Wombat Diet

Channel 4 screened Tracking Down Maggie tonight. It was billed thus in The Times:

In 1994, the film-maker Nick Broomfield tried to arrange a meeting with Margaret Thatcher during her book-signing tour for The Downing Street Years. It proved a fruitless pursuit — the closest he got to an interview was yelling “Lady Thatcher! Lady Thatcher!” as she entered a Dallas hotel — but the result was a hilarious and much imitated film that captures the cat-and-mouse game that ensued between the Iron Lady’s PR team and the tenacious Broomfield.

I confess I hadn’t heard of Broomfield. Before long I found myself thinking “Ah, it’s like Roger and Me,” discovering only later that Broomfield invented the genre in which the making of the film is part of the story. It wasn’t hilarious, though it did have some amusing moments, such as when Broomfield advanced across the deck of the USS Kittyhawk, microphone in hand, and got tantalisingly close — only to see Mrs.T and her entourage disappearing in front of him as a part of the deck descended into the ship’s bowels.

Broomfield came across as likeable, undertstated, and persistent. During his attempts to get an interview the story broke in the British media of aid to Malaysia having been tied to British arms sales, and the Thatcher family involvement in the arms business became a side story. During the Thatcher years Britain became the world’s number 2 exporter of arms and Mrs.Thatcher’s son Mark used his family connections to become a multi-millionaire arms dealer. In fact, Broomfield did get to ask a question — about arms sales, in a Holocaust museum. The Iron Lady declined to answer and the press conference scheduled for 15 minutes was abruptly ended in 3 minutes.

It was clear that Mrs.Thatcher had no intention of giving an interview or answering any questions. The result was a moral victory for Broomfield.

It’s possible that Mrs.Thatcher disliked Broomfield for some undisclosed reason and was never going to cooperate. A friend of hers who spelled out “NO” on the phone in response to an interview request, did so at length and in a voice that simply dripped with unctuous condescension, but for the media in general not Broomfield in particular. Then again, as we know from recent questioning of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, questions can be a tiresome business when there’s something to hide. — Alas, as the recent BAE scandal shows, the British have continued making questionable arms deals in the middle East important, aspects of which, namely the corruption involved, is concealed on grounds of national interest.

Mrs.Thatcher made two famous speeches about Europe, one in Bruges and another in The Hague, in which she handbagged the “European Superstate,” or Yawrupean Syooper-state — as she called it — the chimera that must not be allowed to happen (complete with single currency and independent central bank).

I sat in the front row for the latter speech, on Europe’s Political Architecture. I was quite intriqued to note that the Iron Lady’s hand trembled visibly when she put down her spectacle case before she began to speak. “Good grief, she’s human” I thought.

The diplomats and businessmen of The Hague listened politely. At the end, the first question from a Dutchman was “Mrs. Thatcher can you tell us why Britain is always the odd one out, the awkward squad of Europe?” A very good question. She answered with a ringing, triumphal declamation

Perhaps it is because WE are Europe’s island nation!

when there was an interjection from the front row of

Tell the Irish!

a suggestion which caused considerable merriment with the Dutch audience. The Iron Lady’s recovery was impressive. She continued by saying something along the lines of

…with a glorious maritime history which we share with the Dutch, together with a history of free trade and…

Very soon you could be forgiven for imagining that it was not Spain and Portugal who had divided the world between them, but Britain and the Netherlands.

Clearly, Mrs.Thatcher’s political reflexes were well attuned in, appropriately, the finest theatre in The Hague. However, she had already lost the leadership of her own party and retired, a few weeks earlier, from the House of Commons. In truth, she had fallen already, her party having recognised that she had become an electoral liability. “Treachery with a smile” she called it, and the issue of Europe rent her party asunder.

Thank heavens dynastic politics, which has impoverished America and which threatens it still, is relatively unpopular in Britain (the Benns aside).

Someday in my dotage I’ll sit in the shade of a French vine with a bottle of gin and read a political history of the Thatcher years — one informed by the release of papers still sequestered under the 30 year rule, and, as a side dish, the collected Dear Bill columns from Private Eye — cod correspondence between her husband Dennis (obituary; and a funnier one) and his drinking friend Bill Deedes who is still enjoying a remarkably vigorous old age.

Tags: Britain, Politics