Thatcher party report
Militant | 15.04.2013 11:28
Five hours in to what must rank as the most pointless political assembly ever staged in this great crucible of protest, it was time for the big moment – the torching of the Thatcher effigy. And then – oops. Just one problem, comrades. The lady was not for burning.
The downpour had soaked the giant papier-mâché puppet and its mop of orange hair (fashioned from a bundle of irredeemably bourgeois Sainsbury’s plastic bags).
Urged on by choruses of ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Dead! Dead! Dead!’, the executioners did their best. After about quarter of an hour, a few Sainsbury’s bags started to smoulder and then fizzled out.
‘F****** bitch,’ growled a youth in combat trousers and ginger dreadlocks who can hardly have been out of nappies when Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street. Typical. You go to all the trouble of laying on a party and the guest of honour doesn’t even have the common courtesy to ignite. In the end, the mob lost patience. They trampled their disobliging effigy to a squelching pulp and went back to dancing and drinking into the early hours of yesterday.
In recent days, people of every age, background and political allegiance have been unpleasantly surprised by some of the reactions to the death of Lady Thatcher. This weekend’s ‘Thatcher Death Party’ in London’s Trafalgar Square was the worst yet. Youngsters brought to the 'death party' were heard chanting anti-Thatcher songs, Various hard-Left inadequates had been big-talking about it for more than a decade, planning a fiesta of vengeance on the first Saturday after her death, tinged with the promise of a re-run of the poll tax riot which helped precipitate her resignation.
The police weren't taking any chances, with convoys of minibuses parked in the backstreets. Wisely, though, commanding officers had given the order for flat hats, not helmets. You could sense the disappointment among the element in the crowd who were itching for a spot of confrontation.
Busybodies in high-vis jackets marked ‘Legal Observer’ rushed around in search of an atrocity, frantically scribbling police numbers on clipboards. The cops stood back with the patronising insouciance of teachers at a school disco. Party poopers!
Occasionally, there was a scuffle. One brave class warrior, face shielded by a scarf, kept popping out from behind his mates and kicking one police officer on the backside. Finally, the policeman turned round, pointed and shouted: ‘Stop kicking me!’ He did. Compared to the poll tax mayhem of 1990, this was handbags. By close of play, 16 arrests had been reported.
The BBC put the numbers in attendance at 3,000, ITV and Sky less than half that. If you included the film crews, photographers, bloggers, Saturday night passers-by, baffled tourists and large numbers of London University students having a laugh – ‘Let’s start a conga!’ bawled one plummy voice – then the whole lot must indeed have been in the low thousands.
The genuine partygoers – a thousand max – seemed to split evenly between those wanting a party and those wanting to engage in earnest denunciation of the She-Lucifer of Grantham.
A handful had gathered under a National Union of Mineworkers banner, retelling war stories from the Eighties. But this was largely a gathering of what might be called Thatcher’s children.
The age span of those arrested was 18 to 44. As far as this lot were concerned, the ‘witch’ can be blamed for pretty much anything unpleasant over the past 30 years or so.
The drinking and dancing went on until the early hours
‘Look at the disgusting poverty around us,’ bawled Jess Bailey, dangling a Thatcher doll from a noose. ‘I can’t get a decent home for my family because of her.’ Ms Bailey said she had been eight when Mrs Thatcher came to power and ‘destroyed my life’.
As she spoke, a well-refreshed male friend started doing something disgusting to the doll. ‘You should show some respect for the dead,’ said a middle-aged tourist with a Spanish accent, finally unable to contain his shock.
‘She never showed no respect to me,’ spluttered a furious Ms Bailey, appalled anyone should be speaking good of the dead.
Up on the balcony of the National Gallery, a not wholly sober lady in a green ballgown teased police by dancing on the outside of the railings. Suddenly, insanely, she dived into the crowd from 20ft up. Fortunately, they caught her.
She turned out to be 39-year-old harpist Rosie Nobbs. Explaining her antipathy, she said: ‘I was a milk monitor and thought it was my fault that the milk stopped coming. I had a responsibility and she took it away from me.
