At Baroness Thatcher's funeral, journalist Jonathan Mirsky wonders: What was I doing there?

"The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres, KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order), gave a kind of eulogy in which he recalled sitting next to Prime Minister Thatcher at a banquet: 'She gripped my arm and said, "Don't touch the duck pâté, Bishop. It's terribly fattening." ' "

-- Jonathan Mirksy, on the funeral of Margaret Thatcher

by Ken

In "One Hour & Four Minutes With Mrs. Thatcher" in the May 23 New York Review of Books (only an abstract available free online), longtime China and East Asia correspondent Jonathan Mirsky explains how -- he supposes -- he came to be "on the list" for Margaret Thatcher's funeral, as the woman from the Cabinet Office assured him he was before sending him his invitation by courier.

"Why me?" Mirsky asks.

I had never been a parliamentary journalist. My career was as a foreign correspondent in China and Hong Kong. Margaret Thatcher's visits to China were brief and unsatisfactory. But I did have a little history with Mrs. Thatcher, including four personal encounters.

And he proceeds to tell the story of those four meetings and the estimated hous & four minutes. By way of background he explains:

As leader of the opposition, Mrs. Thatcher had gone to China in 1977 and hadn't liked it. In 1982, now prime minister, she went again to Beijing to negotiate the handover to China of British-ruled Hong Kong, stipulated by a nineteenth-century colonial treaty to occur in 1997. For three days she argued with Premier Zhao Ziyang and Senior Leader Deng Xiaoping for some sort of special arrangement that would not include the colony under direct mainland rule, but was forced to agree to what actually occurred, namely that Hong Kong would return to China on July 1, 1997, although Deng agreed that Beijing would not interfere with Hong Kong's internal arrangements for fifty years.

"My own meetings with Mrs. Thatcher," Mirksy explains, "took place after that agreement." To facilitate score-keeping, I'm breaking down the account meeting by meeting, with time checks added.

MEETING 1: 1 minute

In early June 1989, I returned to London from Beijing, where I been a correspondent for The Observer. The Armed Police in Tiananmen Square had assaulted me on the night of June 3, knocked out five teeth, fractured my left arm, and beaten me black and blue. A few days later I found myself at a reception of some sort where, unknown to me, the prime minister was also present. I was led up to her and introduced. She told me she had been reading my dispatches and asked if "we," her preferred pronoun for herself, could do anything for me, did I have a good doctor, and to let her know if there was anything I needed. We shook hands. One minute.

MEETING 2: 1 minute

In 1997, not long before the handover to which she had reluctantly agreed, Lady Thatcher, as she now was, came to Hong Kong to deliver a highly paid speech to the Chinese and British Chambers of Commerce. I was now East Asia editor of The Times of London. The day before her speech she asked to walk about central Hong Kong, accompanied by local and foreign reporters. Suddenly she declared, "I must buy some socks for Denis," her husband, who was in London. A nearby Marks & Spencer was cleared and police stood in the doorway. I trotted to the unguarded back door and inside saw Lady Thatcher at the sock counter with a young saleswoman. She was just saying she had forgotten her money. I paid for the socks; she took the bag, didn't thank me, and went outside. I left by the back door. Another minute.

MEETING 3: 1 hour (approx.)

That night, Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, a Tory MP, and one of those who, during her third term, deposed Prime Minister Thatcher, gave a dinner party for her to which my wife and I were invited. After the meal, Lady Thatcher sat on a couch; guests were led up to it, chatted for a few minutes, and then made way for another guest. Near midnight I was on the couch, telling Lady Thatcher that when she gave her speech the next day she must mention that many international business deals with China were concluded across the border in Hong Kong, where there was (and is) a rule of law. I said it would be important to underline that difference with mainland China. She said she didn't know that international contracts on the mainland were routinely signed in Hong Kong, but no, no, no, the speech was already written.

After half an hour still on the couch she looked over at the heavy-eyed Patten and the few remaining guests and asked what he thought. He said, "It would be insane to get between Margaret Thatcher and Jonathan Mirsky." Finally, she agreed to include what I suggested in her speech: she would emphasize that contracts had legal force in Hong Kong that they did not have on the mainland. At least it would be clear that Hong Kong had a rule of law lacking in the China controlled by Beijing. As my wife and I left Government House, her speechwriter came up behind us and whispered, "Fuck you, I'll have to spend the rest of the night rewriting the speech." About an hour.

MEETING 4: 2 minutes

The next night I waited outside the banqueting hall where Lady Thatcher was to give her speech. I would be admitted to the hall after the meal. When it ended the doors flew open and guests rushed to the toilets. There was a long queue outside the ladies'. Mrs. Thatcher bustled over and exclaimed, "I must get back into the hall for my speech." I told her to wait right there, went into the gents', where there were ten or so men; I asked them to leave because Lady Thatcher needed to come in. Zipping up, they left. "Go ahead in," I said to Lady Thatcher. "I'll stand at the door." She went in, after a minute or two came out, didn't thank me, went back into the hall, and gave her speech with my suggestion included. Two minutes.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE GREAT EVENT?

The funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral was one of those events that, as they say here, "The British do damn well." The cathedral was stuffed, as they also say here, with "the great and the good." I recognized one or two of both, including ex-Governor Patten. The coffin was carried to the cathedral door on a hundred-year-old gun carriage drawn by matched, perfectly behaved black horses and escorted by Brigade of Guards officers wearing their bearskin headpieces, on similarly matched chargers. Eight representatives of the services carried the coffin in perfect step into St. Paul's. The Queen, very small, and Prince Philip, with a drop on the end of his nose, were escorted in, preceded by the Lord Mayor carrying the black Mourning Sword. The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres, KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order), gave a kind of eulogy in which he recalled sitting next to Prime Minister Thatcher at a banquet: "She gripped my arm and said, ‘Don't touch the duck pâté, Bishop. It's terribly fattening.'"

I sat next to a general who long ago, during the Troubles, commanded the army in Northern Ireland and slept every night with a pistol under his pillow. Behind me was a Guards colonel in a scarlet tunic hung with medals and carrying a funeral "short sword." He said to his neighbor, "By God, as I was walking over here a pretty girl said to me, ‘Wow, you'd make a great accessory to me in Chanel.'" As I said, what was I doing there?

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When Miss McConnell Passes Will "Ding Dong" Top The Charts?

The British Establishment-- and the kind of American Tories who fought on the British side against the Patriots during the American Revolution-- are busy trying to make Margaret Thatcher a right-wing saint. Millions of ordinary Britons don't feel that's merited and responded by driving the 1939 classic "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead," from The Wizard of Oz up the music charts. Tens of thousands of Brits rushed out to buy the single but Conservatives warned the BBC, which plays chart songs, not to dare play it. They played a 5-second version (once) with the network's new boss, Tony Hall, explaining, "I personally believe it is distasteful and inappropriate. However I do believe it would be wrong to ban the song outright as free speech is an important principle and a ban would only give it more publicity." It was the fastest rising top 10 song in the history of the British charts. The Establishment is, as always, on a very different page from the ordinary people they rule. All sorts of American reactionaries and even war criminals have flown over to London for the funeral.

Dick Cheney, former US vice-president and driving force behind the country's invasion of Iraq, is to attend the Thatcher funeral, No 10 has confirmed.

Other high-profile US guests include Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state and the maverick rightwinger Ross Perot. Barack Obama announced on this week that former US secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker III would lead a US presidential delegation to the ceremony. Louise Susman, the recently departed US ambassador in London, would also attend.

Michelle Bachmann, the ultra-conservative former presidential candidate, will attend with two other Republicans from Congress.

Downing Street indicated on Tuesday that Cheney was attending in a personal capacity, not as an official US representative. Nonetheless, his presence is likely to enrage many. As George W Bush's number two between 2001-2009, Cheney was one of the chief architects of the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, over in the always contentious U.S. Senate, the Patriots were once again fighting the Tories, as Miss McConnell insisted on an over-the-top tribute to Mrs. Thatcher that gratuitously and clumsily manages to insult Argentina and other U.S. allies across the globe. In the end Miss McConnell made such a fuss that the Democrats just allowed his silly resolution to pass by unanimous consent. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez had originally struck 4 paragraphs from McConnell's paean to the Iron Lady:

Whereas Baroness Margaret Thatcher in 1984 survived an assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army in Brighton, United Kingdom, and declared that "all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail"...

Whereas Baroness Margaret Thatcher in 1982 led United Kingdom efforts to liberate the Falkland Islands after they had been invaded and occupied by the Government of Argentina...

Whereas Baroness Margaret Thatcher in 1983 supported the deployment of United States nuclear cruise missiles at United Kingdom bases and the deployment by the United States of short-range nuclear missiles in Europe when there was stiff opposition to her doing so...

Whereas Baroness Margaret Thatcher defended United Kingdom sovereignty within the European Economic Community...

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Margaret Thatcher And EMILY's List

While we didn't cheer, nor take part in the wailing and the rending of garments,  at the announcement of Margaret Thatcher's death-- she's been all but dead for several years-- yesterday, we did recognize her passing. I hope you read Ken's fair and balanced obit last night. And, regardless what you thought of her reactionary brand of politics, there is certainly no denying her a hard-earned place in history-- England's first women prime minister. When a similarly senile British Consul General assigned to the L.A. garden party and high tea post, viciously anti-union Dame Barbara Hay, went on KPCC to eulogize her idol yesterday, she seemed stumped when asked to name a Thatcher contribution. So she went right to Thatcher breaking the unions, the real bond that she and Reagan had in common.

