"This is how Tam Dalyell is feeling — about the Belgrano, about Westland, the miners' strike, Libya, GCHQ, Zircon, the Peter Wright affair... this book is really just a cry of rage: "I was right — surely you can see — look, here is the evidence — let's go through it all carefully again — how can anyone disagree..?" But the thrust of the book, and the detailed evidence assembled, are for the most part familiar. Writing it all up, again, and publishing it in this way, is just one more try at persuading somebody (I don't think Mr Dalyell is quite sure whom) to say: "Yes, Tam, you were right. Off with Maggie's head!" How he loathes Mrs Thatcher. She is variously called pig-headed, a fishwife, and a mass murderess as the story proceeds. This element of personal vendetta seriously weakens his case because — for all that he rests it upon alleged facts — his gravest charges rely upon his imputing to her the worst imaginable motives consistent with those facts. One has to say — without denying that his allegations of facts need answering — that there is a certain sleight-of-hand here."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomPeople from EdinburghPoliticians from ScotlandEducators from ScotlandPeople from West Lothian
Original Language: English
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Sources
Matthew Parris, from a review of Dalyell's MISRULE - How Mrs Thatcher has misled Parliament from the sinking of the Belgrano to the Wright affair (1987)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tam_Dalyell
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Tam Dalyell
Sir Thomas Dalyell of the Binns, 11th Baronet (9 August 1932 – 26 January 2017), known as Tam Dalyell, was a Scottish Labour Party politician who was a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005. He represented West Lothian from 1962 to 1983, then Linlithgow from 1983 to 2005. He was known for his formulation of what came to be known as the "West Lothian question", on whether non-English MPs should be able to vote upon English-only matters after political devolution.
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