UKIP Watch: trawling for ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ standing in the local elections

DAVID Cameron called UKIP “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. In another age, he might have called them prospective voters. As the local elections loom, sections of the press are focusing on UKIP. The coerage is not always fair. They are looking beyond UKIP leader Nigel Farage, the head-shaking politician whose incredulity at life is evidenced in his way of speaking in lists, a man who could describe cup of coffee as “It’s brown, it’s foreign, it’s bad for you and it has no place on British life.”

Let’s see what the press has come up with so far:

The Telegraph produced this:

Sushil Patel

Gis daughter is Priti Patel, the Conservative MP. Mr Patel is  standing in the Bushey South division of the Hertfordshire County Council.

Priti Patel told the Daily Telegraph:

“No matter what, whatever the outcome of this, he is still my Dad and I still love him. Nothing will change that, not even Ukip.”

Dick Delingpole

James Delingpiole writes about his brother:

Though I had no intention of writing again about the absurdity of the anti-Ukip stories being circulated in the media, this one is too funny not to mention. For the full story you must visit my brother Dick’s blog post...

Dick writes in the Telegraph:

It’s no secret that I’m currently standing as a Ukip candidate for the forthcoming council elections. What was a secret until now is my Nazi past. As the photo above proves beyond doubt, I was present at one of Hitler’s rallies. I was also clearly part of an early cloning experient. And in case you hadn’t yet worked it out, this is all utter nonsense. But it has been seized upon by my Tory opponent in Thursday’s local election.

Moments after tweeting the above image with the words “I’d better get rid of this old Facebook photo before the Tories get hold of it” I received a phone call from a local hack. It went something like this:
Hack: “Simon [my Tory opponent, and incumbent councillor] is afraid that you’re a Nazi.”
Me: “But it’s a parody of Conservative Central Office trawling through Ukip candidates’ Facebook pages. Why do you suppose they’re doing that?”
Hack: “To dig up dirt.”
Me: “So Simon’s just doing what he’s been told by head office.”
Hack: “No, he seems genuinely upset. You see, he doesn’t do Twitter, so he might not understand. I think he really believes the photo.”
Me: “But I wasn’t even around in 1940! And… there are three of me.”
So in a bit of a sweat I hastily deleted the tweet. Then thought about all the other pictures I have on Facebook. Were there any of me with guns or knives?

Anna-Marie Crampton

She’s standing for council election in East Sussex.

Crampton was suspended by the eurosceptic party ahead of next week’s local elections after comments attributed to her were posted on a conspiracy theory website questioning who was responsible for the Holocaust during the Second World War.

“Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers,” Crampton allegedly wrote.

“The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist Jews and financed by the banksters to make the general public all over the world feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.”

UKIP said:

While she will still be on the ballot paper as a Ukip candidate we want voters in her district to realise that she is not representing the party and the people of east Sussex,” said a spokesperson.

“Rest assured that her views are not held by the party and do not reflect the views of our other excellent candidates.”

She tweeted:

“I’m NOT antisemitic. I NEVER said I do not believe in the holocaust. I’ve clearly been trolled. I do post on Zionism as a political movement”

Political Scrapbook alleges:

Contrary to reports elsewhere, no evidence has emerged of Crampton denying the holocaust — but her Facebook account was indeed used to blame it on a Jewish conspiracy.

Crampton has yet to explain away apparent praise for forged The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — arguably the most notorious anti-semitic tract ever produced — as containing “all you need to know”.

Chris Scrotton 

The Daily Mail wrote:

Mr Scotton, backs a number of controversial groups on his Facebook page.

This includes him ‘liking’ the official page for the controversial far-right organisation English Defence League.

He has also ‘liked’ Facebook groups which include ‘Racism? No mate it’s just ethnic banter’, ‘No more mosques in Britain’ and ‘I hate it when I lose my black friend in the dark.’

John Sullivan

John Sullivan, the party’s candidate for the Newent division in Thursday’s county council elections, was alleged to have made anti-gay comments on Facebook. Gay Star News addressed his remarks after one of its readers spotted them online. Gay Star News accused Mr Sullivan of claiming in a post that regular physical exercise ‘prevents’ children from ‘becoming’ gay and the Victorian method of physical exercise ‘released tension and thus avoided homosexuality’.

