British Conservative Party's Tribute to Margaret Thatcher

The British Conservative Party has released a video tribute to Margaret Thatcher that will launch its party conference in Manchester tomorrow.   May this fitting tribute, entitled "Our Maggie", inspire them, their party leadership and freedom lovers throughout the world.

Robin Harris - Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher

Robin Harris worked for the Conservative Party from 1978, and increasingly closely with Margaret Thatcher herself from 1985, writing her speeches and advising on policy. By the close of her premiership, he was probably the most trusted member of her political team at Downing Street, and he left Number Ten with her. As a member of her personal staff, he then drafted the two volumes of her autobiography and a further book on her behalf. After Margaret Thatcher’s retirement from public life, Robin continued to see her regularly.

Christian Formation Is The Very Opposite Of Indoctrination

Richard Dawkins’s latest outburst reveal a lack of understanding about religion

From the Catholic Herald (UK)
By Francis Phillips

Dawkins: not keen on religion

Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and the enfant terrible of religion, is at it again. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph for Monday 22 April, in a speech at the Chipping Norton Literary festival last weekend he told his listeners that he was “passionately against” the teaching of religion as fact. “I’m not against the teaching of religion” he stated; apparently what he dislikes intensely is “the indoctrination of religion”. The good professor thinks that “What a child should be taught is that religion exists; that some people believe this and some people believe that. What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore this is what you believe. That’s child abuse.”

He went on to say that “there is a distinction between fact and fiction”, agreeing that “there is value in teaching children about religion. You cannot really appreciate a lot of literature without knowing about religion. But we must not indoctrinate our children.”

I understand that Dawkins is a very good scientist. Scientists deal in facts as he likes to put it; they might start with a hypothesis which they then test, making experiments that lead to certain conclusions; these can be charted, measured, examined and the results laid out. Religious truths aren’t like that; you don’t “measure” the activity of prayer or its results – though you can witness how religious belief can change a person’s life for the better. It provides an inner light, or conscience (not to be demonstrated in a test tube) that informs moral decisions and behaviour. In other words, the inward life of faith and the actions that flow from it are simply of a different order from the intellectual processes involved in the study of science. They are not “fictions” merely because they don’t pass the laws of scientific scrutiny.

It has been said that Margaret Thatcher’s early training in chemistry gave her a love of facts. This might be true; but as Damian Thompson’s blog post on her Christian faith argues, her actions were also influenced by the Methodism of her childhood: for her, faith meant you should act in a certain way; Christian charity had to be seen in action, in acts of kindness towards others. Thatcher had to attend the Grantham Methodist chapel three times on a Sunday; she also accompanied her father during his lay-preaching activities. Certainly, in the Roberts household you could not have been a freethinker.

Dawkins would see all this as “indoctrination.” I would rather see it, not unlike in some ways the Catholic childhood I experienced, with its regular Mass-going, Benediction and the celebration of liturgical feasts, as parents wanting to impart to their child’s imagination and understanding the consciousness of a wise and loving creator personified in the Gospels by the life of Jesus. As you grow older, you either incorporate these realities and the doctrines that flow from them into your adult intelligence and understanding – or you are free to reject them.

“Indoctrination”, as Dawkins should know (if he were not so exercised by his antagonism towards religion and the publicity he receives whenever he pronounces on the subject) is not the same as forming a child’s mind and heart towards spiritual truths that will, one hopes, help to make him a better, more loving and self-sacrificial person; it is to brainwash him with a particular political ideology such as is evident in North Korea today or which was practised in Russia under the Soviet system. Indeed, indoctrination is the antithesis of Christian formation; it leads the mind, not to wonder, mystery, beauty or love, but to rigidity, mindless control, propaganda and slogans of hatred towards one’s enemies.

Larry Arnn: "Remembering Margaret Thatcher"

Winston Churchill Beats Jobs as CEO's Most Admired Leader

Former British prime minister Winston Churchill was known for his uncompromising leadership style, as well as his penchant for cigars.

Wartime prime minister Winston Churchill has topped a poll of leaders most admired by chief executives, edging out Steve Jobs and Nelson Mandela. 
 
The survey of some 1,300 business leaders, carried out by financial services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), saw "Iron Lady'' Margaret Thatcher as the only woman in the top ten, at seventh.

Jobs was second on the list and fellow business tycoon Jack Welch, who led General Electric for 20 years, came in fifth.

