Reflections on the recent demise of Mrs. M H Thatcher, Baroness

Funerals are emotional events. There is no justification in the arrogant cynicism of those who mock the shedding of tears at times of such emotion. Few can tell why George Osborne was caused to shed his tears. Perhaps it was no more the occasion itself or perhaps it was the reminder of some more direct and personal loss. In any event, he was entitled to a genuine expression of his feelings.

Likewise death provides no true cause for celebration. There may well have been good cause for celebration of her political demise, but Margaret Thatcher's influence on events had long since dwindled to nothing of significance. All that was left was the death of an 87 year old woman, and from her dying, nothing was gained.

But reason there certainly is to assess the history of her life and times and many now have done so with flowery, sychophantic rhetoric extending to irrational drivel.

We do not have Presidents in our constitution. Such reflection as takes place should be on the acts of the government in which she was Prime Minister, not reflections on the exercise by Margaret Thatcher of personal power. It was indeed she who, as Prime Minister, led a government faced with many problems, but though she clearly provided that leadership with strong opinions, happily, we the people did not then  surrender to her as a dictator, nor should we think to have done so now.

In the 1960s, Britain blossomed out of austerity with enthusiasm and creativity.  More and more of Britain's people escaped their dark, depressing tenements and villas and began to enjoy benefits previously reserved to the wealthy.  But, as history has so often proved, the taste of a little wealth whets the appetite for more.

There was then more than one view of how the satisfaction of this appetite might be achieved. In 1979 a minority of the voting electorate turned to the party traditionally believed to be the party of wealth and enterprise, led by the upwardly mobile daughter of a small businessman from Grantham, Lincolnshire. The majority did not, but with three major parties in the British political race, Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party was, despite having only a minority of the popular vote, able to form a government.with an overall majority of 44 seats in the House of Commons in the UK Parliament.

That government was then faced with a people deeply divided about how to stay on that road to a greater well-being to be enjoyed by the mass of the people. Margaret Thatcher personally confronted it with the slogan "There is no alternative" to the policies of free market economics to which her governments were committed.,

She was wrong. There was an alternative. The route she chose struck discord in contradiction of the harmony she professed. It promoted greed at the expense of those who could not secure a foothold on wealth, and it led directly to the new crisis of capitalism, and the austerity which threatens a renewed impoverishment of large groups of us, the people. She relished being one of the world's chief exponents of Friedmanite economics, which now, worldwide, are being seen as a potentially catastrophic error.

Why then a state funeral in all but name ?  Why the expenditure on £10 million in the same week that state benefits were cut laying down the gauntlet to the workless to find work as unemployment rises. Why then  the military display - perhaps rooted only in jingoistic uncertainty over a war that served to win an election but which even the United States appears to have found unnecessarily belligerent.

Those who supported the late Baroness and her governments have their answers. As we are democratic, these are answers to be debated, but that in itself leaves one question hard to answer. The people are divided, but the state has taken sides. The crown has aligned itself, herself, with the celebrants not of Margaret Thatcher's death, but of her life.  The British Broadcasting Corporation has succumbed mealy mouthed to censors against the protests of a large section of us, the people who, however tasteless their protest, have a greater right  to liberty. These things should never be. The question is not how the reactions of the people should be rationally defined, but that they should not be suppressed, and that is by far the greater cause.

So then, this woman was no saviour of our country. This woman was no Churchill. There was reason to lay her to rest with that respect that is deserved by anyone who has achieved success in their own terms but no more. Though her governments did little for women, her passing may be marked as that of Britain's first woman Prime Minister - and even that without the patronising commentary of men marvelling at this achievement

Margaret Hilda Thatcher has been hailed at her death as a great champion of liberty. That is only praise for the victor by the victor's acolytes. It is an offence to those whose options were narrowed and whose choices were denied by the economics of the governments she led. The definition of liberty as the freedom to compete, to outdo, to defeat and ultimately to destroy is a definition of liberty only for the few. It is a definition that should now be buried plainly, without ceremony.

Michael Gove, the History Man

This can be very short. There is really nothing to debate.

