So, Starmer had to remove a very characterful portrait of Lady Thatcher as it 'unsettled' the poor bugger!
Imagine how 'unsettled' the Great Man would be if ever he had to lead the nation in war. It sounds as if he has mental health issues if so affected by a rather good portrait of a truly great leader.
Really quite embarrassing!
On the one hand it's a bit disrespectful to the history of the country. On the other hand, SKS needs to live there and it is Margaret Thatcher.
ReplyDeleteOf all the things to complain about ... moving a painting in an office seems like the weirdest one to get so much press interest.
DeleteWhy doesn't SKS sell it to the highest bidder like she did with everything we owned?
ReplyDeleteNo, he should have cut the face out like they do at the seaside and stuck his head through.
DeleteWho would have noticed?
DeleteWhat a cretinous couple of comments
DeleteYes, this as news is cretinous. A man moving pictures around in his home is tittle-tattle.
Delete?? A truly great leader??
ReplyDeleteThatcher's policies appealed to people's greed. The Right to Buy and the privatisation of utilities were all underpinned by large amounts of public money to enable people to buy Council housing and shares at prices below their true market value. The proceeds were frittered away on tax cuts.
She deregulated our banking sector- a policy that led to the 2008 banking crash. Our energy market and water services are now both broken thanks to her.
Her Cabinet shafted her!
She unleashed entrepreneurship and beat back the tentacles of the state. Yes, there were mistakes but then no government is fault-proof. You are doubtless who wants state intervention in every aspect of our lives.
DeleteNo, I do not want an intrusive state intervening in every aspect of our lives.
DeleteThe minimalist- residualist state that Mrs Thatcher advocated has been a hallmark of every Tory administration since she left office in 1990. It has left us with a crumbling infrastructure - prisons, a broken energy market, a serious housing crisis, and schools that are falling to pieces.
If we want a decent society with the sort of services and infrastructure that people in say, Austria, enjoy, we all have to pay. I hear that Mrs T loved Austria and took her annual holiday there every year.
The moving of Mrs T’s portrait is trivia.
Delete18:06 then get on and start a business...but I suppose making profits is anathema to the likes of you. And Austria has a very right wing gov
Delete23.00 Yes, Austria does have a very right wing government and some very good, cautious, economists. But the Austrian Government has not pursued tax cuts and a small state in the way that Maggie Thatcher did - at the expense of the Country's basic infrastructure deteriorating. Thatcher argued that if the market does not provide then we, the country, do not get.
DeleteJust look at the state of our schools, prisons, and Hospitals. Consider our NHS Services, (with Dental Surgeons declining to do NHS work because they are not properly remunerated for it resulting in dentistry only for those who can afford it,) the appalling condition of our social housing stock, and the state of our roads and highways. 1980's cut backs and "austerity' from 2010 onwards has consequences and, we are now all living with them.
Incidentally, there is nothing wrong with making profits. Economic policy is social policy - the two are part and parcel of the same thing. So, "the best social policy is economic policy." Intelligent Tories, like Tom Tugendhat get it, self interested, dogmatic ones, like Jacob Rees Mogg, argue for "an enterprising economy" which is a low tax and low sills economy where the wealthy get wealthier. The very wealthy, like Rees Mogg, have done very well thanks to a liberal tax regime for years. That is his lot, it is not the lot of most people.
It is the choices that government makes in pursuit of economic development that matter to me and Maggie was, in my view, misguided, short sited and wrong. Greed and self interest was all. Most Tories nowadays try to distance themselves from her when voters say they wish someone like her was in charge today. The general view in the Tory Party is that she was for the 1980's.
Liberal tax regime, my foot. Switzerland has a liberal tax regime and services are superb. The NHS is in a mess because it pisses away its budgets on layer after layer of useless management. Successive governments have proven they just haven't a clue about running anything. No private company with a grain of sense would run the NHS as it is. We are obsessed about the NHS but if you asked most continental European companies if they wanted the NHS to run their healthcare they would laugh in your face. The only exception to privatisation are the water companies.
DeleteYou fail on another point about gov intervention. It works possibly in other countries but they generally have highly intelligent politicians and capable bureaucrats. Ours are really low quality with little or no experience in industrial management. Imagine Rayner stretching her little brain to decide on economic policy!
DeleteMaggie Thatcher said, "Thatcherism was about looking after highly valued people who never went to the state for their health care, their housing, their children's education, people who took nothing from the state." The wealth creators.....and, "when they had a bit left over they could give a little to the less fortunate."
DeleteFor Maggie, the success of a liberal tax regime was to make the wealthy wealthier so the poor could benefit from the trickle down - crumbs off the table cloth. Since Maggie's day the very wealthy have got wealthier and the poor have got poorer with all political administrations including Labour.
