So, the V&A has declined the opportunity to host an exhibition of Margaret Thatcher’s clothes. Instead, various dresses, handbags and pieces of jewellery will be auctioned at Christie’s next month. Naturally the Guardian keeps an emergency fund for this kind of thing, so never fear: we will save something for the nation.
I can’t help but feel the museum is making a mistake. The milk-snatcher was, after all, the most powerful and influential female leader since Elizabeth I (apols to Elizabeth II – you are the nonpareil of figureheads, but I am talking about people who have it in them and their contemporaneous constitutions to give it political laldy). Our inglorious Gloriana had a recognisable style that became both iconic image and functional armour: the navy blue power suits and court shoes that said, “I am awful and unyielding. Expect nothing less from she who sports me.”
The pearls, worn daily since 1951, informed the world this was a woman of little imagination who clung firmly to what she knew, and to hell with anything and anyone that didn’t fit with it. And the handbags. Before Mrs Thatcher, handbags were just external pockets for ladies who didn’t have trousers. With her, they became the receptacle of countless unexpressed male fears about what could be cut off and put in there. That deserves a glass display case and a little typed caption somewhere. “The Launer Bawbag, 1979-1990. Clot of ministerial blood and hair still visible on clasp.”
Not forgetting, of course, the moment she almost closed the circle by wearing, to one of the lord mayor of London’s annual banquets at Mansion House towards the end of her reign, a ruff of almost Elizabethan dimensions. That’s a sight that stays with you.
Done right, a display of our old friend’s wardrobe in the centre of London could be simply the final destination on a whole day’s trip round a living exhibition of her achievements. First you step over today’s homeless people on the way to the station. No, not to the opera today!, you can joke, although strictly speaking that was a quip made by George Young as John Major’s housing minister in 1990, rather than as one of Thatcher’s party whips. But it’s the weekend, I imagine, you’re having a day out, and staying true to the spirit rather than the letter of the age is what’s important, so laugh and step lightly on to a shonky, overpriced privatised train, avoiding the eyes of any mentally ill people who need to be in the hospitals that have no room for them. Then travel into town through decimated public housing stock, unaffordable rental properties and a deregulated financial district, making sure that the better buildings act as foreign investors’ reserve currency of choice. And hop off for a bun and a squiz at the vestments of the woman who made it all possible! It’s a fun day out for all the family.
Goodbye to all that tat
Halloween is finally over, thank God. It is the worst of all the festivals. It is entirely hollow. Our collective belief in ghosts, spirits evil or hallowed, or the restless souls of dear departeds is too weak to generate even the slightest genuinely spooky frisson. And the tat that accompanies it similarly fails to generate a zillionth of the deep joy that comes from bonfire night – to whose delights the way is now clear. A hazy folk memory of ancient enmities stirring as gunpowder erupts in showers of coloured sparks all around and you stare, in the flickering firelight, down the barrel of winter: that’s a primal happiness even the best Hulk mask can’t beat.
Gold medal, new mothers
New research suggests that a third of new mothers are embarrassed about breastfeeding in public. Mothers, can I just say – if you are a) feeling compos mentis enough to contemplate wrestling with babe and boob in public, and b) able to spare the mental capacity to be embarrassed, you are already streets ahead of the game and should be awarding yourself gold medals at every turn. Now get out there.