Michael Gove is the current Secretary of State for Education in the UK government. Everything he does harks back to a golden age that never was. His wish to reform the secondary education examination system into what it was in the 1950s is unarguably ridiculous.

We cannot have the English public education system run by a man whose policy appears to be dictated only  by a nostalgic fondness for his own childhood experience. His proposal is not supported by a majority of the people's elected representatives. It is time for the Prime Minister to shuffle him out of  his current seat in government before he does irremediable damage..

Leveson's lesson

A whole raft of British politicians are being tested by Robert Jay at the Leveson inquiry into press standards. Some are accused of lying. That of course is absurd. They are on oath and they are not lying. What however they are revealing is a murky world of over-powerful journalists and intimidated ambitious politicians in which so many things of great importance in the government of Britain are based on perceptions of the truth rather than on any objective kind of truth.

Today it was the turn of Prime Minister, David Cameron, who described as nonsense the idea that his party in opposition made a policy deal with Rupert Murdoch to secure his support for the Tory party in the 2010 election.

He is right. It is absurd. However the focusing on his denial obscures the fact that this doesn't really matter in the light of what really happened. We acctually heard that Rebekah Brooks, News International's Chief Executive, texted David Cameron on the eve of his 2009 Tory Conference speech to tell him the she was "rooting for him" in the election. She claimed that she and Mr. Cameron were "in this together" and ended her message wih a rousing "Yes,we Cam".

We don't know David Cameron's reply. We do however know that the Tories, by their own admission, had been working hard to secure the support of the Murdoch papers. It seems highly unlikely that David Cameron's reply to Rebekah Brooks was "Dear Rebekah, Your comments are not at all appropriate."

But inappropriate they surely were, because Rebekah's adulatory commitment to Tory success surely meant that the newspapers she controlled or influenced would report the news in a way that was favourable to that same commitment she had made. We, the people, would then be denied from that powerful source an objective presentation of events.

What really matters is that Rebekah Brooks felt that it was fine for her to address David Cameron as she did. The true political indictment of our politicians is that they ever permitted a culture in which the chief executive of a news organ ever thought it acceptable to write to a politician in such terms. It is the same unquestioning assumption that causes TV political programmers to give so much broadcast time to journalist commentators who sneer and scorn at politicians.

They are not elected. They do not speak for us. Too many of them behave like members of a self preserving elite arrogantly congratulating themselves and each other on their superiority, which many of us recognise only as superficial bigotry. We now have all we need to know from Leveson. We do not need to debate the accusations, denials and counter accusations. The uncontested truth is enough to cause us to demand that this must end and that we the people will no longer be the servants of deception but we will have, and value as precious, the democratic right to choose upon an honest presentation of the news and not upon a version covertly filtered through the opinion of a journalist.

Missing the Jubilee point

It seems that attacking the British queen and the rest of her family is thought to be in the republican cause. That really is missing the point.

I'm a British republican because I believe that Britain would be a rather better place if we could be citizens of the republic rather than subjects of the crown. I would rather we rid ourselves of the class-ridden hierarchy of our governmental structure. We could be more dynamic, more unified and more forward looking if only we could dispense with practices and laws that have only tradition to commend them and work only to the advantage of the 'old nobility' and to the disadvantage of 'the people'. We are, as one American friend recently  described us, 'a relic'. It is, I believe, because our values are old and weary and we are befuddled by our past about our identity for the future. I believe that republicanism offers us renewal, the removal from government of the oppressive layer of aristocracy, the abolition of the absurd and cumbersome notions of monarchy in our constitution, and the release of the energies of the people providing genuine equality of opportunity for all.

But really this has very little to do with the personality of Elizabeth Windsor, nor a great deal to do with  the fact that she has been doing the job she does quite famously for 60 years. Personally I don't find her Jubilee a big event, but obviously a lot of people do and I don't see any need at all to begrudge the people a lot of fun for the sake of the Republican cause. By all accounts,  Elizabeth Windsor seems to have done the job of queen pretty well for 60 years, and I really find it very hard to blame the queen personally for the fact that the British constitution grants her the ridiculous title of Majesty .

