For the record…

UPDATE: A doctor writes:

I am surprised that the certificate has been accepted by the registrar. I suspect that there is a transcription error – if Baroness Thatcher had a stroke it is a cerebrovascular accident not a “Cardio Vascular Accident”.  This kind of error can hold up funerals and cremations causing distress to the family. When I were a lad the coroner did not like to see “cerebrovascular accident” because the term “accident” raised unnecessary questions in lay people. This may have changed, nevertheless I am interested by Dr Powell-Brett’s use of the term “Cardio Vascular Accident”. I wonder if anyone will pick up the embarrassing transcription error or will they all keep quiet?

Click to enlarge.

Following on from Guido’s earlier story about Jeremy Heywood’s Telegraph piece, here come the MPs to put the boot in. Labour’s John Mann tells Guido:

“Jeremy Heywood crosses well beyond the bounds of acceptable impartiality and the danger of this is that it sets precedence for the future. A civil service that is not neutral is neutered.”

Tory MP Aidan Burley adds:

‘Jeremy Heywood and Bob Kerslake would be wise to concentrate on their day jobs of implementing complex policies like welfare reform, rather than penning puff pieces based on their predecessors memories of another PM. It beggars belief that they should take it upon themselves to draft such a sycophantic article – have they not got more important things to do, like inform the decisions of the current Prime Minister? It’s a double edged sword: the tribute seems weakened by hidden digs and coded messages. If they don’t like David Cameron and Francis Maude daring to challenge the legendary Whitehall bureaucracy and inertia, perhaps they should offer themselves up as another much needed “efficiency saving”?’

Ouch…

A fawning tribute from the normally subdued double team at the top of the Civil Service. Writing in today’s Telegraph Sir Jeremy ‘Sherlock’ Heywood and Sir ‘Bungalow’ Bob Kerslake praise the “kindly and unswervingly loyal” Margaret Thatcher and declare that she was “prime minister who – whatever the pressures – was the best kind of boss.” The OpEd seems to have upset pretty much everyone.

While Tories are passing the sick bucket round and suggesting that this is nothing more than a PR move by the deeply unpopular Heywood to build some bridges; Labour types are equally concerned about the impartiality of the piece given the praise heaped on Maggie’s “radical tax reforms, the abandonment of exchange controls and prices and incomes policies, the introduction of Right to Buy, a major overhaul of industrial relations law and the world’s first privatisation programme.” Pretty much everything the left hated…

More seasoned Whitehall watchers have pointed out the subtle digs at Dave in the piece over Maggie’s apparently loyalty to those civil servant’s around her and her attention to detail – not two compliments you ever hear said about her successor. Ben Brogan, whose wife is a very senior Whitehall mandarin, sees digs at Francis Maude too. Perhaps they’re not so subtle. One Whitehall rager could not get their head round the logic of the “backroom boys” taking such a prominent and public stand: “If they want to be the story they should run for office…”

Hidden in the gilding on the walls of 10 Downing Street, the small, subtle but powerful image of a thatcher climbing the cornicing. A golden legacy…

As the battle rages between ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’ and ‘I’m in Love With Margaret Thatcher’ for the highest chart position, you can always rely on Ed Balls’ spectacular lack of timing for a lighter take on the loony left campaign. Asked by the Standard what he gets up to in his spare time this morning, Balls rather unfortunately replied:

“I’ve been to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria five times in the past three years. I can’t wait to go again…”

As Guido is also a fan of musical theatre, we will let him off this time…

John Lydon, A.K.A. Johnny Rotten the former Sex Pistol punk, says…

“I was her enemy in life but I won’t be her enemy in death… What kind of politics are they offering me? You dance on another person’s grave? That’s loathsome.” 

Even more names have been added to the funeral invitation list:

Newt Gingrich
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Mr & Mrs John Howard (representing Australia)
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Michael Crawford
Katherine Jenkins
Lord & Lady Harris of Peckham
Lord Maurice Saatchi
Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe
Andrew Neil

“There’s a man called Ken Livingstone, I think he has something to do with London. You must get rid of him.”

Mission accomplished.

Via LBC.