Posted on 06/03/2006 11:30:00 PM PDT by MadIvan
TONY Blair is backing a controversial plan to provide a state funeral for one of the Labour Party's most reviled enemies of recent decades: Margaret Thatcher.
Scotland on Sunday can reveal that civil servants have been working for months on the details of Baroness Thatcher's funeral, even though there is no suggestion the 80-year-old is suffering from any life-threatening condition.
But Blair believes Thatcher's eventual passing should be marked with the first state funeral for a commoner since Winston Churchill more than 40 years ago.
The proposal has astounded constitutional experts, who argue that - royalty aside - the honour is normally reserved for politicians who "saved the country at times of dire need".
The funeral plan has also sparked furious debate at the heart of the New Labour government, with a number of ministers opposing such a mark of respect for a Conservative Prime Minister.
The move is also likely to provoke a furious backlash from the grass roots of the party, where Thatcher is still detested for her stout opposition to the unions and policies in areas including employment, privatisation, gay rights and the Poll Tax during her 11 years in office.
One Labour MP last night claimed the proposal proved Blair and his advisers in Downing Street had "finally lost contact with reality".
The blueprint being drawn up within the Cabinet Office lays out a route for the funeral cortege through central London. It is believed it would take in Trafalgar Square, the scene of wild victory celebrations at the end of the Falklands War in 1982, and a riot against the Poll Tax seven years later. It would pass down Whitehall past Downing Street, her home from 1979 to 1990, on its way to the Houses of Parliament.
Past state funerals have involved a lying-in-state for several days in Westminster Hall, but it is believed that the plans for Thatcher favour a ceremonial route leading directly to a service at Westminster Abbey. St Paul's Cathedral is another option under consideration.
The state ceremony is a highly unusual move for any "commoner". Churchill was accorded the honour in 1965 in recognition of his leadership during the Second World War.
Planning for Churchill's funeral carried on for over a decade after he suffered a heart attack in 1953 and the Queen made it known she would like his contribution recognised in this in the proper fashion when he died. Over 300,000 people filed past his body as it lay in state in Westminster Hall and more than 100 foreign leaders attended his funeral service.
In recent years, former prime ministers, including Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and Edward Heath, have had lower-key funerals followed by memorial services at Westminster.
A government source last night said Blair had argued Baroness Thatcher deserved special treatment because of her "unique" contribution to British politics during the 1980s.
Blair is known to be an admirer of the 'Iron Lady', who is credited with helping to bring the Cold War to an end and ending the unions' domination of British industry. But she is remembered by opponents as a rigid leader who presided over rises in unemployment and poverty, and the decline of traditional industries, and who clamped down on civil rights.
Prof Richard Bellamy, an expert in the British constitution at Essex University, said the decision was "unusual". "The only two prime ministers that I can remember getting state funerals were Churchill and the Duke of Wellington.
"They could be seen as people who saved the country in times of dire need... It is hard to think of the Falklands as being in that category.
"The claim would be that she fundamentally altered the character of the British state, but we could say the same about Clement Attlee. I'm pretty gobsmacked that it's being considered. One can only assume that this is yet another example of Blair being totally out of step with the population, not to say his own party.
"I guess the fact that we have had a number of big funerals lately sort of lowers the benchmark; it becomes less of a rare event."
Glasgow Labour MP Iain Davidson predicted that the revelation would not go down well within the Labour Party.
He said: "Churchill at least was a unifying force. Thatcher was almost entirely a divisive influence."
Thatcher has suffered personal hardships in recent years. Her husband Denis died in 2003 and the following year their son, Sir Mark Thatcher, pleaded guilty in South Africa to unwittingly helping to bankroll a failed coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, in West Africa.
Thatcher officially withdrew from public life on her doctors' advice after suffering a series of small strokes several years ago. But she made a brief return to the spotlight last autumn at a party to mark her 80th birthday.
"What [Winston] Churchill did in wartime, Margaret Thatcher did in peacetime," outgoing Tory leader Michael Howard said in a birthday tribute. "Her political will and her iron courage saw off the threats to our way of life that Britain faced in 1979. We all owe her an enormous debt."
Thatcher's spokesman was unavailable for comment on the funeral plans last night. Right course, whatever the PM's motives - GERALD WARNER
THE question whether Lady Thatcher should - in the remote fullness of time - be entitled to a state funeral is not debatable to anyone with a sense of British and global history. Only in partisan Leftist circles could there be the least controversy on the subject. In Georgia (whether in the US or the former Soviet republic) the notion of The Lady not being so honoured would provoke incomprehension.
