Nice in private but so nasty when in public
DEREK HATTON and Glenda Jackson have been stridently nasty about Margaret Thatcher.
Hatton said he wished she had never lived, while Glenda Jackson used the normally courteous occasion of a parliamentary tributes session to launch a rant.
I do not believe that either would have voiced such opinions in quite the same way had Carol Thatcher been sitting beside them.
Hatton could have said that he wished Lady T had never become prime minister rather than begrudging her right to be born at all and Glenda Jackson could have adopted a regretful rather than furious tone. Yet neither is nasty off stage.
On the morning after the death Hatton was unapologetic in his vitriol but as we were leaving the TV studio he put out a hand to guide me over some wires and held on until I had landed safely in my heels. I suspect he would have done the same for another Tory old lady dressed in bright blue…!
Last winter I was in Westminster visiting a former colleague and met Glenda Jackson by the lifts. I was in pantomime and she asked me how I was enjoying “acting”. As the lady is an Academy award winner and was a major film star I thought she might be mocking, but no, she said it was too easy to underestimate panto and she hoped I was enjoying it.
Why is it that people who are so kind on a personal basis can indulge in such venom in the political arena? I do not believe that either would have voiced such opinions in quite the same way had Carol Thatcher been sitting beside them.
Perhaps in future they should pretend she is.