Don’t Menshn Margaret Thatcher

One hates to break a fly upon a wheel too often, but in her unceasing efforts to pursue that one-woman campaign to tell the UK about the reality of Saudi Arabia - something most of us are already well aware of, thanks - (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch has opened mouth and well and truly inserted boot. The only improvement of her Sun column today over recent Twitter rants is the more coherent use of the English language.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

So the intensives extend merely to describing the late King Abdullah as a “woman-hating bastard”: perhaps Rupe’s downmarket troops actually read this one before allowing it to be published. So what did Ms M have to tell us? “When Maggie Thatcher ran the Tories and Tony Benn inspired Labour, you knew exactly what they both believed in. Maybe you didn’t like them but there was respect”. So far, except for being wrong on Benn, so routine.

There can be only one conclusion from this remark: Ms Mensch is prepared to support the legacy of Mrs T. Indeed, after the former PM died, she asserted “An absolute majority think Thatcher was good for Britain”, although this was a poll in which 50% had a positive view. She also proclaimed “Pygmies of the left so predictably embarrassing yourselves, know this: not a one of your leaders will ever be globally mourned like her”.

Thatcher is, for Ms Mensch, the highest example for any aspiring politician to follow. Conversely, anyone who shows the slightest respect to the House of Saud is shaming the country, letting everyone down. Because Saudi Arabia is one of those brutal dictatorships which, for the former MP, are A Very Bad Thing, especially given their appalling human rights record and attitude towards women.

But Mrs T did business with the Saudis, too

I mean, Mrs T would never have courted such people, would she? Well, actually she would: as Glenn Greenwald noted at the time of her death, “She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto (‘One of our very best and most valuable friends’)”. She denounced Nelson Mandela and the ANC as “terrorists”.

Yes, she was pals with Saddam Hussein, the bloke that Dubya and Tone went into Iraq to remove from power, because he was A Very Bad Person Indeed. And she was more than willing to do business with Saudi Arabia. In the mid-1980s, the al-Yamamah arms-for-oil deal was brokered, yes, right in the middle of Mrs T’s residency in Downing Street. And there were subsequent allegations of a “slush fund” to bribe the Saudis.

The investigations into the al-Yamamah deal have rumbled on for years. Had the PM at the time been anyone else, Louise Mensch would have been ranting and raving against them. As it was Mrs T., she isn’t going to go there. The sad fact of the matter is that today’s politicians doing business with dictators and other tyrants have the inspiration of Margaret Thatcher to guide them. She counted them all among her friends.

So I’m sure Ms Mensch will be along shortly to condemn her, too. Or maybe not.