I Agree With Margaret Thatcher

You read that right: this week an event took place which resulted in my agreeing wholeheartedly with Margaret Thatcher. More specifically, I agree with the former PM as quoted and supported by her close friends, those who shield and protect her in her autumn years and decide who will, and in this case will not, gain access.

Because those close to Mrs T have said unequivocally this week that she will not be meeting former half-term Governor Sarah Palin when the latter stops off in London on her way to Sudan. A Thatcher aide put it directly: Palin was “nuts”, and such a meeting “would be belittling for Margaret”.

Mainstream pillars of the Tory blogosphere are clearly in agreement with this assessment: Tim Montgomerie of ConHome has said that Palin “is an embarrassment for mainstream Conservatives”. Moreover, Young Dave will be avoiding Palin as well. This has been too much for one commentator.

The deeply unsavoury Rush Limbaugh denounced the original report that Thatcher would not be meeting Palin – which had come from the Guardian’s Nicholas Watt – as “preposterous”. It was, he went on, “unseemly” for someone on her own side to be attacking Palin. Rushie would do well to check out some of the candid assessments of the former half-term Governor.

These include “a carnival pygmy better suited to life on a second-rate reality television show”, “a few sandwiches short of a picnic”, “vulgar and vainglorious”, “a crackpot”, and that Palin’s emergence “has made [the USA] a laughing stock around the world”.

But there is one parliamentarian who is more than willing to meet Palin. After all, we have someone in the Commons who has earned the nickname “Britain’s Sarah Palin”: step forward MP for Mid-Narnia Nadine Dorries. I’m sure the two of them will keep each other occupied while serious politicians draw a sigh of relief and get on with the business of Government.