Read more at All News Australia >>

David Cameron's Tribute to Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons

"She made our country great again."

The Order of Service for Baroness Thatcher's Funeral

A general view of the altar inside St Paul's Cathedral, where Baroness Thatcher's funeral will take place. Photo: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire

Downing Street has released a detailed Order of Service for Baroness Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday.

• 10am - Heads of State, the Royal Representatives of Heads of State and the Diplomatic Corps are received by a member of Chapter at the South Door of St. Paul's Cathedral and taken to their seats.

• 10:10am - Visiting Representatives of World Faiths leave the Dean’s Aisle and make their way to their seats in the Quire.

• 10:15am - Lord Speaker, Mr Speaker and the Prime Minister are received at the North Door of the Cathedral by a member of Chapter and then move to their seats under the Dome.

• 10:25am - The Chapter, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury leave the Dean’s Aisle and proceed to the Great West Door of the Cathedral.

Margaret Thatcher laid down plans on how the service should proceed. Credit: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press/Press Association Images

• 10:35am - The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs arrive and are received by the Chapter, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Sheriffs then sit in the Quire.

• 10:40am - Members of the family arrive at the Cathedral and are received by the Chapter, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury and taken to their seats under the Dome.

• 10:45am - The Foundation Procession leaves the Dean’s Aisle.

• 10:45am - The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive at the Cathedral and are received at the foot of the West Steps by the Lord Mayor, who accompanies them to the Great West Door, where they are received by the Chapter, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her Majesty is preceded by the Lord Mayor bearing the Mourning Sword.

• The Queen and Prince Philip then make their way to their seats under the Dome.

• 11am - The clock of St Paul's Cathedral strikes the hour. The coffin is carried into the Cathedral and placed upon the Bier under the Dome.

Amanda and Michael Thatcher pictured with their grandmother in October 2003. Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Archive/Press Association Images

• Michael Thatcher and Amanda Thatcher - Lady Thatcher's grandchildren - carry cushions bearing the Insignia of the Order of the Garter and the Order of Merit, which are laid on the Dome Altar.

As the Procession of the Coffin moves through the Nave, the Choir will sing before the Dean of St Paul's, the Very Rev David Ison, addresses the congregation with the Bidding.

A selection of hymns of readings will then be given - chosen by Lady Thatcher. 

Baroness Thatcher's granddaughter Amanda and Prime Minister David Cameron will give readings at the service.

Margaret Thatcher: Plans to Build Museum as Permanent Memorial

The legacy of Margaret Thatcher is to be enshrined in an important new institution that aims to shape Conservative politics throughout this century. 

David Jones, the Welsh Secretary, said: “Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s greatest post-war leader. I can think of no better tribute to her than the establishment of the Margaret Thatcher Library” Photo: Rex Features

Plans are well under way for a combined library, museum and training centre in London to be a permanent memorial to the former prime minister, whose funeral will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday.

The Margaret Thatcher Library, whose backers aim to raise £15 million in private funds to endow it for generations to come, is supported by at least three Cabinet ministers as well as key political lieutenants of Baroness Thatcher. 

The project, without precedent in British politics, will be based on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California, to reinforce what was the most powerful international political partnership of the Cold War era. 

Read more at The Telegraph >>


 

Margaret Thatcher: The Woman Who Changed Britain

Well Done, Lady Thatcher … The Passing of the Iron Lady

From The Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College

By Paul G. Kengor

Margaret Thatcher, one of the greatest leaders of the Cold War, of the 20^th century, and of British history, has died at the age of 87.

I’ve referred to her as one of my Cold War seven: Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Boris Yeltsin, and Margaret Thatcher. They were the seven figures who dissolved an Evil Empire, and only Walesa and Gorbachev still remain with us.

The world dubbed her the Iron Lady, a title that duly fits. Many, however, mistake the Iron Lady moniker as referring solely to her strength in the Cold War. There was much more to it. Consider:

Margaret Thatcher: A Great Briton, A Great World Leader, A Great Lady

Margaret Thatcher, one of history's great champions of freedom, paid the most eloquent tribute to her partner on the world stage, Ronald Reagan, when he died in 2004.  So much of what Margaret Thatcher saw in President Reagan -- love of freedom, courage, strength of character, commitment to principle and perseverance against great odds -- was mirrored in herself.  

