When the journalists and producers of ITV’s landmark documentary, Death on the Rock, exposed how the SAS had run Thatcher’s other death squads in Ireland and Gibraltar, they were hounded by Rupert Murdoch’s ‘journalists’, then cowering behind the razor wire at Wapping. Although exonerated, Thames TV lost its ITV franchise.
In 1982, the Argentine cruiser, General Belgrano, was steaming outside the Falklands exclusion zone. The ship offered no threat, yet Thatcher gave orders for it to be sunk. Her victims were 323 sailors, including conscripted teenagers. The crime had a certain logic. Among Thatcher's closest allies were mass murderers – Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, responsible for ‘many more than one million deaths’ (Amnesty International). Although the British state had long armed the world’s leading tyrannies, it was Thatcher who brought a crusading zeal to the deals, talking up the finer points of fighter aircraft engines, hard-bargaining with bribe-demanding Saudi princes. I filmed her at an arms fair, stroking a gleaming missile. ‘I’ll have one of those!’ she said.
In his arms-to-Iraq enquiry, Lord Richard Scott heard evidence that an entire tier of the Thatcher government, from senior civil servants to ministers, had lied and broken the law in selling weapons to Saddam Hussein. These were her ‘boys’. Thumb through old copies of the Baghdad Observer, and there are pictures of her boys, mostly cabinet ministers, on the front page sitting with Saddam on his famous white couch. There is Douglas Hurd and there is a grinning David Mellor, also of the Foreign Office, around the time his host was ordering the gassing of 5,000 Kurds. Following this atrocity, the Thatcher government doubled trade credits to Saddam.
Perhaps it is too easy to dance on her grave. Her funeral was a propaganda stunt, fit for a dictator: an absurd show of militarism, as if a coup had taken place. And it has. ‘Her real triumph,’ said another of her boys, Geoffrey Howe, a Thatcher minister, ‘was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible.’
In 1997, Thatcher was the first former prime minister to visit Tony Blair after he entered Downing Street. There is a photo of them, joined in rictus: the budding war criminal with his mentor. When Ed Miliband, in his unctuous ‘tribute’, caricatured Thatcher as a ‘brave’ feminist hero whose achievements he personally ‘honoured’, you knew the old killer had not died at all. John Pilger, article April 2013, ‘Dance on Thatcher's Grave But Remember There Has Been a Coup in Britain’; viz also website
While the rest of Europe is marching to confront the new challenges, the Prime Minister is shuffling along in the gutter in the opposite direction, like an old bag lady, muttering imprecations at anyone who catches her eye. Denis Healey, re Margaret Thatcher
She has no hinterland; in particular she has no sense of history. Edna Healey
A big cat detained briefly in a poodle parlour, sharpening her claws on the velvet. Matthew Parris, Look Behind You! 1993
Remember how Margaret Thatcher came to believe that abroad was more important than at home? Didn’t do her much good. Simon Hoggart
For three million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person. Frankie Boyle
I started to wonder if this government is so obsessed with fracking because they’re trying to release Thatcher’s soul from hell. Frankie Boyle’s New World Order I, BBC 2022
1979: from this point on Murdoch and Thatcher are inextricably linked. Rupert Murdoch – Battle With Britain, BBC 2013
The Times/Times on Sunday: rightly regarded as a stitch-up. ibid.
Wapping reignited the powerful suspicion that Murdoch had again conspired with Mrs Thatcher – this time to smash another of Britain’s powerful trade unions. ibid.
Margaret Thatcher gave Rupert Murdoch power in return for his unqualified support ... Power which he has used pretty ruthlessly over the years. David Mellor, former Conservative Cabinet minister
It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find the moment that the first balls are bowled that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain. Geoffrey Howe, speech House of Commons 13th November 1990
The time has come to others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long. ibid.
The tragedy is the prime minister’s perceived attitude towards Europe is running serious risks for the future of our nation. Geoffrey Howe, former Chancellor, resignation address House of Commons
In 1989 the plan to introduce a Poll Tax sparked the worse rioting in living memory. In November 1990 Mrs Thatcher’s radical leadership of the country came to an end. Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil 3/3, BBC 2009
In the Spring of 1990 Thatcher introduced a new local tax to replace domestic rates which would prove to be the beginning of the end. Thatcher’s new method of raising local revenue was called the Community Charge or Poll Tax. It would be payable by everyone. And the poorest in the land would pay as much as the richest ... When it was tried out in Scotland there was chaos. Huge numbers of people simply refused to pay. Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain, BBC 2007
When Margaret Thatcher swept to power in 1979 the building of council estates came to an abrupt halt. In 1980 she introduced a right to buy scheme. Michael Collins, The Great Estate: The Rise & Fall of the Council Estate, BBC 2012
First of all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go. Harold Macmillan, re privatisation
It was thanks to Maggie Thatcher opening up the City of London that yours truly from Watford came to be working for a posh outfit like Barings. Rogue Trader 1999 starring Ewan McGregor & Anna Friel & Tim McInnerny & Nigel Lindsay & John Standing & Lee Ross & Yves Beneyton & Betsy Brantley & Caroline Langrishe & Ivan Heng et al, director James Dearden
... Who has the moral courage to expose and root out those who try to rot us from within and hold us to ransom by anarchy, blackmail and brute force.
The Communist Trojan Horse is in our midst with its fellow-travellers wriggling their maggoty way inside its belly. Only firm and dynamic leadership can deal with this; it requires high moral courage. The Daily Telegraph, letter from General Walter Walker
A shameful putrid scab, an embarrassingly ludicrous monstrosity who makes one ashamed to be British. Stephen Fry
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down. Elvis Costello
Odious and suburban. Jonathan Miller
On behalf of the people of Ulster I brand you a traitor and a liar. Reverend Ian Paisley 22nd February 1987
She has the eyes of Caligula, but the voice of Marilyn Monroe. Francois Mitterrand, cited Observer 25th November 1990
She was against any suggestion of compromise, which meant that she had a confrontational style. Francis Pym
We didn’t hit it off. Francis Pym
In November 1990 Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street for the last time forced out against her will by her closest colleagues in Cabinet. Thatcher: The Downing Street Years I: Woman at War, BBC 1993
On 4th May 1979 Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first woman prime minister. ibid.
She relied above all on the advice of Willie Whitelaw. ibid.
Margaret Thatcher regarded her patrician colleagues as typical of the feckless English upper classes. She called them the not-so-grand Grandees. ibid.
After months of talks at Lancaster House, a new constitution was agreed. Margaret Thatcher’s practical change of heart meant the Marxist Robert Mugabe became the first prime minister of independent Zimbabwe. ibid.
She had an instinctive lack of sympathy for the European Community. ibid.
For Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher the steel strike epitomized all that was bad about the British economy. ibid.
The Wets were now in open rebellion. ibid.
Nearly 15% of Britain’s manufacturing base disappeared. ibid.
In the summer of 1981 riots broke out in the inner cities. ibid.
The loss of the Falklands was a political and diplomatic disaster. Thatcher: The Downing Street Years II: Best of Enemies
The Foreign Office counselled against sending the Task Force. ibid.