Peter Oborne of the Torygraph: "This is a state funeral, and that's a mistake"

[non sociopath skin]

Last edited Thu Apr 11, 2013, 06:51 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9984619/Margaret-Thatcher-This-is-a-state-funeral-and-thats-a-mistake.html

Interesting to see a non-Bullingdon Tory saying much of what many of us have been saying all week and in the House Journal too.

Maybe shrewder Tory heads have finally cottoned on to the fact that this one could jump up and bite them on the bum.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Oborne wrote much the same over a year ago, when the plans were first talked about

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100125535/lady-thatcher-deserves-every-honour-%E2%80%93-apart-from-this-one/

He is a thinking Tory.

[LeftishBrit]

2. It pains me to admit to agreeing with a Torygraph writer...

but I agree with virtually every word of this article.

[fedsron2us]

3. I just wish they would hurry up and get her in the ground

The media have milked the event for every last drop of easy copy.

It has become a standing joke in our office that each day's news begins with the item -

'Thatcher still dead. A world mourns..'

The overkill is becoming tedious and tiresome.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Thatcher funeral's military pomp raises concerns at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace raised concerns about the ceremonial funeral with military honours for Lady Thatcher that is to be attended on Wednesday by the Queen and more than 2,000 guests including every surviving British prime minister, the Guardian understands.

As invitations were sent out to world leaders, including all surviving US presidents and Hillary Clinton, it emerged that concerns were expressed at the highest levels about whether it is appropriate for such a controversial figure to be escorted on her final journey by more than 700 military personnel.

In discussions about the funeral held over recent years, it is understood that questions were raised by senior figures about whether it would be right to associate the military with such a divisive figure, according to a well-placed Whitehall source.

It is understood that there were fears that the British tradition, in which the monarchy rather than politicians are associated with ceremonial aspects of the military, could be called into question. Thatcher's coffin will be drawn on a gun carriage of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery from St Clement Danes church – the church of the Royal Air Force in the Strand – to St Paul's cathedral.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/11/thatcher-funeral-pomp-concerns-palace

[fedsron2us]

5. All very sad

If you want to measure Britain's decline in the world then nothing is more telling than the rather pathetic attempts organise a funeral that portrays Thatcher as a great war leader to rank alongside Pitt or Churchill.

Have we declined so far as a nation that we think that a short bloody post colonial scuffle over the Falklands ranks alongside the Napoleonic Wars or the conflicts of 1914-18 and 1939-45?

It seems that we have lost all sense of historical perspective or feeling for our past.

I find the whole charade demeaning and embarrassing

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. indeed it is embarrassing

The Kosovo and Sierra Leone conflicts were successful for Blair PR-wise. Perhaps he feels that he ought to receive such a treatment.

I imagine if the Falklands War had happened on Jim Callaghan's watch, the right-wing media would have ridiculed Labour's attempts to venerate Jim's status to Churchill levels.

[fedsron2us]

7. Ironically, Callaghan faced a similar threat to the Falklands from Argentina in 1977

which he saw off by sending one submarine and two frigates to the South Atlantic. No one died.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jun/01/argentina.military

In all the hysteria about Thatcher as a great war leader most people forget that it was her government's penny pinching and cuts to the navy which led to the Junta in Buenos Aires having another go in 1982. Every single person who was killed in that conflict could have been saved if her administration had not screwed up its defence review so badly. She was only saved because Galtieri was an idiot who could not wait for the scaling down of the navy to be completed before he launched his invasion. If he had held off until Nott's review had finished he would almost certainly have been able to hold onto his conquests.

[LeftishBrit]

8. Never was a truer word spoken.

People in the Navy, and even, I think, some in the government had warned that the withdrawal of ships from the South Atlantic might give the impression that Britain didn't really care about the Falklands any more and that it was safe to invade. It did indeed give that impression as it turned out; and Galtieri lost the war more because he was quite exceptionally incompetent than because Britain was well prepared. The idea that the war was a Great Triumph is ridiculous by any standards.