Over the past six years we have often written and posted commentary about this providential figure, and those articles can be seen here.  But on this day of loss, we would encourage you to listen again to her moving tribute to President Reagan.  It says everything important about Ronald Reagan and his great friend, eulogist and partner in the building of a better world.  

"Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children."

 

From The Telegraph

Baroness Thatcher, who has died aged 87 from a stroke, was not only Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, she was also the outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century.

For more than a decade Margaret Thatcher enjoyed almost unchallenged political mastery, winning three successive general elections. The policies she pursued with ferocious energy and unyielding will resulted in a transformation of Britain’s economic performance.

The resulting change was also political. But by discrediting socialism so thoroughly, she prompted in due course the adoption by the Labour Party of free market economics, and so, as she wryly confessed in later years, “helped to make it electable”.

As for the effects of the Thatcher phenomenon upon British society, these were both more ambiguous and more debatable. Her remark “there is no such thing as society” was wrenched altogether out of the context of the interview in which it was made, and made to seem to be an advocacy of naked individualism, when she was really calling for more personal responsibility. Yet, rightly or wrongly, the 1980s came to be seen as a time of social fragmentation whose consequences are still with us.

Margaret Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply. Monetarism, privatisation, deregulation, small government, lower taxes and free trade — all these features of the modern globalised economy were crucially promoted as a result of the policy prescriptions she employed to reverse Britain’s economic decline.

Above all, in America and in Eastern Europe she was regarded, alongside her friend Ronald Reagan, as one of the two great architects of the West’s victory in the Cold War. Of modern British prime ministers, only Margaret Thatcher’s girlhood hero, Winston Churchill, acquired a higher international reputation.

Baroness Thatcher's obituary in full 
 
1. Early life
 
2. Entering politics
 
3. Life in the shadow cabinet
 
4. The rise to leader
 
5. From Opposition to Government
 
6. War on the Left and in the Falklands
 
7. The miners’ strike and her second term
 
8. Third term in office
 
9. Ousted from Downing Street and the leadership
 
10. Life after politics

America’s Growing Government Class

From The Center for Vision & Values

By Paul G. Kengor

The latest unemployment figures are again depressing, but not for the usual reasons. They provide further confirmation of Barack Obama’s fundamental transformation of America, specifically through his creation of a growing government class.

The numbers show a massive increase in government jobs created over the last five months—621,000, to be exact, dwarfing private-sector job growth. Those new government jobs account for a staggering 73 percent of overall job growth. In all, 21 million citizens now work for government, out of 143 million employed in America, or one in seven Americans.

Why Ronald Reagan Towers Above Barack Obama as a World Leader

From The Telegraph

By Nile Gardiner

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: standing up to the Evil Empire

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s famous “tear down this wall” speech delivered before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 12, 1987. It is a reminder not only of President Reagan’s oratorical brilliance but also of his steadfast leadership on the world stage. For the Gipper was a president who, together with Margaret Thatcher, brought down the might of the Soviet Empire, liberated hundreds of millions from Communist tyranny, and restored US leadership after the decline of the Carter years and the Vietnam era. Reagan was uncompromising in his opposition to the Soviet Union and his defence of freedom, driven by his belief in American exceptionalism and the unique role the United States must play in standing up to tyranny and advancing the cause of liberty.

For Ronald Reagan in 1987, West Berlin was the frontline in the war against Communism, a city the Russians had tried to strangle in 1948. He was determined to see the wall that divided Berlin’s three million inhabitants brought down, and the biggest symbol of Communist tyranny smashed to the ground. In his speech in Berlin, Reagan memorably declared

In the 1950's, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind-too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

…. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Two decades later, for Barack Obama in 2008, Berlin was little more than a hubristic campaign stop where he could bask in the worship of adoring German youth en route to the White House, introducing himself as “a fellow citizen of the world.” A year on, as president, he could not even be bothered to attend the city’s celebrations commemorating the 20th anniversary of the downfall of the Berlin Wall in 2009, which National Review Editor Rich Lowry appropriately described at the time as “the most telling nonevent of his presidency.”

In so many respects Reagan’s firm leadership in the 1980s towers over that of Barack Obama today. It would be hard to imagine President Obama delivering an address with the power and moral conviction of President Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech. While Obama has apologised for his nation, Reagan stood tall for American greatness. While Obama has sought accommodation with some of America’s key adversaries, Reagan vowed to defeat them. While Obama is cutting US defence spending, closing several US bases in Europe, and scaling back American global power, Reagan believed in peace through strength, and rebuilding America’s military might.

