"I have never worn a Margaret Thatcher T-shirt"

Originally posted @ 2:44 pm, Tue 9th Sep 2008

Full council and time to celebrate the progress being made. School results up and an opportunity to celebrate my own's school progress too.

A chance too to highlight the barmy report from the Tory research group saying it's all over for Liverpool; and that we should treble the size of Oxford and Cambridge instead. We were stuck with questions on Tory research reports cos there's been a shortage of policy announcements. But last Tuesday, the latest Tory tax policy announcement was made - a £2 million inheritance Tory tax threshold for married couples. That's £1,000 million of public money that the Tories would keep aside for 3,000 of the most wealthiest estates in the country. Made public in the week that the Labour gov't announced an extra £1,000 million to help those affected by the credit crunch when seeking to buy a house and keep the house they're in.

And then a report on crime and community safety. Crime is down and some of the difficult targets set were being met (including one which a Lib. Dem. decided to acknowledge, knowing that a year ago he'd said that target could not be met).

But one Tory Cllr. decided to do a habitual rant against Labour and our record on crime, and complained that progress on tackling violent crime was not fast enough. So I reminded the Tories that recorded crime had doubled under the last Tory gov't and that violent crime had increased by 168%. Knowing one of their Cllr's taste for wearing a T-shirt celebrating Margaret Thatcher, I said their record was nothing to wear such a T-shirt about.

In something of a masterstroke, a Tory Cllr. rose to make a point of order after the vote on the report was taken. He hoped it was a valid point of order he said (it wasn't), but he wanted to make it clear that he had "never worn a Margaret Thatcher T-shirt". (He'd been concerned that people thought that I'd meant him - I hadn't.) Either great wit or ignorance of some of the passions of some Tory Cllrs, it was a great line and we gave him a round of applause.