Have you seen how expensive Switzerland is? People pay through the nose there. They also do very nicely out of the banking sector with all sorts of dodgy money salted away in those accounts, including money and valuables taken by the Nazis that should be returned to Jewish families.
Mrs T "pissed away"billions on the NHS through dogma and the creation of the "internal market." It was a bureaucrats' dream. I could not believe the salaries that those jobs offered.
I cannot for the life of me think why Blair decided not to abolish the Internal Market. But there again, I think Blair was the best Tory PM this country has ever had; better than Maggie with a highly polished presentation.
On the subject of incompetence in Government just look at Johnson and Truss. Take a look at the Tories looking after their own in the PPE contracts mess.
Perhaps, you are right, the our problem is with poor politicians and low quality bureaucrats. As for British businessmen running the NHS, I would not let Sir Philip Green and many other business people near it.
No, there are a few I would not let close. However, someone like Simon Wolfson would make a brilliant job of sorting the NHS. The waste in that organisation is quite shocking. What Thatcher meant was give free rein to the wealth creators so those not wanting to work could be assisted!
DeleteMrs T was obsessed with free market economics and monetarism .
DeleteUnfettered free markets are as bad as unfettered command economies. What is needed is a "mixed economy."
You may be interested to know that the UK economy during World War II had a Command structure with rationing and with and a tax rate of 19/- 6d in the pound for businesses making profits over £5,000 a year. This put paid to wartime profiteering and provided a more nutritious diet than people enjoy today.
The NHS had a command structure from 1948 to 1990. In 1988, Mrs T received the Chairmen of the Medical Royal Colleges at Downing Street. They asked for more money for the NHS. Maggie was having none of it. The grossly expensive internal market was born out of sheer dogma; not pragmatism.
Austria is interesting in more ways than one.
DeleteIn Vienna about twenty five percent of the City's housing is social housing. It is owned by the City Council and Housing Co-operatives that were started with grants from the state. The right wing government of Austria has no desire to emulate Mrs Thatcher's right to buy or to destroy housing of a standard of which it can be very proud.
The rent on a very desirable two bedroom flat of about 54 square metres, ten minutes walk from the First District of Vienna was just over £510 a month in January 2024. The accommodation offered by Vienna City Council is not just for the needy or for those who cannot compete in the economic race and finance their own housing. The professional classes seek access to it; and get it. The character of this mixed social class housing means that people regardless of social class interact with each other. There is no need for the Community Workers or the Outreach Workers, with high salaries, that left wing councils in London like so much. I was in Vienna last year and could not believe the standard of its municipal housing and the pride that so many tenants took in their places - it was lovely to see such pride!
These dwellings have absolute security of tenure and can be assigned to spouses, partners and even siblings. Tories over here would say that was an inefficient use of affordable housing. The right wing Government of Austria has no desire to change the current arrangements. This is state intervention in housing that we would do well to look at. The trouble is that people in the UK are obsessed with home ownership.
Mrs Thatcher was a disciple of Frederick von Hayek. Hayek an Austrian, ultra free market economist, who fled Nazi Persecution and became a Professor of Political Economy at the London School of Economics. His (right wing) seminal work, 'The Road to Serfdom' 1944 still influences those on the Libertarian Right. It was Mrs Thatcher's bible and she wrote to Professor Hayek when he was in his nineties on his birthday saying how much he had given her to think about. Jacob Rees Mogg is a member of the Hayekian think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs to this very day.
Food for thought, I think so.
13.29. It really is rich to suggest that Maggie wanted the wealth creators to do well so that those who did not want to work could be assisted. My eye!
DeleteThere is a critical level of unemployment that every economy needs to stabilise inflation. What Maggie did was totally immoral.
She influenced the supply side of the Labour Market to keep the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, the NAIRU, high in order to REDUCE inflation and not just STABILISE it.
I will give Maggie her due - she never once insulted the unemployed because she knew that high levels of unemployment were the order of the day to reduce inflation and a key driver of economic policy. Twits like Norman Tebbitt and Mark Thatcher stupidly insulted the unemployed but she stayed clear of that issue.She said at a Tory Party Conference that she was concerned about anyone who could not get a job. A very skilful politician but not a great economist.
I love the way the Tories think they are relevant and that anyone cares what they think. Get used to opposition. You'll have to deal with your Thatcher/mummy complex in your own private time now.
DeleteOh...so sweet and cute to know 17:07 loves the way Tories think. Me? I think it won't be too long before your Daddy figure starts to feel the pressure. So funny to see Reeves chasing around the world encouraging inward investment and the find her boss, Angie, tying British industry in red tape knots. I don't feel this is all going to end well with the unions having the whip hand!