Revellers taunted police officers and a total of 16 arrests were made at the party
'I haven’t taken any work seriously since.’ Fascinating. Mrs Thatcher (then Education Secretary) cut the school milk quota in 1971 – three years before Ms Nobbs was born.
One man had not only brought along a delightful four-year-old called Jack, but trained him to say: ‘Thatcher’s dead.’ Come 11pm, I spotted the poor little chap on the shoulders of a gyrating man (Dad, one hopes) with a beer in one hand and fag in the other. He’ll probably grow up to be a chartered accountant.
Behind the contrived party atmosphere, though, ran a deep streak of menace. .
I saw a rather naïve middle-aged gent trying to film the crowd on a small camera from beneath a Union Jack umbrella.
A hard-faced man in an Ireland football shirt calmly walked up behind him and started ripping his umbrella apart. When the man objected, the brolly-shredder replied darkly: ‘We’ll have none of that here.’
Some had come armed with bottles of champagne, spraying it Formula One-style for the benefit of the television crews – true champagne socialists.
‘I’ve never liked champagne but I’ve been drinking it for days,’ joked an ex-miner from Easington.
The carpet of litter and broken glass by the end suggested that most had been drinking beer, though a rich pong of cannabis hung over the square all evening.
But even the angriest turbo-Trot would have to admit that it was a pretty dreary party. Raging against a dead octogenarian in the rain was never really going to rival Mardi Gras for carnival atmosphere.
At one point, I found myself alongside Romany Blythe, the purple-haired teacher who hit the headlines last week for creating a ‘Witch Is Dead’ website and comparing Lady Thatcher to Hitler.
‘They put me on the front of the Sun and I’ve had to take down my Facebook page,’ she moaned to anyone who would listen. Oh, the perils of celebrity.
Perhaps this unedifying little quasi-demo, this dismal venting of spleen, will have served as a pressure valve ahead of Wednesday’s funeral.
No doubt some of Lady Thatcher’s friends and admirers will be appalled that such an event could even be considered, let alone staged, in the heart of the capital. But it is worth making a counter-argument: with enemies like this, could you ever be short of friends?
Urged on by choruses of ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Dead! Dead! Dead!’, the executioners did their best. After about quarter of an hour, a few Sainsbury’s bags started to smoulder and then fizzled out.
‘F****** bitch,’ growled a youth in combat trousers and ginger dreadlocks who can hardly have been out of nappies when Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street. Typical. You go to all the trouble of laying on a party and the guest of honour doesn’t even have the common courtesy to ignite. In the end, the mob lost patience. They trampled their disobliging effigy to a squelching pulp and went back to dancing and drinking into the early hours of yesterday.
In recent days, people of every age, background and political allegiance have been unpleasantly surprised by some of the reactions to the death of Lady Thatcher. This weekend’s ‘Thatcher Death Party’ in London’s Trafalgar Square was the worst yet. Youngsters brought to the 'death party' were heard chanting anti-Thatcher songs, Various hard-Left inadequates had been big-talking about it for more than a decade, planning a fiesta of vengeance on the first Saturday after her death, tinged with the promise of a re-run of the poll tax riot which helped precipitate her resignation.
The police weren't taking any chances, with convoys of minibuses parked in the backstreets. Wisely, though, commanding officers had given the order for flat hats, not helmets. You could sense the disappointment among the element in the crowd who were itching for a spot of confrontation.
Busybodies in high-vis jackets marked ‘Legal Observer’ rushed around in search of an atrocity, frantically scribbling police numbers on clipboards. The cops stood back with the patronising insouciance of teachers at a school disco. Party poopers!
Occasionally, there was a scuffle. One brave class warrior, face shielded by a scarf, kept popping out from behind his mates and kicking one police officer on the backside. Finally, the policeman turned round, pointed and shouted: ‘Stop kicking me!’ He did. Compared to the poll tax mayhem of 1990, this was handbags. By close of play, 16 arrests had been reported.