So far as I am concerned, let the queen be Queen, let Charles eccentrically succeed her and let the pages of American magazines long continue to drip honey over Wills and Kate. And if the Moutbatten-Windsor  family can embrace the idea of a constitutional republic, let them continue to be the symbols of Britain the world recognises. They might well earn more for the country from tourism than they cost, and there seems to be a chance that, within a republic, the son of Diana and the commoner Kate could be ambassadors of the people rather than the elite  All I want is that they be taken out of government, out of the constitution, and out of the law. That's real republicanism and I really can't be bothered with all this fury misdirected at an 86 year old with an occasionally mischievous smile. It really is missing the point.

 We the People: Servants of Deception
by Christopher M Dawson
In this controversial and challenging book Chris Dawson calls for a reconsideration of the social reality of American society. He exposes inconsistencies and deceptions in the conventional portrayal of America’s experiment in democracy. His provocative social commentary explores the role of the US military, the culture of fear, strategies in the war on terror, the excesses of corporate power, and misconceptions about crime. He  offers unconventional views about education, medicine, universal healthcare, and the origins of religion. 


Available here from XLibris.


Visit Chris Dawson's blog here

John Wilkes and The North Briton

John Wilkes (1725 – 1797) was an English radical, journalist, and politician. In 1762, Wilkes started a weekly publication, The North Briton, in which he criticised and satirised the government of John Stuart, Earl of Bute. The title was a satirical take on the Earl's own newspaper, The Briton. 


In the 45th edition of The North Briton, Wilkes expressed his outrage at what he regarded as Bute's betrayal in agreeing to overly generous peace terms with France to end the Seven Years war. He was as a result accused of seditious libel of the king, George III. The legal processes which followed, and in which Wilkes and his supporters secured considerable success, secured basic rights and liberties in English law and provided a foundation for the expression of individual liberties and freedoms in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.


This is an abridged version of  the offending article which appeared in The North Briton 45 -

“The King’s Speech has always been considered by the legislature, and by the public at large, as the Speech of the Minister. It has regularly, at the beginning of every session of parliament, been referred by both houses to the consideration of a committee, and has been generally canvassed with the utmost freedom, when the minister of the crown has been obnoxious to the nation. The ministers of this free country, conscious of the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people, and with the terrors of parliament before their eyes, have ever been cautious, no less with regard to the matter, than to the expressions of speeches, which they have advised the sovereign to make from the throne, at the opening of each session. They well knew that an honest house of parliament, true to their trust, could not fail to detect the fallacious arts, or to remonstrate against the daring acts of violence committed by any minister.

The speech at the close of the session has ever been considered as the most secure method of promulgating the favourite court-creed among the vulgar; because the parliament, which is the constitutional guardian of the liberties of the people, has in this case no opportunity of remonstrating, or of impeaching any wicked servant of the crown. 

“This week has given the public the-most abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind. The minister’s speech of last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am in doubt, whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his sacred name to the most odious measures, and to the most unjustifiable public declarations, from a throne ever renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue.”

“In vain will such a minister, or the foul dregs of his power, the tools of corruption and despotism, preach up in the speech that spirit of concord, and that obedience to the laws, which is essential to good order. They have sent the spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophecy that it will never be extinguished but by the extinction of their power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the Peace and Excise, through this nation? Is it to be expected between an insolent Exciseman, and a peer, gentleman, freeholder, or farmer, whose private houses are now made liable to be entered and searched at pleasure? Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and in general all the cyder counties, are not surely the several counties which are alluded to in the speech. The spirit of concord hath not gone forth among  them, but the spirit of liberty has, and a noble opposition has been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. A nation as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit of concord when they are oppressed, means a tame submission to injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise, and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution.... 

The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited power of the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised, as to endeavour to reduce them into practice: but the English nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment  on the ancient liberties of this kingdom. “The King of England is only the first magistrate of this country; but is invested by the law with the whole executive power. He is, however, responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal functions, in the choice of ministers, &c. equal with the meanest of his subjects in his particular duty.” The personal character of our present amiable sovereign makes us easy and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands; but the Prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way not of blind favour or partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative, and I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts: Freedom is the English Subject’s Prerogative.

That then is where this blog begins ....