MP Glenda Jackson speaking in the House of Commons yesterday (Wednesday): ‘Thatcherism wreaked heinous, social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country, and my constituents’

Published: 11 April, 2013
by RICHARD OSLEY

HAMPSTEAD and Kilburn MP Glenda Jackson astonished the House of Commons yesterday (Wednesday) when she used a reconvened session of Parliament hearing tributes to Margaret Thatcher to launch a broadside against the former Prime Minister’s policies.

While the nature of Ms Jackson’s views may not have come as a surprise, the timing has led Tories to accuse her of denigrating Baroness Thatcher’s memory at a time reserved for fond anecdotes and recollections.

Her criticism was boldest in a week when many Labour Party leaders have appealed for a measured response to Baroness Thatcher’s death after a stroke on Monday.

Ms Jackson told the House of Commons: “By far the most dramatic and heinous demonstration of Thatcherism was certainly not only in London, but across the whole country in metropolitan areas, where every single shop doorway, every single night, became the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom for the homeless.”

The Labour MP held little back, ignoring jeers from the other side of the chamber: “The basis to Thatcherism was that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice – and I still regard them as vices – under Thatcherism was in fact a virtue: greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees. They were the way forward.”

The vehemence of her speech, which lasted for eight minutes, led Conservative MP Sir Tony Baldry to call a point of order. But he was told by speaker John Bercow that nothing “unparliamentary” had occurred.

Ms Jackson, the double Oscar-winning actress who has been Hampstead’s MP since 1992 and who will step down undefeated at the next general election, had said: “When I made my maiden speech a little over two decades ago, Margaret Thatcher had been elevated to the other place but Thatcherism was still wreaking, as it had wreaked for the previous decade, the most heinous, social, economic and spiritual damage upon this country, upon my constituency and my constituents.”

She said: “Our local hospitals were running on empty. Patients were staying on trolleys and in corridors. I tremble to think what the death rate for pensioners would have been this winter if that version of Thatcherism had been fully up and running this year.

“Our schools, parents, teachers, governors, even pupils seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising in order to be able to provide basic materials, such as paper and pencils. The plaster on our classroom walls was kept in place by pupils’ artwork and miles and miles of Sellotape.

“Our school libraries were dominated by empty shelves, very few books, and those books that were there were being held together by ubiquitous Sellotape and offcuts from teachers’ wallpaper used to bind those volumes so they could at least hang together.”

Conservatives in Camden are already irritated at the lack of official tribute from the council.

Some local authorities put the flags above their headquarters at half-mast in respect, regardless of whether Baroness That­cher had any connection with the area.

Camden’s press office did not know how the council would be responding and Town Hall Labour leader Sarah Hayward tweeted that she would check “protocol and precedent”.

Tories suggested it would be “kind and generous” for the Labour-run authority to allow a minute’s silence before Monday’s full council meeting.

Hampstead councillor Chris Knight said: “Glenda was bang out of order. We won’t have to worry about Glenda Jackson being our MP soon. We’ll have somebody in blue rugby shorts instead.

“I do think, however, it’s time for respect to a woman who gave her life for others.

"Conservatives were happy to stand on the roof and see the red flag flying for Ellen Luby, because she was a good-hearted woman.

"They could do something at the Town Hall for Margaret Thatcher too.”

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Take that, Shapps

CONSERVATIVE Party chairman Grant Shapps also caught Glenda Jackson in a furious mood this week when he wrote to her telling her that he planned to “tweet the government’s achievements” on welfare reform.

In his cheeky letter posted last week, Mr Shapps told her: “The number of people lifted out of tax is 97 times the size of your current majority.”

She wrote back saying that she felt “considerable outrage” at being sent “Tory propaganda”.

Ms Jackson added: “I would suggest that rather than wasting your own constituents’ time celebrating and tweeting imaginary achievements that you look into the harm and suffering that your policies are really having.”