Delete16:58 interesting thanks...why is all our public rented housing so horrible?
DeleteNot all of it. Most of it is.
Delete18.45. I remember Maggie Thatcher visiting the first Right to Buy property sold in Essex. She thought it was"lovely" with very nice gardens at the front and back. Maggie admired the new kitchen cupboards that Mrs Whatever had put in.
DeleteThis is a strange thing to get worked up about!
ReplyDeleteFTHN follows the Daily Mail again.
What has happened to the ‘freedom of choice’, ‘pro-liberty Tory’, ‘it’s fine for Boris to spend £87 on a roll of wallpaper’ crowd?
Not worked up merely pointing how
Delete'worked up' Starmer was by a mere image. And, if you bothered to read FTHN you would know the Dame has always been acidic about Johhnson
And, worked up by my post. Chill out!
DeleteNon story. It’s the PMs residence. They can do what they like. They all change pictures depending on who's in power.
DeleteYeah man...chill...you is too kool for skool with de 'chill' man
ReplyDeletePerhaps a holiday dancing in Ibiza would help you relax?
DeleteSooooo passe, dahling...a holiday in Ibiza
DeleteLa Dame se laisse tomber quand elle publie des anecdotes.
DeleteNot an anecdote but a reflection on a certain feebleness by a man who is supposed to be a leader. Moved at the suggestion of his sycophantic biographer, Tom Baldwin!
DeleteThis is a FEEBLE silly season story. The Dame makes an idiot of herself. Particularly when she defend this rubbish.
DeleteThe Dame needs to actually read Tom Baldwin rather believe everything she reads in the tabloids.
DeleteAccording to Baldwin, the "very nice story" occurred when the two wanted a quiet place to talk. "We sat there, and I go, 'It's a bit unsettling with her staring down at you like that, isn't it?,'" Baldwin recalled telling the Labour leader.
The person who actually used the word ‘unsettling’ was Mr Baldwin.
And Starmer agreed!
Delete21:00 stop showing off with yer Google Translate. What are you trying to prove? You did O level French?
DeleteCan we put an end to these ridiculous stories regarding the 'portrait'? The Prime Minister has been said to wear a perpetually startled look. We at Press believe that the 'portrait' was not assisting as when the Prime Minister saw it his facial expression became more like a rabbit in the headlights. Now the portrait has gone we hope the 'look' will change.
ReplyDeleteThe portrait has not ‘GONE’ it is now displayed in a ‘first floor meeting room’ in 10 Downing Street.
DeleteThere is not the point....the point is that he claimed it 'unsettled' him. Had he said, " I don't like the style etc but the booby found it unsettling. Imagine Jim Callaghan, Blair or Wilson coming up with something so feeble!
Delete‘There’ is not the point?
DeleteFeeble of the Dame to focus on this tosh.
DeleteOur PM was 'unsettled' by a greater and more memorable PM than he will ever be.
DeletePlease name the person who claims SKS was ‘unsettled’?
DeleteBaldwin
DeleteIt was Tom Baldwin who called the portrait: “It’s a bit unsettling."
Deleteand Starmer agreed hence the removal. Good he listens to the advice of a hack!
DeleteThe painting is in a first floor meeting room regularly used by visitors and guests at No 10. It’s the PMs residence. All PMs change pictures (and wallpaper) depending on who's in power.
DeleteTotal non story.
Bollock again....13:02 It was moved from the meeting room known as the Thatcher Room.
DeleteGawd help us all!
ReplyDeleteA portrait is moved from one wall to another.
Really quite embarrassing!
That was never the point. It was about our legal eagle putting on his 'startled' look and saying he was 'unsettled'
DeleteBut Sir K didn't say he was 'unsettled'.
DeleteOh, don't be a pedant! He agreed with Baldwin the portrait was unsettling
Delete18:41 don't talk bollocks. It was moved from the meeting room known as the Thatcher Room. It has now been reinstated.
DeleteNo story. Really quite embarrassing for the Dame.
ReplyDeleteDo you know the Dame? Is that why you comment with such authority? I know here and she finds the hysterics about her little piece hilarious!
DeleteNew inhabitant of house removes portrait of previous inhabitant of house from wall, scandal and pearl clutching ensues.
DeleteDon't be boring, love
DeleteIn other silly season news: SKS gets new kitten to join Larry the cat in Downing Street
ReplyDeleteWhat's all this SKS stuff. Trying to make a boring lawyer cool? Impossible
DeleteMan asks for picture to be moved from one room to another. A few people temporarily lose their minds. Hilarious!
ReplyDelete