When her Conservative Party cabinet colleagues kicked her out of office, she was embittered and said, even years later, "I shall never forget; I shall never forgive." What a dreadful old monster she was! And no less so for being a woman. In politics, as in all things, there are good women, great women, horrible women, flawed women and women who are good on some things and bad on others. Sounds a lot like men, doesn't it? Morrissey doesn't have fond memories of Thatcher in any way, shape or form and he wasn't shy in pointing out that she was even a monster when it came to women's issues, even beyond wrecking the social system women often depend on for themselves and their children.

Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes. She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a prime minister could actually be female. But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it.

Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death. As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity.

I don't want to go into my whole schpiel about how special interest groups like EMILY's List and, say, Victory Fund make grievous strategic errors when they support a conservative woman or a conservative gay over a progressive man or a progressive straight ally. I watched Barbara Boxer, clearly senile now and past her due date, crowing about how she persuaded an ex-progressive champion, Nancy Pelosi, to support conservative (proto-Republican Wendy Greuel for mayor of L.A. over a far smarter, far more progressive and far better qualified Eric Garcetti for one reason and one reason only: Wendy has a vagina and Eric has a penis. Each of them is a lot more than plumbing. The National Organization for Women (NOW) gets that even if EMILY's List, which predictably, is backing Greuel, doesn't. The California state branch of NOW endorsed Garcetti as did, yesterday, one of California's foremost advocates for women and children in Congress, Rep. Karen Bass, the former state Assembly Speaker. (Sadly, Boxer and Pelosi are in their dotage. Who's going to help them ease out of public life though? It was hard enough for U.K. Conservatives to unceremoniously throw Thatcher out in time.)

There are a number of races EMILY's List is getting involved in that pit conservative women against progressive men and one of their keystone races is for the governor of the Keystone State. Their candidate is great on one issue: Choice. On economic justice issues, she's a backward conservative and a danger to working families. Her record in Congress is disgraceful for anyone calling themselves a Democrat, let alone a Democrat from a safe, solidly blue district like hers. A vice chair of the repulsively corrupt, corporately-owned New Dems, her lifetime ProgressivePunch score on crucial roll calls is a wretched 76.68. But for the current session-- where nothing is in her mind except her lust to become Pennsylvania's first woman governor-- her voting record has really gone into the toilet as she endeavors to prove how conservative she is by voting with Boehner and Cantor whenever she can. Her score for the current session has sunk to an abysmal 52.4, Blue Dog territory.

Allyson Schwartz isn't a terrible candidate because she's a woman. She's a terrible candidate because she's a conservative serving the interests of Big Business and Wall Street rather than of working families of Pennsylvania. EMILY's List is terrible for supporting her just because she's a woman. They should be supporting women-- we need lots more in public office-- but not women like Margaret Thatcher... or Allyson Schwartz. Oh come on, Howie... how can you compare Allyson Schwartz to Margaret Thatcher? Here's how:

• Allyson Did the Dirty Work for America’s Credit Card Industry Against the Middle-Class

She came under heavy fire from liberals in Philadelphia for her vote in favor of the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 that the GOP was pushing. The bill allowed the credit card companies to ruin the finances of middle-class Americans and then prevent those same Americans from filing for bankruptcy and getting rid of their credit card debts. The bill also specifically removed protections to prevent identity theft.

• Allyson Gave Cover to House Republicans to Overturn Obamacare

Allyson Schwartz has been accused of siding with health care interests-- one of her biggest bloc of contributors-- and giving House Republicans cover on dismantling important parts of ObamaCare. Schwartz’s actions would result in increased profits for health care providers.

• Allyson Supported Keeping the Bush Tax Cuts For the Wealthy

When President Obama was forced by House Republicans to move the cut-off for the Bush tax cuts to $400,000 from $250,000, Politico reported that Schwartz cheered the move as beneficial to her wealthy district. “It makes a difference for some in my district,” she said. Previously, in 2010, Schwartz proposed extending the Bush tax cuts for those who making up to half a million ($500,000) a year. And in December 2010, Allyson Schwartz voted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts for two more years.

• Allyson Sided With George W. Bush on Iraq

During her first campaign for Congress in 2004, Schwartz said she supported Bush’s War in Iraq and then repeatedly voted to give him blank checks to keep it going. Then, in May 2007, she voted against the bipartisan progressive/Libertarian resolution that sought to safely redeploy U.S. troops out of Iraq. Four years later (March, 2011) she helped defeat another bipartisan plan to end another war, this one in Afghanistan. All the while, she has been voting to renew the Patriot Act without protections for civil liberties.