Harry’s Place spots a few more problems for UKIP:

The Times reported on Saturday that Alan Ryall who was the party’s candidate in Wickham (he quit after the story broke) admitted to membership of the BNP for “one or two years” but now “found it too extreme”. The Times also uncovered Peter Lucas in Devon who was listed as a “student member of the BNP” but he denies this. As does Chris Byrne standing in leafy Surrey; “That wasn’t me” he claims.

Tommy Robinson

The Backbencher reports:

Backebencher: There is a quote on the EDL’s Facebook page which states: “I think all nationalist parties should stand aside in areas that UKIP have a good chance of winning. Lets not split their vote. We might take a couple or a few hundred votes of them, we don’t come no where and we’ve cost UKIP the win because they come 50,60 votes behind Labour.” Is that the EDL endorsing UKIP?

Robinson: ‘Yeah. What parties are there? I always get asked this about why the EDL got into politics. It is all set against you – it is impossible to do without millions of pounds funding, etc etc. Now who is going to change what is happening is this country from the point of immigration and Islam? I remember a speech Lord Pearson done 2 years ago, he was the ex leader of UKIP…(Google dialogue)…where he questioned about the EDL, and everything he said in his speech about what is happening to this country about the demographics of Islam, and the Muslim birth rate, and the threat to the nation – I remember watching that and thinking “bang he has got it on the head; he’s hitting every nail on the head, I agree with everything he is saying.” But to hear a well educated; say for example my own mother doesn’t agree with what I stand for; but when I show like Lord Pearson saying what we are saying, because they are saying exactly what we say, just in a different way – do you know what I mean?’

And then the barrel was scraped.

Bradley Monk

A UKIP candidate has posted snaps of himself online as shamed pervert Jimmy Savile, The Sun can reveal. Bradley Monk, 19, wore a Savile mask to a Halloween party as the scandal over the DJ’s paedophile past raged last year.

The politics student is standing in Hampshire County Council seat Winchester Eastgate tomorrow.

Our revelation of the Facebook photos fuels the growing furore over who UKIP is allowing to stand…

Confronted by The Sun, Monk grovelled last night: “It was meant as a harmless joke. I’m in no way endorsing Savile — what he did was disgusting.”

On the positive side for UKIP, we can now name other party members other than the ubiquitous Farage…

Anorak

Posted: 1st, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comments (4)

George W. Bush’s name is not mud anymore

HOW popular in George W Bush?

Harry Enten says he isn’t:

Back in 2010, Gallup asked Americans what their retrospective approval rating was for Presidents John F Kennedy through George W Bush. In every instance except for one, the retrospective approval was higher than the final approval was when they left office. Most Republicans, for instance, love to make fun of Jimmy Carter. Carter was the only president of the 20th century to lose re-election after replacing a president of a different party. He left office with a 34% job approval rating. His retrospective job approval rating in the 2010 Gallup poll jumped by 18pt.

Second, Bush’s retrospective approval is the second worst among presidents in the last 50 years ago. To save you doing the math, Carter’s 52% approval rating is higher than Bush’s 47%. Only the Watergate-tainted Richard Nixon recorded a lower retrospective approval than Bush.

Michael Baron has a different view:

“Perhaps Bush’s name is not mud anymore. A Washington Post/ABC poll asked respondents to rate Bush’s performance for the first time since December 2008, when only 33 percent rated it positively and 66 percent rated it negatively. What the pollster found is that today 47 percent approve and 50 percent disapprove of Bush’s performance. That approval number is precisely the same as President Obama’s in the most recent Post/ABC poll.”

The less he does the more they like him.

Anorak

Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

The Margaret Thatcher commemorative candle snuffer

NOW that Margaret Thatcher has died and the funeral is over, what will you do to keep her memory alive? Peter Jones has a solutions. The smart shop for household items has for £185 a Bronte Margaret Thatcher Extinguisher*.

This exquisite hand-made and hand-painted fine bone china figurine is of Mrs Thatcher depicted at the start of her parliamentary career on the evening in 1959 when she successfully contested the Finchley seat. Comes with a limited edition certificate personally signed by Margaret Thatcher. Limited Edition 300 Height 4″.