The BBC put the numbers in attendance at 3,000, ITV and Sky less than half that. If you included the film crews, photographers, bloggers, Saturday night passers-by, baffled tourists and large numbers of London University students having a laugh – ‘Let’s start a conga!’ bawled one plummy voice – then the whole lot must indeed have been in the low thousands.
The genuine partygoers – a thousand max – seemed to split evenly between those wanting a party and those wanting to engage in earnest denunciation of the She-Lucifer of Grantham.
A handful had gathered under a National Union of Mineworkers banner, retelling war stories from the Eighties. But this was largely a gathering of what might be called Thatcher’s children.
The age span of those arrested was 18 to 44. As far as this lot were concerned, the ‘witch’ can be blamed for pretty much anything unpleasant over the past 30 years or so.
The drinking and dancing went on until the early hours
‘Look at the disgusting poverty around us,’ bawled Jess Bailey, dangling a Thatcher doll from a noose. ‘I can’t get a decent home for my family because of her.’ Ms Bailey said she had been eight when Mrs Thatcher came to power and ‘destroyed my life’.
As she spoke, a well-refreshed male friend started doing something disgusting to the doll. ‘You should show some respect for the dead,’ said a middle-aged tourist with a Spanish accent, finally unable to contain his shock.
‘She never showed no respect to me,’ spluttered a furious Ms Bailey, appalled anyone should be speaking good of the dead.
Up on the balcony of the National Gallery, a not wholly sober lady in a green ballgown teased police by dancing on the outside of the railings. Suddenly, insanely, she dived into the crowd from 20ft up. Fortunately, they caught her.
She turned out to be 39-year-old harpist Rosie Nobbs. Explaining her antipathy, she said: ‘I was a milk monitor and thought it was my fault that the milk stopped coming. I had a responsibility and she took it away from me.
Revellers taunted police officers and a total of 16 arrests were made at the party
'I haven’t taken any work seriously since.’ Fascinating. Mrs Thatcher (then Education Secretary) cut the school milk quota in 1971 – three years before Ms Nobbs was born.
One man had not only brought along a delightful four-year-old called Jack, but trained him to say: ‘Thatcher’s dead.’ Come 11pm, I spotted the poor little chap on the shoulders of a gyrating man (Dad, one hopes) with a beer in one hand and fag in the other. He’ll probably grow up to be a chartered accountant.
Behind the contrived party atmosphere, though, ran a deep streak of menace. .
I saw a rather naïve middle-aged gent trying to film the crowd on a small camera from beneath a Union Jack umbrella.
A hard-faced man in an Ireland football shirt calmly walked up behind him and started ripping his umbrella apart. When the man objected, the brolly-shredder replied darkly: ‘We’ll have none of that here.’
Some had come armed with bottles of champagne, spraying it Formula One-style for the benefit of the television crews – true champagne socialists.
‘I’ve never liked champagne but I’ve been drinking it for days,’ joked an ex-miner from Easington.
The carpet of litter and broken glass by the end suggested that most had been drinking beer, though a rich pong of cannabis hung over the square all evening.
But even the angriest turbo-Trot would have to admit that it was a pretty dreary party. Raging against a dead octogenarian in the rain was never really going to rival Mardi Gras for carnival atmosphere.
At one point, I found myself alongside Romany Blythe, the purple-haired teacher who hit the headlines last week for creating a ‘Witch Is Dead’ website and comparing Lady Thatcher to Hitler.
‘They put me on the front of the Sun and I’ve had to take down my Facebook page,’ she moaned to anyone who would listen. Oh, the perils of celebrity.
Perhaps this unedifying little quasi-demo, this dismal venting of spleen, will have served as a pressure valve ahead of Wednesday’s funeral.
No doubt some of Lady Thatcher’s friends and admirers will be appalled that such an event could even be considered, let alone staged, in the heart of the capital. But it is worth making a counter-argument: with enemies like this, could you ever be short of friends?
Militant