UK: Blairites: We are Thatcherites (not Labourites)

From the Google cache.

Blairites: We are Thatcherites (not Labourites) Linking: 3 Comments: 3

Date: 4/25/05 at 3:47PM

Mood: Thinking Playing: Madam Medusa, by UB40

From Sky News (United Kingdom):

LABOUR LOOKS TO MRS T

Labour has praised the former Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher to claim that the current Tory election manifesto for the economy would threaten the present government’s record.

Senior Ministers contrasted the current Conservative plans with those under Mrs Thatcher in an attempt to shift their campaign focus onto the economy.

See also here.

So, Blair and his ilk praise one of the cruelest and vilest Prime Ministers in British history. Well to the Right of even many of her Conservative predecessors.

Thatcher, “the milk snatcher” who took away school children’s milk. Who violently broke up the miners’ strike and other legitimate labour actions.

Who privatized the national assets to her cronies. Who waged the cruel Falklands-Malvinas war (after a record of military support for the Argentine generals). Who followed Reagan like Blair follows Bush today.

This Thatcher, not the better traditions of the Labour movement, is now apparently Blair’s role model. Not that surprising, as Blair’s father used to be a Thatcherite Tory politician.

Blair used to call Mrs Thatcher every day during the 1999 Yugoslavia war, to know what to do. I don’t know whether he still calls her now on the Iraq war, but I wouldn’t be surprised, given the bloody results day after day.

This music video from Britain is called Madam Medusa – UB40 (1980).

Lyrics of Madam Medusa, on Thatcher, by UB40:

Madam Medusa

From the land of shadows
Comes a dreadful sight
Lady with the marble smile
Spirit of the night
See the scourge of innocence
Swinging in her hand
Hear the silent suffering
That echoes through the land

From the tombs of ignorance
Of hate and greed and lies
Through the smoke of sacrifice
Watch her figure rise
The sick the poor the old
Basking in her radiance
Men of blood and gold

In her bloody footsteps
Speculators prance
Men of dreams are praying
For that second chance
Round her vacant features
Gilded serpents dance
Her tree of evil knowledge
Sprouts a special branch

Madam Medusa
Madam Medusa
Madam Medusa

Knock her right down
And then she bounce right back
Knock her right down
And then she bounce right back
She gone off her head
We`ve got to shoot her dead
She gone off her head
We`ve got to shoot her dead
Run for your life before she eat you alive
Run for your life before she eat you alive
Move out of the way cos`s you`re blocking out the day
Move out of the way cos`s you`re blocking out the day

1980s Labour leader Michael Foot: here.

Roy Hattersley: Thatcherism lived on through Blair: here.

TORY delegates found a new, if unsurprising, friend in Birmingham — former Blair adviser John McTernan. Speaking on Monday alongside rising star Tory MP Jessie Norman, Mr McTernan praised Thatcher’s privatisation agenda and that the only problem with it was that “she didn’t sell it properly: here.

Related articles

• Blame neoliberalism, not Salmond, if the UK breaks up
• We’re all Thatcherites now, says PM, as Labour slumps in poll
• Star Comment: Defectors flee sinking ship
• It’s no wonder David Cameron has alienated the church | Steve Richards
• Would the Republican Party accept Thatcher?
• Blairites rush to defend austerity after Labour’s left gains
• Ruining Dutch economy to ruin Greek economy, Blairite confesses
• Lady Thatcher’s expensive militarist funeral
• Thatcher let Mandela rot in apartheid prison
• Margaret Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer, and This Is the Story of How Her Agenda Did Nothing But Make Life Worse for Millions of People