Anorak

Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Politicians, The Consumer | Comment

Laugh as Toronto’s mayor walks into camera full tilt

YOU have to be hard-nosed to survive in politics and Toronto’s mayor – Rob Ford – found this out the hard, literal way as he walked at full tilt into a TV camera.

Ford was rushing out of a committee meeting at Ontario’s City Hall when he walked briskly into the snout of a large camera.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

New Zealand parliament erupts in Maori love song as same sex marriage bill is approved

TO New Zealand for some a capella singing. The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill – Third Reading – Part 20 has been passed. A Maori love song fills the air:

Meanwhile…

Anorak

Posted: 17th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

How many people attended Margaret Thatcher’s funeral?

HOW many people lined to route to see Margaret Thatcher’s funeral?

More than 250,000 lined the streets of London, clapping and cheering as her coffin processed through London – Daily Mail

…estimates put the number of people on the streets at 100,000 – Daily Telegraph

Margaret Thatcher funeral attended by ‘Essex Man’ – BBC

Anorak

Posted: 17th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comments (4)

Margaret Thatcher’s Funeral in 48 photos

MARGARET Thatcher’s funeral was a made-for-media event. The mountain of puff and guff that paved its way were hard to ignore. We did as nation meet Thatcheration point.  Now she is gone, we can move on.

Anorak

Posted: 17th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Margaret Thatcher v Princess Diana: How People’s Princess Tony Blair scooped David Cameron

COMPARE and contrast the deaths of Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher, as told by Alastair Campbell, Tony’s Blair’s older spin doctor. He writes on his blog:

…Cameron decided to…tear up his own travel plans, and head back to London effectively to demand a recall of Parliament…

So we are left with the question – why? What was so urgent that these tributes could not wait until Parliament was back? And it is hard to escape the conclusion that as a politician, not as a national leader, Mr Cameron and his team saw some advantage. Perhaps, as has been suggested to me by a civil servant, he was worried that the many Thatcher worshippers on the Murdoch papers, the Mail, the Telegraph and the Express would turn their ire further upon him if he did not bow down in worship with them. Perhaps he felt some potential benefit in associating himself closely with a strong leader who, in death, was likely to have greater focus on achievements than failings. Perhaps he felt that this association would help him with his right wing which fears he is not a strong leader, and that his brand of Conservatism is shipping support to UKIP. Perhaps he thinks her presence back at the heart of national debate will help him with the difficult decisions ahead, on welfare for example.

Some of his readers write in response:

Gilliebc –
Cameron is doing what he always does, i.e. making it up as he goes along and not missing an opportunity to bathe in what he probably sees as reflected glory. He’s an opportunistic media savvy, snake oil salesman.

KDouglas −
Yep, you’re right. This is a seedy attempt by the Conservatives to promote themselves…

Readers may well recall the words of Campbell’s boss Tony Blair when Diana’s died:

“I feel like everyone else in this country today, utterly devastated. She was the people’s princess, and that’s how she will stay, how she will remain, in our hearts and in our memories forever.”

Campbell wrote in his Diaries:

And:

And:

And:

Such are the facts.

RIPR.

Photo 1:Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron delivers a reading next to the coffin of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during her funeral service in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Iron Lady, was laid to rest Wednesday with a level of pomp and protest reflecting her status as a commanding, polarizing political figure. 

Anorak

Posted: 17th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

How the regional press reacted to the death of Margaret Thatcher

HOW did the local newspapers respond to the death of Margaret Thatcher? Did Nottingham and Dorset have a shared view of the thrice-elected Prime Minister? What about Wales and Scotland? Is she lamented in Derry as she might be in Oxford?

A few of the juxtapositions between Thatcher’s image and the other fornt-page news jar and amuse: The Daily Echo (Bournemouth) has news of hospital bugs; the Hull Daily Mail has news of a “benefit cheat mum” and the Yorkshire Evening Post says “Heart Ops Get The Go AHead”. Maggie died from a stroke.

Let’s see:

Anorak

Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Turn Your Back On Thatcher: the funeral protest that might be a Poznan

REBECCA Lush Blum has created the Facebook page Turn Your Back On Thatcher: police sanctioned protest about this grotesque state funded funeral.

