(Text of a letter sent to Glenda Jackson, MP, following her speech in the House of Commons)
Dear
Ms Jackson,
I
thought twice about writing to you, not because I doubted that it was a good
thing to do, but simply because I was sure that you and your staff would be
drowning under a considerable number of similar missives. Nevertheless, I
wanted to congratulate and, equally to the point, to thank you for your speech
in the House of Commons debate on Margaret Thatcher. Not quite singlehandedly,
but not so far off, you transformed a dubious state-sponsored eulogy into
something a little more akin to a debate and, needless to say, found yourself
heavily criticised for having done so. Although there will doubtless be no need
for such reassurance by this stage, I can certainly say that you gave voice to
a significant proportion of the population, both in and beyond London, a group
which, in the face of relentless hagiography and stifling of our ability to
speak, has found itself almost voiceless, at least in any official context.
What I thought most admirable was the combination of a reminder of just how
desperate our social plight had become during the last years of Conservative
government and your concentration not upon personality but upon ideology and
policy. A personal attack would have been unnecessary, or at least not the priority.
(Thoughts of General Pinochet might tempt me to say otherwise, but let us leave
him on one side for the moment.) However, to attack the catastrophic
consequences of policies pursued and, in many cases, intensified during
succeeding governments was absolutely necessary, especially in the context of
the present government’s seeming intent to exceed the wildest of Margaret
Thatcher’s expectations and dreams.
This
is probably the last thing you would want to hear, but I cannot help but wonder
whether you might be persuaded to consider standing as a future candidate
London’s mayoralty. Someone needs to say these things, to repeat them, and to
continue to do so in public political life; we shall certainly not hear them
from the present Mayor of London with his insidious cocktail of infantilising
demagoguery and extreme neo-liberal ideology.
Yours
sincerely,
Mark
Berry
7 comments:
Excellent letter, and I too hope Ms. Jackson does take on board the possibility of running for Mayor, she would stand a good chance and is surely more in touch with the needs of ordinary Londoners than the Bankers Friend Boris.
I also hope you are braced for the potential barrage from any Thatcherite readers you may have!
'Thatcherites for integral serialism': I'd assume that would be the very definition of a niche market, but we shall see...
Bravo, Mark!
Too right. Glenda Jackson and Ken Livingston were among the very few politicians to speak any sense this week.
Well said.
Absolutely - that speech should go down in history. What rhetoric, what drive and building emotion - and the final blow of relating Thatcher's years to these ones. I'd heard she hadn't been a great MP for Highgate and Hampstead, so was the more surprised by the strength of this.
As for Thatcherite readers, well, I suppose one might expect them, given that musical tastes seem to bear little relation to political views, but so far they haven't popped up.
And forgive me if this is insensitive, but I know how sad you will be at the news of Sir Colin Davis's death. It was not at all unexpected, and yet we lived in hope of another LSO concert or more.
Well done. You've just lost yourself a reader. Self-important man!
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