Very interesting article. Thanks for writing it.

As well as your other evidence re Mrs T’s Philip-semitism. her first job after Oxford was as a research chemist for J Lyons, then an entirely Jewish firm, where she was reputed to have felt herself well treated.

Her first major mentor who played the key role in positioning herself as the future leader of the Tories was Sir Keith Joseph, for whom
she had intense respect, whereas he wS regarded as mad by most of the then Tory mainstream.

She was also a great admirer of Lord Young-she said other Cabinet colleagues came to her with problems, but he came to her with solutions.

Finally, I remember reading a speech she gave at a Youth Aliyah dinner, where she warmly praised one of it’s founders, Recha Freier, as an example of how one person can make a real difference.

She was certainly very at ease with and appreciative of the qualities and talents of Jews who made no attempt to hide their origins. Ranks with King Edward VII, Churchill & Tony Blair.
Prince Charles is anti-Zionist and has never allowed himself to be associated with any Zionist organization. He adopted support of a Krakow Jewish charity to avoid any possible insinuations of having an anti-Semitic agenda. Both the Duke of Ed and the Queen have visited a range of Jewish charities.
She never showed any response at all to the repeated criticism
of her for having so many

Your mate Rupert has replied:

http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2009/07/me-clarification.html

libellous? pretentious twat

I resent the fact he imagines it was done for short-term political gain against the Greens. I like many of the Greens and a lot of their policies. Good to hear he’s not an anti-semite. Definitely not. No way.

But why are they always so obsessed with Israel?

Certain elements of the British government were intent on stifling the nascent Jewish State in 1947/8. They went against “official” policy and I’m not certain if the politicians knew and winked, or were fooled. In all likelihood the FO was at the core and the animosity has remained.

It was a rather silly joke by Macmillan. An ‘Etonian’ means a man who went to Britain’s most privileged public school – Eton. Conservative cabinets have often included a fair number of Etonians. So Macmillan chose ‘Estonian’ (to signify Jewish) as a play on words. As I noted above, it’s not the most sensitive of punchlines, nor the most accurate.

Perhaps I just don’t get it, but what did “more Estonians than Etonians” mean? I know what’s an Estonian and what’s an Etonian, but how was the fact that Thatcher had many Jews in the cabinet related to Estonia at all?

I grew up in Estonia and lived there for 29 years before moving to London last year, that’s why I’m interested. Part of the Estonian Jewish Community was deported to Siberia by the Soviets and the rest were murdered by the Nazis in the 1940ies, and Estonian present Jewish Community is only 2,000-strong – I really wonder what made Macmillan to say something like that…

Best,

Sten