Cecil Parkinson: Underestimated – but unbowed Even among Mrs Thatcher’s original shadow Cabinet, there were those who simply did not believe that she would be capable of dealing with the problems of a declining country. To a man they were wrong. Each underestimated the determination of Margaret Thatcher. She did not regard the manifesto on which
Over the past few years a new trend has emerged in British journalism. Our trade has become over-run with reporters or columnists who are not quite what they seem. They pretend to report objectively on events. In practice the true loyalty of these campaigning reporters or columnists is not just to their readers. Sometimes covertly,
The atheist spring that began just over a decade ago is over, thank God. Richard Dawkins is now seen by many, even many non-believers, as a joke figure, shaking his fist at sky fairies. He’s the Mary Whitehouse of our day. So what was all that about, then? We can see it a bit more
I’ve been scratching my head for the past half hour trying to work out how I would react if I were a Conservative MP and a BBC reporter stuffed a microphone in front of me and told me that Arthur Scargill had just died. I know I wouldn’t punch the air, but a syrupy tribute?
The day Mrs Thatcher became Leader of the Opposition was a nightmare. Her victory over Mr Heath meant that I had to do a cartoon featuring her for the next day’s Daily Telegraph. But her arrival had been so swift that I barely knew who she was, and had almost no idea what she looked like.
A doctor providing geriatric care once told me of the damage Mrs Thatcher had done to the NHS. He used to employ a simple test to find out whether his elderly patients had become seriously gaga. He would ask them who the Prime Minister was: as their minds weakened so the only name they came
A friend who is not normally receptive to left-wing or republican ideas suddenly exclaimed at dinner in my house the other day that he was bored, sickened and disgusted by the Queen and all the royal family, and thought it was high time they were removed. In the mood of the moment, nobody seemed disposed
Politicians can be divided into two categories; those whose public face is different from their private face and those for whom they are the same; put another way, those who feel it necessary in public appearances to put on an act, and those who manage to remain themselves. Among the latter are (or were) such
It is worth pointing out yet again that Mrs Thatcher really was very brave last Friday. It would have been no disgrace to her if, once she had realised how narrow had been her escape, she had felt weak and — as did a few of the Tory wives in the Grand Hotel — had
‘Délégation Royaume Uni. Salle 4’ announces a scruffy piece of paper projected onto the black and white television screens of the Centre Charlemagne. The journalists hurry upstairs for the latest from Mr Bernard Ingham, Mrs Thatcher’s press secretary. Mr Ingham is not conspicuously communautaire. He tells us who spoke in the session — Mr Lubbers,
A little rejoicing is now in order, but only a little. We may rejoice that the Falklands war did not end in a bloodbath at Port Stanley, that the Argentinians did not stage a last doomed defence of the islands’ capital. We may rejoice at the performance of our armed forces who have conducted themselves
There was never a more disenchanted victory. The moment the size of the Tory swing was known, the doubts began, not least among those hundreds of thousands who had voted Conservative for the first time in their lives. Would the unions allow Mrs Thatcher to govern? Would the promised tax cuts be blown in betting
If I start with a reference to the sorry condition of the Tory party, I hope readers will not immediately turn to another page. If only the Tories can take a fairly cool look at themselves, it will quickly be apparent that the condition is not as serious as all that; and that it is
In 1975, when Keith Joseph dropped out of the race for the Tory leadership and his campaign manager stepped into his place, almost no one took it seriously. She was ‘precisely the sort of candidate… who ought to be able to stand, and lose, harmlessly’ said the Economist. Only one publication in Britain backed her
