Way of theworld Michael Deacon

Mere hours after its unveiling in her home town of Grantham, a bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher was pelted with eggs by a Left-wing protester. Admirers of the Iron Lady, however, should not feel aggrieved. On the contrary, they should be delighted – for two simple reasons.

First, the egging of the statue is, if anything, a greater tribute to Lady Thatcher’s legacy than the statue itself. During her premiership she repeatedly reduced the hard Left to paroxysms of futile rage. Today, more than 30 years after she left office – and almost 10 years after she died – she’s still managing it. This is a rare feat. Most politicians are swiftly forgotten. Yet Lady Thatcher, it seems, maddens her political foes just as much now as she did back then. Even in death, she lives rent-free in their heads.

She herself would probably be quite content for other Left-wingers to follow this first assailant’s lead. Egging her statue, after all, won’t reverse anything she did in office. The eggs will simply hit the statue with a quiet splat, and then, shortly afterwards, be wiped off by a weary council employee. So, just as the statue represents Lady Thatcher, any attack on it represents the hard Left: angry, juvenile, and entirely impotent.

This is the second reason her admirers should be happy. Ordinary, non-political members of the public will read of the egging, shake their heads, and think how weird the hard Left are. So aggressive, so bitter, so rabidly tribal – and, above all, so pathetic. A grown adult, furiously flinging eggs at a statue of a long-dead woman? What sort of man behaves like that?

In short, they will find it unpleasant and off-putting. Which will mean that, after all these years, Lady

Thatcher is still making the Left look bad – and helping to keep them out of office.

While the House of Lords is being refurbished – a job that may take 20 years to complete – peers will have to hold their debates elsewhere. The Queen Elizabeth II Centre, which is just 200 yards from Parliament, would seem the ideal choice. According to reports, however, Michael Gove has ruled it out.

Instead, he wants peers to relocate to the Red Wall – and his preference is Stoke-on-trent.

Apparently, this is part of his plan to “level up” the country. Of course, voters in Stoke-on-trent may have been under the impression that “levelling up” was about creating well-paid jobs in their area. It isn’t easy to see how Mr Gove’s proposal will help achieve this. Unless, that is, local job centres will be running ads for vacancies in the new House of Lords.

“WANTED: life peer. Pay: £323 attendance allowance per day, plus expenses. No skills or experience necessary. Would suit slavishly obedient careerist or multimillionaire party donor.”

At any rate, Mr Gove has told their lordships that Stoke would make “an excellent home” for them. I don’t doubt it. All the same, I fear that he has overlooked a small problem.

The State Opening of Parliament requires MPS to walk from the Commons to the Lords, in order to listen to the Queen’s speech. At present, this journey takes them approximately 30 seconds. Stoke, however, is 170 miles from the Commons. So, at a consistent walking speed of 3mph, the journey would take 56 hours and 40 minutes. Which means that, to arrive in time for a speech beginning at the traditional time of 11.30am on a Wednesday, MPS would need to set out at half past two on Monday morning.

Once the speech was over, they would then have to turn round and begin the march back to London. At the same walking speed, they would arrive back at the Commons at nine o’clock on Friday evening – no doubt champing at the bit to get started on all the debates they’d had to miss.

Of course, they could always just travel by train. But the typical cost of a day return from London to Stoke is £305. And the Commons contains 643 MPS (not counting those from Sinn Fein, as they refuse on principle to take their seats).

So, if all MPS are to attend – as they most certainly should, out of respect for their monarch – their train fares for the day will cost the taxpayer a total of £196,115. Which seems a touch steep, for a speech that typically lasts around 10 minutes. Voters may well feel that the money should be spent on something of more obvious benefit to the British public. For example: “levelling up”.

In my view, there is only one way to solve the problem. Mr Gove should order all MPS and ministers to move to Stoke as well. I hope that he in particular will be very happy there.