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| Lady Thatcher, the UK's first woman Prime Minster |
Following such a disrespectful decision from Stockton Council, it was out of the question that I would attend the AGM. Largely a ceremonial event nowadays for the nodding dogs to welcome the new mayor for the forthcoming year, to refuse to hold a minute's silence for the country's first and only woman Prime Minister demonstrates what a callous and childish bunch make up, for the most part, Stockton's councillors.
Earlier this week I was proud that my request at Yarm Town Council to stand for a minute's silence was agreed unanimously and observed impeccably by all councillors and members of the public present.
Not all those in attendance were Conservative, or even small 'c' conservative, by any stretch of the imagination. Many at the meeting disagreed with some of her policies fiercely and remain bitter about them to this day.
It is a measure of those that attended the meeting that they were decent enough to mark the passing of such an historic figure, the like of whom we are unlikely to see again.
The outgoing Mayor of Stockton, councillor Lynne Apedaile, has been exemplary in the way she has conducted herself during her mayoral year. I would hope all councillors, irrespective of political persuasion, would agree that she has been an example for all future mayors to emulate and she should look back on her year in office with great pride.
However, the response to be issued by Stockton Council in the event of any media enquiries is pretty shameful. It reads,
"I believe there are more appropriate forums and enough other opportunities for local politicians to express their own respects and thoughts to the news of Baroness Thatcher’s death."
It is a sorry state of affairs, and just the latest sad indictment of some of the characters we have on Stockton Council, that they can't even bring themselves to stand for a minute's silence. This is party political bitterness from the Labour benches to a degree that I have never before experienced, and would hope I never have to witness again.
I regret that I will not now be attending the AGM, but I am proud my fellow Conservative councillors do not wish to have anything to do with the meeting either.
3 comments:
Regardless of their feelings towards her, it's very disrespectful. No politician past or present will do everything right 100% of the time, and none since her have really done anything right in my eyes, this was still a very powerful lady who also did a lot of good for the country and around the world, she did something a lot of blokes dare not do. I think she put the UK back on the map again and now we just appear to be a laughing stock round the world. Pity small minded people can not see she was still a prominent figure and she has not asked for any of this for her funeral. People celebrating in the streets with Champagne because she has died, obviously not skint people then than were probably not even born when she was in power, very sad state of affairs isn't it, makes you proud to be British :( Callum
Surely two wrongs dont make a right,Stockton council may be wrong in ther decision not to have a minutes silence for margaret thatcher, I understand too well how much the woman and her policies were/are hated, as I also despise them and how it change the culture of this country, but are not the conservatives being just as childish by bocotting this meeting - JL
Whilst I have no firm political allegiance, in respect of party-politics, this deliberate snub by Labour Councillors can only be associated with an age-old form of puerile 'politicking' that made so many aspirational working-class people abandon trade-unionism and subsequently, any interest in those who pertained to 'represent' them.
Historically Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Party, was democratically elected no less thatn 4-times under her leadership. Coincidentally, the same as the Labour Party's (sorry 'New' Labour Party) 'young turk' Mr Tony Blair.
Will future S'ton Labour Councillors be wringing their hands, tearing their flesh or loudly wailing when his turn to enter the 'pearly gates' comes around ?
I think not, nor will many other people in the UK, as they recall with some chagrin, electing a self-serving, sociopathic 'used car salesman' into No 10 Downing St. A man who not only led us all into a semi-permanent war, but also a period of 'halcyon' free-spending, for which his party, then presented us, everyone of us, with the bill.
If the Labour Group wish to compound their shame at their actions, they only have to stare across the
River Tees toward the Teesdale site.
They might then recall how a lone-woman carrying a handbag, once promised to the media, that the open 'wasteland' that had once carried the former internationally-renowned Head Wrightson's engineering-works would bloom again, and somewhat incredibly.... so it did.
Someone should inform the S'ton Labour Group, that the era of flat-caps, beer n' sandwiches and a grudging 'class-warfare' attitude, is no longer on the agenda of their 'thinking' prospective voters.
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