Is she better than Corbett? Sure... but what a low standard. Pennsylvania Democrats can do a lot better-- and there's more than one good choice. OK, I hope you've paid attention. How about, as a reward of sorts, a couple of songs by Elvis Costello, one he wrote about Margaret Thatcher ruining human existence and one about Alison? Enjoy!

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The Iron Bitch (1925-2013)

by Ken

I see, from the NYT "Afternoon Update," that "Tributes Pour In for Margaret Thatcher." No, I didn't waste a click on it, fairly confident that the real key words, like "peabrain" and "bitch," would be in sparse supply.

What to say about the old Iron Bitch on the occasion of her passing? One of washingtonpost.com's associate Fixers, Sean Sullivan, today tried to fob off "5 moments that show why Margaret Thatcher mattered in American politics," but most of them aren't so much moments as, um, fuzzy symbioses between Thatcherite Britain and Reaganitic America.

Here's one I like, though (links onsite):

2) Strains in the relationship: The Reagan-Thatcher relationship wasn’t always so rosy. Reagan didn’t immediately support Britain in its conflict with Argentina in the Falkland Islands in 1982, urging the European ally to pursue talks. And Thatcher’s government denounced the Reagan-sanctioned invasion of Grenada in 1983.

Documents that were newly declassified in 2012 revealed some of the details of the strains in the Thatcher-Reagan relationship. Thatcher once described a Reagan dispatch on the Falklands invasion as “so vague, I didn’t think it was worth reading."

I'm hard put to say what moment exactly is being defined here, or how exactly it shows "why Margaret Thatcher mattered in American politics." But I do like the image it conquers: the twin Great Conservative Leaders of the West at the pinnacle of their achievements, Mrs. Thatcher as the Conqueror of the Falklands, Master Ronnie as the Conqueror of Grenada -- each, mind you, achieving this feat for the ages without the support of his/her also-evil twin.

Actually, I like one of Sean's other "5 moments":

5) Spurning Sarah Palin: In 2011, the Guardian newspaper reported that Thatcher would not be meeting with Sarah Palin during Palin’s trip to London. "Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts," the paper quoted one Thatcher ally as saying. The rejection sparked an outcry among conservatives in the United States, lending a great deal of attention to the non-meeting.

This is at least unquestionably a "moment," though again it's hard to see how it shows the long-out-of-power Mrs. T influencing U.S. politics. For that matter, as I understand it, it also didn't have much to do with Mrs. T, who by then was pretty much beyond making decisions about much of anything. Actually, it seems to me rather a shame that no such meeting took place.

The Iron Bitch's sad decline into dementia tends to take some of the sting off her record of appallingness, which is too bad. She deserves to be remembered for the height of her arrogant, ignorant insufferability and authoritarianism.

Of course it's true that the way was paved for her assault on the state by a succession of Labour leaders unequal to the task of finding an enlightened liberal response to the problems of the time. The New Yorker's John Cassidy recalls Mrs. T, on her way into 10 Downing Street to take over the reins of government in May 1979, "flanked by two burly policemen, her blonde hair swept back and lacquered into immobility," saying --

in a voice that, even today, thirty-four years later, can set my teeth grating, "There is now work to be done."

Indeed there was. Even her harshest critics would concede as much. By the late nineteen-seventies, the social compact that had held Britain together since the Second World War appeared to be coming apart at the seams. During the previous decade, under governments of both major parties, there had been a seemingly endless series of labor strikes, which had brought the country to a standstill. To a schoolboy like me, they were sometimes fun. When the bus drivers went on strike, you didn't have to go to school. When the lights went out, because of a stoppage by power workers, you couldn't do your homework. But in the winter of 1978-79, when the local government unions walked out, leaving the garbage piling up in the streets and the dead laying, unburied, in the morgues, many Brits decided that enough was enough. Prominent among them was the grocer's daughter from Grantham, a nondescript market town in Lincolnshire.

Via a link from the Cassidy piece I got for free to the NYT's John F. Burns and Alan Cowell's "Thatcher Freed Market Forces, and Europe Is Still Adjusting," which mostly tracks tributes and breathless admiration, but manages to squeeze in a scant paragraph noting that --

the commemorations were accompanied, too, by more acerbic, even vitriolic, remembrances from those, particularly on the political left, who saw her as a destructive figure, who had ruptured the economic and social fabric of post-war Britain and left a country that was more divided, more selfish, and, for the have-nots, more resentful than at any time in its recent history.

But then, you know those left-wingers. It's true that Thatcher's conservatism didn't have an awful lot in common with the kind practiced by the lunatics of the American Right, who even as we speak are wetting themselves in tribute to their goddess, but it was still savagely destructive of the social fabric. However, that seems hardly worth talking about. So apparently we won't.

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