Friday 6 December 2013

"HANG NELSON MANDELA" - British Conservatives in the 1980s


I was actually a Liberal centrist SDP supporter until I went to college and met some of the Conservatives


"A Blackpool conference where members of the Federation of Conservative Students, which in those days had Mark McGregor and current Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow among their leaders, proposed motions calling for Nelson Mandela to be executed as a terrorist. They wore suits with collars and ties and lapel badges screaming "Hang Nelson Mandela." Truly barking boys on the wrong side of history.

They were not entirely alone. Margaret Thatcher denounced the ANC as a “typical terrorist organization,” and one of her strongest supporters, Teddy Taylor, said Nelson Mandela  “should be shot.”


from


It is hugely ironic that Mandela, a consummate politician that brought his riven country together in a spirit of positive life affirming unity, should pass on the same year as Margaret Thatcher, the contemporary that did so much to ruin his reputation at the time.