Anorak

Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

What the Margaret Thatcher death parties taught us

WHAT did we learn for the Margreat Thatcher death parties? Personally, I learned nothing. I knew she was divisive. I knew the BBC was idiotic (they banned the Ding-Dong The  Witch Is Dead song). I knew anyone who wears a jester’s hat in public shouldn’t and that anyone over 12 who sees juggling a mode of self-expression has issues. And that was it.

Writing in the Daily Express, Peter Hill learnet more:

Anorak

Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

Andrew Mitchell now working as a solver of ‘reputational threats’

ANDREW Mitchell, the Tory MP for Sutton Coldfield who lost his job as the Party’s Chief Whip when he was accused of calling Downing Street police “fu**ing plebs” has a new job. Mitchell, who denies using the p-word, has been hired by Montrose Associates.

What do they do, then?

In an increasingly complex and unpredictable world, the threats and the opportunities multiply and take on new forms… They face new challenges arising from corporate relationships and partnerships, political and reputational threats, and regulatory and security concerns. Handled correctly, these different dimensions of international business represent opportunities to stand out and grow more successfully.

Anorak

Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Margaret Thatcher: The Trafalgar Square party in photos

THE pathetic BBC made the drive to make a Judy Garland Wizard of Oz No.1 in the hit parade a meaningful political act by banning it. Others who wanted to celebrate Baroness Margaret Thatcher death have been drinking in Brixton and meeting in Trafalgar Square. There, a man held aloft a pig’s head. It was not his own. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – dead, dead, dead,” came the chant. A few Millwall fans arrived and tried to tear down a banner. And it was, all said and done, a bit pathetic.

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Image 1 of 18

People hang a likeness of Baroness Margaret Thatcher from a cord during a Thatcher's dead 'party' organised via Facebook, in Trafalgar Square, central London, following her death.

Anorak

Posted: 13th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comments (2)

Kiwi Minister says 3D printers can produce drugs, planets and MPs

“If people could print off … sheets of Ecstasy tablets at the party they’re at at that time, that just completely takes away our border protection role in its known sense… In the near future we will need to protect a digital border instead of just locating physical objects as we do now. If it’s made of atoms, you’ll be able to print it… [it] will change the very existence of mankind beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations”

Anorak

Posted: 13th, April 2013 | In: Politicians, Technology | Comment

Munchkins and Flying Monkeys at war over Maggie Thatcher’s funeral

DING! DONG! This was the day the newspapers decided to be more like The Onion. It is what Margaret Thatcher would have wanted. She was always sticking up for the little people.

Tomorrow, the Flying Monkeys explain why they always backed the miners.

Anorak

Posted: 13th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

The BBC bans Judy Garland: Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead (and so is Maggie Thatcher)

THE idiotic BBC has decided not to play the Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead, the tune from the Wizard of Oz reinvigorated by the anti-Margaret Thatcher. It will not feature on the Official Chart Show. All 51-seconds of it have been censored.

Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper tells the BBC:

 “The decision I have made is I am not going to play it in full but that I will play a clip of it in a news environment. When I say a news environment, that is a newsreader telling you about the fact that this record has reached a certain place in the chart and here is a clip of that track.

“It is a compromise and it is a difficult compromise to come to. You have very difficult and emotional arguments on both sides of the fence.

“Let’s not forget you also have a family that is grieving for a loved one who is yet to be buried.”

Anorak

Posted: 12th, April 2013 | In: Music, Politicians | Comments (3)

Freedom loving Daily Mail upset as BBC chief refuses to ban Thatcher Ding-Dong death song – oh, the irony

THE Daily Mail has campaigned for press freedom. It says “no” to Leveson. The same Mail wants the BBC to ban Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead, the ditty from the soundtrack of the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz and sung by Judy Garland.

It’s in the Top Ten following Margaret Thatcher’s death.

@MartinBelam notes:

Maybe Mail/Telegraph could campaign for some kind of state regulation of the media to prevent Wizard of Oz songs being broadcast?

Anorak

Posted: 11th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Margaret Thatcher dies: how Melbourne students ‘celebrated unreservedly’

TO mark the death of Margaret Thatcher, the kids  of the Students’ Council of University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) passed a motion to “celebrate unreservedly”.

Party! Booze? Fags? Pop? The students…

… asked for the a screening of Ken Loach’s documentary film Which side are you on? to ‘continue the celebration’.

