Denis Thatcher's Kilmuir moment

Leverhulme on The Iron Lady ... Tales from the Court of Queen Margaret ... The Kilmuir Rules ... Sentencing of race killers ... Plymouth judge makes a prat of himself, with no help from Fowler ... London Calling 

Broadbent and StreepDenis Thatcher had his own version of the Kilmuir Rules.

You remember them; 57 years old this year and now virtually ignored:

"As long as a judge keeps silent, his reputation for wisdom and impartiality remains unassailable."

Denis used to say:

"Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

One of the problems in the movie The Iron Lady is that Denis is played as a buffoon by Jim Broadbent and in private never shuts up.

Of course, he's dead in the film and only appears as an hallucination, but by God he gives poor old Attila the Hen some curry.

Baroness Thatcher has been in the news last week because government papers from 1981 were released showing that as Prime Minister she was urged to abandon Liverpool after the Toxteth Riots to a managed decline. 

She refused to do so because the last two words of the previous paragraph were anathema to her. She sent Tarzan Heseltine in to regenerate the area.

Tarzan: sent to fix LiverpoolIt's ironic because she is still violently loathed in Liverpool.

As a city, Liverpool is a funny old place. Les Dawson said he once pulled over there to change a tyre and as he did so a chap started looking under the bonnet.

When he asked why, the Scouser replied:

"Well if you're going to have the tyres, I might as well have the engine."

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Maggie the Movie is an impressive production and worth seeing just for Meryl Streep's signal performance, specially as the aging Baroness.

She's got the voice and mannerisms to a Mrs T. and thankfully refrains from twanging, "A dingo has taken my baby". 

There's something tacky about portraying dementia in someone who is still alive, a bit like pulling tongues at a caged grizzly bear. And the film only pays cursory attention to the great events of the Lady's career.

It's redolent of a Greatest Hits record but it did bring back some memories: her bravery after the Brighton Bombing; the distaste one felt as Britons fought pitched battles against each another during the miners' strike and the poll tax riots; her correct judgement about the single currency; the sinking of the Belgrano (the best scene in the movie) and her blatant and inexorable slide into megalomania.

She really should have drawn stumps after eight years, but she wanted to go "on and on and on". 

The movie's historical adviser was the estimable professional biographer John Campbell.

His book, The Iron Lady (Jonathan Cape 2003) contains some wonderful vignettes.

Thatcher was in the habit of personally visiting every Whitehall department, something no previous PM had done, to cross-examine and terrify the civil servants.

Whitehall stories from Cecil ParkinsonShe was always fully briefed and often reduced them to jelly.

Cecil Parkinson tells of the time she went to the Department of Trade with her Ministers and sat opposite the Permanent Secretary and his five deputies.

"She asked each of them to give a description of what they and the part of the department they were responsible for did and what its immediate objectives were. After each had spoken I noticed that she was putting three dots under some names and a line under others. I came to the conclusion the line meant good and three dots meant suspect."

The "three dotters" were soon shipped off to the Gulag.

Campbell observes that by the time she had been in power for seven years, the entire upper echelons of Whitehall were filled with her delegates: she had appointed 43 Permanent Secretaries and 138 Deputy Secretaries.

The movie is also notable for its portrayal of Margaret Thatcher's incredible battle with sexism.

However, it is ultimately about her personality rather than her achievements as a politician.

Streep captures her glamour years in power, in Denis Healey's phrase, as "a mixture of a matron at a minor public school and a guard in a concentration camp". 

But in old age, the barely managed decline is painfully prosaic.

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Kilmuir (left) laying down some rulesThe Kilmuir Rules came to mind this week.

Mr Justice Treacy, who rejoices in the memorable first name of Colman, was in the papers for sentencing two delightful fellows convicted of the racist murder almost 19 years ago of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

It is a case that has seared the hearts of the respectable middle-classes.

Parliament abolished the double jeopardy rule to get these two on trial.

Treacy handled a difficult sentencing task (because the accused were youths when the crime took place) with skill. He said:

"The murder of Stephen Lawrence on the night of 22nd April 1993 was a terrible and evil crime. Recently the Lord Chief Justice described it as a 'murder which scarred the conscience of the nation'. 

A totally innocent 18 year old youth on the threshold of a promising life was brutally cut down in the street in front of eye witnesses by a racist thuggish gang. You were both members of that gang. I have no doubt at all that you fully subscribed to its views and attitudes."

His Lordship then took the extraordinary step of engaging in a spot of Crime Busting.

He called forward the officer in charge and told him not to close the file.

He said three or four other killers of Stephen Lawrence were free, adding:

"Just as advances in science [had] brought two people to justice [he hoped] the Metropolitan Police [would] be alert to future lines of inquiry, not only based on developments in science but perhaps also information from those who have been silent so far, wherever they may be."

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Plymouth judge Francis Gilbert: dummy incidentOf course, the wallopers and the Crown Prosecution Service must be grateful these days for any help they can get.

The CPS has just been admonished again by a Plymouth judge called Francis Gilbert QC.

Apparently a dummy indictment had found its way into His Honour's papers along with the correct one, which had been sent to the Crown Court three days before the hearing.

He asked the prosecutor, Emma Birt, if the dummy indictment was the real one and she replied that it was not. 

One should not call a judge a prat, but, with respect, the prat then read it out in open court. 

"On 29th day of October, knowing or believing that blah, blah, blah was assisting in the investigation of an offence, did an act, namely yakkity schmakitty, which intimidated and was intended to intimidate blah, blah, blah, intending thereby to cause the investigation to be obstructed, prevented or interfered with."

Imagine what the defendant thought.

The judge then allegedly pronounced: "I hope that the CPS will act a little bit more serious in future."

In these circumstances, perhaps Judge Gilbert should listen to Denis Thatcher and read Fowler.