Ronald Reagan will always be remembered by the people of Berlin and millions more across eastern and central Europe as the steadfast leader who fought for their freedom and refused to back down in the face of a brutal enemy that had oppressed a continent for nearly half a century. It is thanks to his vision and determination that the Soviet Empire was brought to its knees. As his closest friend and ally Margaret Thatcher put it in her eulogy to Reagan at the Washington National Cathedral in 2004:

Others prophesied the decline of the West. He inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom… With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today, the world – in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw and Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev, and in Moscow itself, the world mourns the passing of the great liberator and echoes his prayer: God bless America.

Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator. He appears frequently on American and British television, including Fox News Channel, CNN, BBC, and Fox Business Network.

BBC Documentary: Margaret Thatcher - Long Walk to Finchley

This BBC documentary is a dramatization of Margaret Thatcher's early years in politics - culminating in her successful election as MP for Finchley.

Thatcher: The Downing Street Years

This BBC documentary was made to coincide with the publication in 1993 of Lady Thatcher's memoirs, The Downing Street Years.  Even through the critical and biased filter of the BBC, the greatness of Margaret Thatcher and the accomplishments of her extraordinary eleven year premiership shine through.  In this presidential election year it is important that we remind ourselves of what principled, consistent, conservative leadership looks like. 

Freedom loving people throughout the world are indebted to this very great lady.

Young America's 2012 Update of 'Top Conservative Colleges'

Young America’s Foundation has released the 2012 update of their popular “Top Conservative Colleges” list.   The organization points out that this is not an exhaustive list of conservative institutions and should not be taken as such. They also add that the list should not be the only source consulted in a college search. Rather, "parents and students should seek several information sources, read admissions materials thoroughly, consult with friends and counselors, and make visits.  Additionally, Young America’s Foundation is not a college rating organization; we decided to publish this list to help address a frequently asked question."

On This Date in History

On this date in 1946, Sir Winston Churchill traveled to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri with President Harry S Truman and delivered his "Iron Curtain Speech."  Here is another giant in freedom's cause, Margaret Thatcher, commemorating in 1996 the fiftieth anniversary of that landmark event.

Santorum Overtakes Romney in Ohio

Rick Santorum: Proving that in the heartland character counts more than money.

A Quinnipiac University poll published Wednesday shows that Rick Santorum has now taken the lead in the Buckeye State.

According to Quinnipiac, Senator Santorum now leads Romney 36% to 29%, with the imploding campaign of Newt Gingrich trailing a distant third with 20%. 

It must be hard to leave the field after all the money Mitt has spent marketing a carefully manufactured image.  Perhaps he and Newt can work together developing space colonies, because as Margaret Thatcher once observed, "you can't make a souffle rise twice.  Truth is the daughter of time and the GOP electorate in the heartland can't be bought and has sorted out the principled, consistent conservative from the phonies. 

David Cameron: UK is a Christian Nation

Prime Minister David Cameron has delivered an important speech commemorating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible in which he declares the UK is a Christian nation:

  

It’s great to be here and to have this opportunity to come together today to mark the end of this very special 400th anniversary year for the King James Bible.

I know there are some who will question why I am giving this speech.
 
And if they happen to know that I’m setting out my views today in a former home of the current Archbishop of Canterbury…
 
…and in front of many great theologians and church leaders…
 
…they really will think I have entered the lions’ den.

But I am proud to stand here and celebrate the achievements of the King James Bible.
 
Not as some great Christian on a mission to convert the world.
 
But because, as Prime Minister, it is right to recognise the impact of a translation that is, I believe, one of this country’s greatest achievements.
 
The Bible is a book that has not just shaped our country, but shaped the world.
 

The Dynamic, Missionary, ‘Evangelical’ Church of Today is a World Away from Unthinking Pre-Vatican II Complacency

What John Allen describes as ‘Evangelical Catholicism’ gives me hope for the future

Pilgrims at the World Youth Day closing Mass (Photo: CNS)

From The Catholic Herald (UK)

By Francis Phillips

A friend has forwarded to me an interesting blog, dated September 28, by Fr Stephen Wang of the Westminster diocese. Entitled “Liberal, conservative, progressive, traditionalist: where is the Church going?” it throws open a debate about an article written by John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter at the conclusion to World Youth Day.