Anorak

Posted: 11th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Is North Korea’s London mission the world’s most humdrum embassy?

HYON Hak Bong is North Korea’s ambassador to the Britain. The embassy is a seven bedroom house in Ealing, west London. Is it the most humdrum, average embassy in the country?

Signs are that Bong had left the house. The North Korean leaders have written:

The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war  … North Korea does not want to see foreigners in South Korea fall victim to the war. All foreign institutions and enterprises and foreigners, including tourists, are requested to take measures for shelter and evacuation in advance for their safety.

Where is Mr Bong?

Anorak

Posted: 10th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Margaret Thatcher and a pet black sheep called Barack Obama

MARGARET Thatcher: cats or dogs? Lady Carla Powell of Bayswater settles the debate:

“Lady Thatcher adored animals. I have a dachshund puppy called Maggie that she loved. I name all my animals after friends and distinguished people. I have two black sheep called Barack Obama and Colin Powell.”

That’s raci…!

Photo: Sir Charles Powell, fromer private secretary to Margaret Thatcher, and his wife Carla outside Buckingham Palace in London after he receives his Knighthood form HM Queen Elizabeth II. Date: 16/07/1991

Anorak

Posted: 10th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Owen Jones: Tony Blair was a national catastrophe that still poisons us

OWEN Jones is turning into a troll. Writing in the Independent, he looks at Margaret Thatcher’s legacy:

In the coming days, some on the right will attempt to snuff out criticism of her legacy… Those who grew up in the Britain that Thatcher built will be patronised: you were still learning how to walk at the height of her power. And that is why it is crucial to separate Thatcherism from the woman who spearheaded it.

Eh? What about the Labour Party, who waged at least one of its wars on a lie? The Labour Party that gave us an undemocratically elected Prime Minister? The Labour Party that caused the current recession? The illiberal Labour Party that sought to control our eating, drinking, smoking and thinking?

Anorak

Posted: 10th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comments (2)

Football must have no minute’s silence for Margaret Thatcher: what madman wants to remember the 1980s?

THE best thing you can say about Margaret Thatcher’s attitude to football was that she rarely used it to coin easy popularity. To her, football was a thing that needed controlling. Football to Thatcher was a threat to the social order. The Sunday Times said football was a “slum sport watched by slum people in slum stadiums”.

So. Football will not mark her passing in any special way. There was no minute’s silence for the former Prime Minister at Old Trafford last night as Manchester United took on Manchester City. Good. The minute’s silence has become the most overused tribute going.

Photo above:  Margaret Thatcher sharing a joke with England footballers, left to right, Kevin Keegan, Terry McDermott, Phil Thompson and Emlyn Hughes and other members of the international squad outside 10 Downing Street when they were leaving after attending a reception given by Mrs Thatcher. Date: 05/06/1980

This was not snub. Maggie Thatcher (once an honorary vice-president of Blackburn Rovers) was the Prime Minister when English football was in the mire.

Photo: Screen shot from ITN News showing the fire that swept through the main stand at Bradford City’s football ground. The club were playing Lincoln City in the last match of the season. 56 people died and 265 were injured as a fire swept the packed stand just before half-time.

On May 11 1985, 15-year-old Ian Hambridge left his Northampton home to see his first football match. Birmingham City Football Club were playing Leeds United. A riot saw 80 fans and 96 police officers injured. Ian was stood by a 12 ft high wall, which collapsed. You might have read about him. But it’ unlikely. Because on that every day a fire took hold at Bradford City’s ground killing 56 people.

A short time later, on May 29, Liverpool played Juventus in the European Cup Final at Belgium’s Heysel stadium. Another riot. Another wall collapsed. 39 Italian fans died in the mayhem. English clubs were banned from European competitions.

In a era of lows, the infamous footage of Millwall fans rioting at Luton Town stands out.

Thatcher’s Government assed the The Football Spectators Act of 1989. It made ID cards compulsory. To be a football fan you needed to carry ID. You were no longer a citizen of a free democracy. You were a pariah the State wanted to control. Margaret Thatcher, regarded football fans as the “enemy within”.

Thatcher ordered Justice Oliver Popplewell to investigate football. He suggested fences to keep the fans from the pitch.