As the victor of the Falklands, the restorer of parliamentary democracy unvetoed by the trade unions, the re-energiser of the British economy, the liberator of the individual from state control and - above all - the joint destroyer of the Soviet Union, with Ronald Reagan, the claim of Margaret Thatcher to funerary honours is self-evident.
Seven non-royal individuals have so far been accorded state funerals: Nelson, Pitt the Younger, Wellington, Palmerston, Gladstone, Field Marshal Lord Roberts and Churchill. Disraeli was offered one but had left instructions to the contrary, which caused Gladstone, carrying rancour beyond the grave, to accuse him of "playacting". A state funeral is one at which sailors draw the gun carriage (dating from the horses bolting at Queen Victoria's obsequies); at a ceremonial funeral it is drawn by horses.
Now, the Labour Party is up in arms against a Thatcher state funeral. We have been here before. When Pitt the Younger died, Charles James Fox led the Whig opposition to the parliamentary motion proposing a state funeral: it was contemptuously voted down by 288 votes to 89. If we could accord a state funeral to Palmerston, the painted old satyr who presided over so many disasters, we can surely honour Margaret Thatcher, who succeeded so spectacularly in transforming our country.
Yet this is a political move by Tony Blair. He has always been semi-detached from his party. Recently they have come to regard each other with reciprocal loathing. As he prepares for the international lecture circuit, this gesture would put helpful blue water between himself and the party he despises, gaining him respectability among the geopolitical chattering classes. He may well be doing the right thing for the wrong reason; but it is the right thing.
Ghouls. I hope Our Maggie outlives you all, you bastards.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
I guess they forget what it was like to live under the threat of Eastern Europe ICBMs.
I see no problem with this. A State Funeral is very labor intensive, and getting some of the details out of the way is just good planning.
Blair also probably wants to ensure that she gets a funeral worthy of her life. Something that otherwise can't be guaranteed if she outlives his tenure.
Excellent.
LONG LIVE MAGGIE !!!!!!
I think this shows how in touch Blair is. The world will be shocked if Britain is so shabby as to not give a state funeral to Mrs. Thatcher. And she most certainly saved the UK on the world stage.
I believe for leading the UK in the war on terror Blair may well decades from now merit a state funeral too. Both Blair and Thatcher have been great leaders for the UK in tough times ala Churchill. And all you have to do is compare the names, Churchill, Thatcher, Blair to that list of recent nobody ex-PMs who had died to see the difference.
Heh.
"I don't want to go on the cart!"
Bump to what you said. I agree.
the title gave my heart a fillip
I thought it meant that Iron Maggie had passed. glad to know she's still breathing my air.
I second the motion. Baroness Thatcher's funeral won't be attended by you-die-I-fly second-rankers - it'll be every major world leader, would-be major world leader, and everyone else who can get a plane ticket and visa. Just the logisitics and security for these people will be a nightmare, much less the funeral itself.
May Mr Blair's foresight not be needed for many, many years.
I'm sure that there are some sheep herders on the Falklands that still love her too.
God willing she has many more years left, but when the time comes, I for one will most certainly be there to pay my last respects to such a strong magnificent leader.
I hope so too. The title of the thread gave me a start at first. I think that Reagan, Kohl, Thatcher, and John Paul II all have earned a special tribute at their passing for what they did for the world during that period. I hope when the day comes Thatcher and Kohl gets the appropriate remembrance too.
Yeah, it did me too. My heart sank as I thought I missed some late breaking news. I'm sure the media ghouls are looking forward to it.
May her presence irritate, to no end, leftists world-wide for many years to come.
Blair's the worst Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain. He's trampled the unwritten constitution, sold our sovereignty to the EU, turned everywhere apart from the South into client voters reliant on welfare, slashed the Armed Forces and raised public spending to a level equivalent to Hungary's at the fall of Communism. He isn't fit to lick John Major's boots, let alone Churchill's.
You are so right.....
I hate liberals and liberal parties.....But, I have come to LOVE Blair for his amazing leadership and principled positions on Iraq and other terrorsism topics. By fighting his own party for this issue, he has truly shown to be a Statesman and a leader worthy of salute!
Thank you Blair!
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