THE MUMMY RETURNS

Where else but in Plymouth, Margaret Thatcher finally weighed in enthusiastically behind William Hague’s uphill battle to win the British election. Plymouth, as she put it in her inimitable style, “England’s historic opening to the world. [Where else but] Plymouth – from where Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, and Captain Cook set out to take the ways of these islands to the uttermost bounds of the earth? Plymouth – from where the Pilgrim Fathers left in that cockle-shell vessel on a voyage which would create the most powerful force for freedom that the world has known?” This is a classic speech, a reminder of what leadership is, a reminder of what conviction is. My favorite passage is her assessment of New Labour: “New Labour’s main appeal, when you get down to it, is quite simply that it’s not old Labour. And that’s true as far as it goes. I had some respect for the old Labour Party, which stood for certain principles – wrong as they were. But today’s Labour Party has no discernible principles at all. It is rootless, empty and artificial. And when anything real or human surfaces despite the spin – it’s the bitter, brawling, bully that we hoped we’d seen the last of twenty years ago.” Can’t she just come back and run for office?