Bradford City FC chairman Stafford Heginbotham (left) with Mr Justice Popplewell, in front of the stand which was burnt at Bradford’s Valley Parade ground. The 57-year old judge spent more than half-an-hour touring the ground. He headed the inquiry into the blaze.

Chelsea chairman Ken Bates suggested electrifying it. If it was good enough for his cattle, it was good enough for football fans. (The GLC prevented Bates from plugging it in.)

1985: Chelsea chairman, Ken Bates, indicating the controversial anti-hooligan 12-volt electric wire on top of the 12ft high fence screening spectators from the pitch at Stamford Bridge football ground when it went on public show for the first time.

Then came the horror of Hillsborough, in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death. The police refused to open the fences at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground. The dying and uninjured were not instantly recognised as victims. They were a public order matter.

The police lied, saying that hooliganism was to blame. How much did Thatcher’s Government know?

So. Does Baroness Thatcher get a minute’s silence at sport she was no fan of? The Daily Mail’s Jeff Powell thinks she should, writing beneath the headline:

No Old Trafford tribute for Baroness Thatcher… Shame on football for snubbing the lady who rescued our game from tribal hooligans

A snub? Who in their right mind would want to remember football’s dark days?

As they took their comfortable seats on Monday night, feeling safe and secure as they enjoyed the match, in many cases savouring the hospitality of their boxes, how might they have reflected on the lady without whom such glittering stadiums would never have been built? And where might English football be now, had Thatcher allowed football to wither on the vine of feral violence and tribal hooliganism?

She wanted to bring in those aforementioned ID cards. And what of Hillsborough?

Did she save the national game? Without question.

On Monday night, that contribution to the beautiful game went unrecognised.

What about Hillsborough, then?

The long haul towards all-seat grounds, monitored by closed-circuit television cameras, began. It was a battle which would not be won until, by a terrible irony, the people of Liverpool became entrapped in an even greater disaster of their own, at Hillsborough four years later.

Trapped in disaster, literally and metaphorically as the State, media and police colluded to wrongly blame the victims for their own deaths.

Of course, watching football has improved massively. Matt Dickinson writes in the Times:

Taylor’s report in 1990 rejected Thatcher’s ID cards and heralded the era of all-seat stadiums. Indeed, it was as Thatcher tearfully departed in late 1990 that the conditions were coming together for football’s boom. The growth might well have been called Thatcherite given its reliance on club flotations (Manchester United became a plc in 1991), free-market economics, the arrival of Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB paying its first £300 million for a TV deal and the elitism of the new Premier League.

We now have minute’s silence for economic policy? Please, no. Football and politics… never!

Update:  Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan and Reading’s Sir John Madejski want a minute’s silence for Maggie.

Whelan:  “We owe Mrs Thatcher a minute’s silence. It is not my decision, it is for the FA to decide, but I would be in favour of wearing an armband out of respect to Mrs Thatcher. We have to say thank you very much for the services the former PM has given us.”

Madejski: “We have got to appreciate that Margaret Thatcher was a world leader who did so much for this country. So much that she deserves a minute’s silence. The funeral’s going to take place at St Paul’s attended by the Queen and Prince Philip so I think it would be a fitting tribute from the world of football to Margaret Thatcher, one of our greatest leaders.”

Anorak

Posted: 9th, April 2013 | In: Politicians, Sports | Comments (3)

20 people who have no idea who Margaret Thatcher was

WHEN Margaret Thatcher died, Twitter went into overdrive. All over the place tweeters wer asking”Who’s Margaret Thatcher”? The hashtag #nowthatchersdead was read by many as “Now That Cher’s Dead”.  Many just wanted to know who the Iron Lady was. They could have looked it up. But better to just shout out. 

Anorak

Posted: 9th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral will not be privatised: Ken Loach looks at the Iron Lady’s plans

MARGARET Thatcher’s funeral will enjoy the same status as they of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother. It will either be a global event steeped in mawkish emotion and teddies, or largely ignored. Voices on the Left react:

Sunny Hundal in The Guardian:

“Let me be clear: it’s isn’t nice to wish death on most people, and I’m not doing that here for Thatcher. She deserves a degree of respect like other people, in my view, despite what she did as prime minister. Surely Thatcher herself would agree that poor taxpayers should not be further burdened in these times of austerity.”

Anorak

Posted: 9th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment