REVIEW: The Iron Lady (12A)

Everyone over the age of about 30 has an opinion about Margaret Thatcher. One of the most influential, and one of the most controversial, politicians ever to rise through the party ranks to become Prime Minister.



I was never a supporter of hers (the first General Election I could vote in was 1983 when she got re-elected, wiping away the more intelligent, but scruffier, Michael Foot). That was the only election I ever voted Labour, back when that party had principles but wasn't good at presentation. She became PM when I was 14 and stopped when I was 25. She was also the Education Secretary while I was in primary school - "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher!" - so I guess I can be described as a "Child of Thatcher"!

"The Iron Lady" is an odd biopic as it takes one of the world's most powerful women and portrays her as old and frail and suffering from dementia. Her career is shown via flashbacks but, perhaps because of the constraints of being a commercially viable movie, the story of her political career is highly selective and omits many major and significant moments.

Meryl Streep is phenomenal as Margaret Thatcher as firmer grocer's daughter who wants to lead the Tories, as the strident leader who orders the sinking of the Belgrano, as the out of control, maniacal demon she became, and as the old and frail woman who imagines conversation with Dennis, who has been dead for 8 years. Streep has perfected every intonation and every mannerism. Finally, there is a better Thatcher impersonator than Steve Nallon!

Phyllida Lloyd, who directed Streep in "Mama Mia!" seems to want to skim over most of Thatcher's most divisive decisions. Sure, there's scenes if riots and strikes, and police armed with batons, but so much is left out it feels incomplete. For instance, Richard E. Grant looks good as Michael Heseltine, Thatcher's arch nemesis within the Tory party, but in this movie he's hardly seen - in one scene he's there being supportive, and then he's suddenly announcing he'll stand against her in the 1990 coup that saw Thatcher's fall from powe, and John Major becoming Prime Minister.

Maybe the selectiveness of the episodes from her life are meant to be symbolic of the Alzheimer's that she is suffering... Or maybe it's just a script that's not quite got the balance right.

The young Margaret Roberts is played, rather well, by Alexandra Roach. She gets in to Oxford, gets involved in politics, loses her first by-election, gets married and gets into parliament but, as a rather staid, middle-class woman who wears hats and pearls and, "does screech too much" - there are few hints of what is to come but, at the point Streep takes over, she suddenly becomes more focused and develops the beliefs that will dominate a nation for over a decade and still have an effect today. However, there is no signs of where these beliefs came from, beyond inspiration from her father.

It's also a shame that the soundtrack limits itself to Thatcher's personal likes (Rodgers & Hammerstein and Bellini operas apparently) and rather insipid original music and doesn't make use of, or explore, the music of the various eras through which the movie travels.

The movie has massively divided opinion. Some, including current Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, believe the movie has been made too soon and should have waited until Thatcher had passed to the great Grocer's shop in the sky. Others, from the other end of the political spectrum, find it objectionable that it shows Thatcher in a sympathetic light. I also know some staunch left wingers who have been impressed by Thatcher's drive and vision, even if they disagree with her politics, and some, who supported her at the time, who now have a different view with hindsight. What is great is that the movie has got people talking about movies and about politics.

It's fair to say that I did enjoy watching "The Iron Lady", as, it seemed, did the rest of the audience when I it. It is cinematically structured and presented, with some pleasing moments, and, well, Streep is fantastic and VERY likely to win the Best Actress OSCAR on February 26th.

OPINION: Capitalism is dead.... Long live... Ummm...

Why, when capitalism fails every few years in bigger and more dramatic ways, do governments not look for a better system?

Capitalism has been failing, regularly, for years. Today, it seems, there is hardly a nation in the world not in some sort of serious debt. Banks have failed their investors, the public and governments across the world. Inequality gets more and more entrenched.

Surely, it's time for a different approach? Surely, it's time for governments to take action beyond bigger and bigger band aids?

When the dyke has a hole, the hole can be stopped for a while but there is a weakness there. Eventually, another hole opens or the first hole bursts again. At some point, the dyke is unable to hold the water back, the dyke collapses and everything is washed away.

It's not a case of replacing capitalism and free-markets with a different version of capitalism, adding safety nets or extra regulation to "protect" society, eventually a completely different approach, a different system needs to be put in place.

I've long argued that all current international/national debts should be written off. It's all just numbers, huge numbers, that are meaningless. They're notional debts, not real ones. Capitalism thrives on debt, borrowing and, consequently, inequality and poverty.

In the UK, we've never genuinely had a non-capitalist government. Even Harold Wilson and James Callaghan's left-wing governments, some 30-40 years ago, were capitalist with a social conscience. At elections we don't have a realistic choice of different systems, just variations on the type of capitalism we want. This is wrong.

Labour has failed the working class in the same way that the Conservatives have failed the wealthy. Labour's abandonment of socialist principles mean that it is, as has been for some time now, Tory-lite. The Lib Dems, well, they let everyone down by going into partnership with the Tories!

It is time that either Labour returned to its core socialist principles and offered a genuinely socialist, if not communist, system as an alternative to the capitalist, consumerist system that has dominated politics since the Industrial Revolution, or that people finally turn from the big two (maybe three) parties and promote one of the lesser, untried parties that can offer an alternative approach. I'd suggest, though not Peet, the Green Party are most likely to be able to offer a genuinely alternate system.

I don't mean a Stalinist communism (in reality, that was closer to Fasism than communism), I mean a new, 21stcentury approach in which government take back control of the budgets, in which a more equality-based approach is key to the way in which governments organise the economy and, of course, an environmentally-friendly angle is included.

There is nothing wrong with success, making-money or even profit but it is how the success is managed, and what the profits are used for that need to be addressed.

Sadly, it won't happen. The British are a fundamentally selfish and greedy society; they continue to vote for the status quo because, ultimately, they all think they might be the fat cats themselves (why else do so many play the National Lottery against the odds?!) and, in the end, they don't care about society, they care about themselves and their families. The British are their own worst enemies.

But, of course, this needs to be done globally, not just in the UK. This requires international co-operation that goes beyond anything the jack-booted Little Englanders who read The Sun or Daily Mail would ever allow. This needs brains not bigotry and xenophobia

How many times does capitalism have to fail before it gets replaced? Too many.

Next time there is an election I do hope more people vote for change, because, clearly, the current system has failed, but I won't hold my breath.

OPINION: David Cameron is a lying hypocrite

OK, ok, I probably need to be more specific. There are many grounds on which David Cameron could be described as a lying hypocrite.

Look at him in that photo, helping to launch the Royal British Legion's annual Poppy Appeal. Clearly he cares about lives and suffering. Clearly, he wants to bring wars to an end. Clearly, he's a man of peace.

In the words of the best pantomimes, "Oh no he's not!"

David Cameron's Government are currently supporting a proposal to allow, once more, the use of cluster bombs, overturning previous international agreements.

Yes, this weekend he'll be putting on crocodile tears while he lays a wreath at The Cenotaph to mark Remembrance Sunday: he's already made a big fuss about FIFA's ban on the poppy on football shirts (and scored points with various unpleasant extremist groups such as the EDL, BNP and UKIP);he's probably attending the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night and made a big deal about the two-minute silence and it's observance on Friday; but, while he pretends to care about deaths and injuries caused in war he wants to overturn an international agreement and allow cluster bombs to kill and maim.

The “Convention on Cluster Munitions” (which became a binding international law in August 2010) bans anyone from stockpiling, using or transferring; virtually all existing cluster bombs and outlines a plan to clear up the remaining unexploded bombs. 108 countries signed it but the likes of the USA, Israel, Russia, China, South Korea, India and Pakistan (all major manufacturers and users of cluster bombs) are have not. They are planning a "less restrictive treaty". Cameron sees this as a great opportunity for British trade - we can sell them cluster bombs, we can sell them death and suffering!

Cluster munitions explode into multiple smaller bomblets that rain down on an enemy, or, very often, on a civilian population. Often, some of the bomblets don’t explode and they are liable to detonate at any time like a landmine leaving civilians killed or maimed. 



The photo below is an example of what cluster bombs can do - I guess he's lucky to still be alive. If David Cameron gets his way, there will be many more children ending up like this... or worse.

I guess a man who fulfilled a UN policy to protect the civilians in Libya by leading operations that killed thousands of those same civilians isn't high on any moral ladder.

So, while he sheds his crocodile tears, just remember that Cameron and his wealthy mates in the Arms Trade are trying to increase the amount of killing and maiming by allowing cluster bombs to be manufactured and used again.

Perhaps, more shockingly, is that most of the leading High Street Banks, all having been bailed out by the British taxpayer and some part-owned by the British taxpayer, have supplied funds to those companies who want to manufacture cluster bombs.




David Cameron is a lying hypocrite. I'd go further, David Cameron is evil - we mustn't let him get away with it any longer.

COMMENT: Whatever happened to Neil Hamilton?

Who can forget Neil and Christine Hamilton being handed their "appearance fee" on the BBC's Have I Got News For You?

Hamilton has always denied the accusation that he accepted cash, handed over in brown paper envelopes, to ask questions in the House of Commons when he was an MP as was claimed by The Guardian newspaper. When the scandal erupted, further shaking John Major's government, Hamilton stood down as a minister but continued to take sit in parliament and take his salary for 3 years until he lost his seat at the 1997 election.



There followed a series of highly embarrassing, and, at times, tasteless, publicity stunts and endless appearances of Neil and Christine on quiz shows, chat shows, cooking shows... they were even the subject of a Louis Theroux documentary. Christine, increasingly, came over as loud and dominant and Neil, to an extent, gained some sympathy.



So where's he been?

He was always been at the right wing of Tory thought so, perhaps, it was no surprise when he turned up earlier this year as a new member of UKIP, the friendly face of extremists and racists.

He's hinted, rather unsubtly, that he might consider standing in the 2014 elections for the European Parliament.

Now, he's been elected to UKIP's NEC, in fact he topped the poll - there main policy making body. I'm an atheist but Heaven help us.

A discredited extremist wants to devise policies for a racist party and represent the UK in Europe. Given that scenario maybe there'll be no need for a Euro referendum... the EU would be justified throwing us out!

He says he's "back in politics" and wants to "fight for the UK to leave the European Union" - he'll be there standing beside that loon, Farage, making the UK look idiotic.

Apparently he wants to bring back "self-respect to Britain" - this from a man who, for over a decade, has shown little in the way of personal self-respect.

Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader, says he's "very pleased" with Neil Hamilton's growing role within the party. I think Farage should watch his back. Hamilton could well have his sights on the party leadership and, if a recent opinion poll is to be believed and UKIP have 7% of the vote, he could become an influential figure in British politics.

I always thought that having to resign because of corruption allegations would result in the end of your political aspirations. It seems Neil Hamilton is the floater who just won't flush and he's found a new audience for his extremist opinions.