Adorable Tories in Glasses
I've been doing a lot of research on Thatcher's 1988 Cabinet recently.
1. Tory Lord Chancellor James Mackay is a class act:
As Lord Chancellor he introduced a bunch of legal reforms to make the legal system better serve ordinary people, pissing off most of his profession in the process. His reforms include the no win-no fee system which allowed the hacking cases to be brought against News International, the same no win-no fee system the Coalition is now axing. (Way to go, Lib Dems, you've been outclassed by a Thatcherite.) In his spare time, he got himself excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church for attending the funeral services of two Catholic friends. He took his wife's maiden name as a middle name and he asked her permission to join the Cabinet, pretty feminist for a man of his era. Also he is adorable and Scottish.
(Just don't Google what he's been up to lately- he's decided to use his one Tory Get Out of Fail Free Card to oppose same sex marriage. *sigh*)
2. bb!GBro is adorable when he's trolling Tories (this clip is mostly John Major defending Edwina's inability to keep her big mouth shut, which is sweet in its own right, but watch 'til the end for bb!Gordon lulz):
3. I'm staggered by the consistency of Norman Fowler's characterization as the voice of reason in Spitting Image. I knew they'd done it to some extent- there was, after all, a reason I started liking him in the first place, apart from the teeth- but it shows up again and again. If someone questions what they're doing or voices dissent against an regressive policy, it's almost invariably Norman. The sole exception I can think of is Heseltine's objection to Cruise.
The characterization turned out to be accurate, but I have no idea how SI knew this in 1984. That Cabinet was way less leaky than the NuLab or Coalition ones, and in terms of his record Norman looked exactly like any other Thatcherite at that point, privatizing stuff left, right and center. It wasn't until the AIDS campaign that his fundamental decency was revealed.
1. Tory Lord Chancellor James Mackay is a class act:
As Lord Chancellor he introduced a bunch of legal reforms to make the legal system better serve ordinary people, pissing off most of his profession in the process. His reforms include the no win-no fee system which allowed the hacking cases to be brought against News International, the same no win-no fee system the Coalition is now axing. (Way to go, Lib Dems, you've been outclassed by a Thatcherite.) In his spare time, he got himself excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church for attending the funeral services of two Catholic friends. He took his wife's maiden name as a middle name and he asked her permission to join the Cabinet, pretty feminist for a man of his era. Also he is adorable and Scottish.
(Just don't Google what he's been up to lately- he's decided to use his one Tory Get Out of Fail Free Card to oppose same sex marriage. *sigh*)
2. bb!GBro is adorable when he's trolling Tories (this clip is mostly John Major defending Edwina's inability to keep her big mouth shut, which is sweet in its own right, but watch 'til the end for bb!Gordon lulz):
Click to view3. I'm staggered by the consistency of Norman Fowler's characterization as the voice of reason in Spitting Image. I knew they'd done it to some extent- there was, after all, a reason I started liking him in the first place, apart from the teeth- but it shows up again and again. If someone questions what they're doing or voices dissent against an regressive policy, it's almost invariably Norman. The sole exception I can think of is Heseltine's objection to Cruise.
The characterization turned out to be accurate, but I have no idea how SI knew this in 1984. That Cabinet was way less leaky than the NuLab or Coalition ones, and in terms of his record Norman looked exactly like any other Thatcherite at that point, privatizing stuff left, right and center. It wasn't until the AIDS campaign that his fundamental decency was revealed.