Charles Moore’s excellent paragraph (Notes, 20 April) on Baroness Thatcher’s life achievement in the context of much less social advantage than that of Sir Winston Churchill concludes on one mildly false assertion: ‘At the end, as at the beginning, she had no club.’ In fact, from 1978 until the end, she was the only female member of Buck’s Club (save for a period where she shared the distinction with the HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother). She was a regular visitor, for a time with Sir Denis, a member himself over many decades. As it happens, Sir Winston was also a member, from 1920, and subsequently patron, from 1953 to his death in 1965, and he remained a frequent visitor throughout his life. So not only did she have a club at the end (and for many years before), but it was the same one as her only other 20th-century peer. We are modestly proud of that here.
Major Rupert Lendrum
Secretary, Buck’s Club
London W1
Loved more than loathed
Sir: Like Charles Moore, I have been perturbed by the BBC’s lamentable coverage following the passing of Baroness Thatcher and their continual emphasis on how she was loved and loathed ‘in equal measure’. This is demonstrably untrue. Lady Thatcher won three successive general elections, notably being the only leader in modern history to win more votes in her third election than in her first. Only last week, YouGov found that 52 per cent thought Thatcher was a good or great PM (just 30 per cent said she was not). ICM had very similar figures. Perhaps Nick Robinson suffers from a guilt complex, having served as chairman of the Young Conservatives in 1986, when Thatcherism was at its height.
Declan Lyons
Warrington, Cheshire
Patten, Clark and Thatcher
Sir, Apropos of Margaret Thatcher, Petronella Wyatt writes (Diary, 20 April) about Chris Patten, ‘whose vitriol towards her knew no bounds.’ Rubbish. Chris Patten worked for Thatcher from 1975 until 1979. He served in her government from 1983 until her fall in 1990. He voted for her in the first leadership ballot. Throughout those years, he was always independent-minded, sometimes privately critical, but never disloyal. He was also a highly effective minister, which is why she kept on promoting him, although he was never ‘one of us’. His vitriol towards her knew no beginning. In the same issue, James Delingpole refers to the ‘anti-Thatcher snobbery oozed by… the loathsome Alan Clark.’ Bunkum and balderdash. If Mr Delingpole reads the Clark diaries, he will find many expressions of admiration for and awe towards ‘The Lady’ but no snobbery. Perhaps he is confusing her with another blond, Michael Heseltine, the chap who had to buy his own furniture. As for ‘loathsome’, your TV critic should not try to redeem factual mistakes with vulgar abuse.
Bruce Anderson
London SW1
Bury your gold
Sir: Matthew Parris’s attraction to gold in the face of the ‘financial repression’ we are experiencing is understandable (‘Why I won’t be selling my gold or silver’, 20 April). However his hope for gold as ‘a plan-B pension that the politicians can’t touch’ does not, alas, take into account historical precedents. In 1933, under an executive order from President Roosevelt, all US persons had their gold holdings compulsorily purchased by the authorities. I suggest he takes his gold out of his bank and buries it in a field in Derbyshire.
Paul D. Rivers
London NW3
Cricket snobbery
Sir: I enjoyed Mark Mason’s article on snobbery and snooker (‘Give snooker a break’, 20 April). Snooker isn’t the only sporting event that brings a snort of disdain from certain snooty types. To many ‘purists’, the Indian Premier League ‘simply isn’t cricket’. But it allows us to enjoy the likes of Rahul Dravid, Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting after their Test playing days are ended. It places a premium on captaincy, has improved fielding skills, frequently produces thrilling finishes, and includes a ‘fair play’ league. Sport at its best.
Richard Stone
Barton under Needwood, Staffs
Chronic dithering
Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s article (‘When the lights go out’, 20 April) accurately summarises the muddle of contradictions passing for UK energy policy. Contrast the government’s chronic dithering over the vital matter of energy with its compulsion to foist upon the nation the quite unnecessary HS2 project. Surely it’s time to get a grip and decide what is important?
Timothy Stockton
London NW5
The fate of the stag
Sir: I have no doubt that Alexander Chancellor is on the side of the angels (and the Countryside Alliance) in the hunting debate (20 April), but he should not give credence to the myth that at the end of a stag-hunt the quarry was torn apart by the hounds. The quarry at the end of this most selective form of hunting was shot. The entrails only were fed to the hounds.
Mrs A. Flores
London SW15
An irritant, yes
Sir: An appreciation of your review of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, by Selina Hastings, depended on an interest in the reviewer, Russell Kane, as he spent the first three paragraphs of the review writing about himself. He referred to himself affectionately as ‘that spiky-haired comedian irritant’, which explains some of it, but I don’t know who he is, and don’t feel inclined to find out.
Jane Kelly
London W3
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