Margaret Thatcher died this morning after a long, pointless decline.

I know something about this, my mother died the same way. In both cases, a sad end to a hard-fought life.

In some ways, her political career was sacrificial. When she became Prime Minister in 1979, Britain faced almost insuperable difficulties of debt and sluggish growth, combined with endemic inflation — stagflation, as it was called.

Her task was not unlike Britain’s today: fighting back after a long period of socialist overspending, but also aided by wet, shortlived Tory administrations. To succeed she would have to sacrifice the main weapons of a political career — personal popularity and an appearance of competence. The times were against her, but she didn’t flinch.

“Thatcher the Snatcher” became the “vampire squid” of Scotland and the North of England, with the exception of the blue-collar workers who admired her patriotism and spirit. That judgement still prevails to this day, encouraged by the Labour Party’s dishonest demonising tendencies after yet another destructive period in office.

But the question that always recurs to me in these cases of prolonged mental decline at the end of an energetic and productive life is: Why?

Such people usually have a large store of life-energy that propels them through adversity, in both career and dying. There will not have been much time during a hectic pilgimage through world events, to stop occasionally and contemplate one’s mortality.

It comes down to the ancient matter of balance. The outer life should be built on a platform of spiritual strength, not just worldly razzmatazz, however successful. Such a developed spirit can leave the body at will with ne’er a qualm. Margaret Thatcher clearly chose not to do so.

It is perhaps a lesson for us all. Warrior spirits who fight to the end after a fruitful life, do so in vain.

John Evans

It is ever the case that political insults are mostly aimed at the Right. The Left has a long tradition of smearing anyone with views that differ from their own.

This week’s prime example is the phrase: “lurching to the Right”, which was unthinkingly parroted by David Cameron. Stealing the Left’s clothes is a dangerous game for a Conservative leader.

Naturally, nobody “lurches to the Left”. It hasn’t yet been added to public discourse, for it is a general rule that the Right are less nasty than the Left.

So why did the Tories permit themselves to be dubbed “the nasty party” by one of their own, which encouraged them to adopt a persistent policy of proving they are not. Thus the Conservatives found themselves endlessly fighting on Labour’s ground, claiming to be “more compassionate than thou”. As a result they lost the meaning of conservatism and even their self-image is now at risk.

One of David Cameron’s greatest weaknesses is that he is not reflective. He doesn’t analyse the essence of words and phrases and tends to go with the flow, even those created by Left-wing reactionaries. One can’t “lurch to the Left” because that phrase has not entered the lexicon and would be swiftly trashed by the guardians of Labour’s soundbite soul.

Whatever you think of Margaret Thatcher, nobody denies that she grabbed and controlled the agenda. She even corrected Neil Kinnock’s pronunciation of “Boris” — as in Boris Yeltsin. The Left were constantly on the back foot and reduced to playing catch-up, as the Tories are now despite being in power.

Notice how often Cameron has to make a big intervention to prove himself as a credible prime minister, and how often it burns brightly for an instant before falling apart under analysis. He rarely holds the initiative for long before attempting to justify himself as a caring person who will never “lurch” onto demonised ground — even if it has consistently won his party elections over more than 200 years.

That is why his premiership is now falling apart, along with the efforts of his prime strategist, George Osborne. Obsessive self-consciousness kills political careers dead.

Ultimately, a mind with a First from Oxford should be capable of spotting the weaknesses of a false narrative that more closely describes the Left itself. Cameron is attempting to outflank Labour on the Left as his hero Tony Blair did to the Tories on the Right.

The fatal flaw in that course is that, all things being equal, the British electorate responds more easily to a Rightish analysis than they do to the Left. We are a conservative country. It doesn’t take much to make it Conservative.

The Cameron stance has comprehensively failed. By trying to be Blair in reverse, he has lost credibility and the power of initiative in the eyes of voters.

Being centre-right in the old sense is all we ask of him.

John Evans

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According to Open Europe, a new opinion poll finds that 65pc of Germans believe they would be better off without the euro. Also, if asked today, 64pc of French people would vote against the Maastricht Treaty which brought it into existence.

Truly, these are earth-shuddering times for Brussels and the Euro elites. National politicians too must be shaking in their clogs when pondering their own electoral fortunes.

The very idea of “more Europe” as proposed by Commission President Barroso, who wants a new “federal treaty”, is about as off-the-wall as it gets. Shrinks all round!

But how is this mood affecting our own parliamentarians? With profound complacency must be the answer. Apart from Liam Fox’s Mail on Sunday piece suggesting a return to a Common Market format, it’s all quiet on the North-Western front.

Ed Miliband is back from the beaches, his head full of American political philosopher Michael Sandel’s new book. You can guess what his big idea for the Conference is: a market economy but not a market society.

Ordinary voters won’t know what he’s talking about. What was his last big wheeze? Oh, yes, Predistribution. Clunkety, clunkety, clunk!

There’s an old saying, never appoint intellectuals as political spokesmen. Or even party leaders, come to that. Academic types always fry the brains of their fickle followers.

The Prime Minister — whose character follows the best Conservative tradition, but lacks focus and bite — owes us a major speech setting out the road ahead over the next year or two.

Some precision would be welcome, especially on the vandalous idea of selling Britain’s only world-class defence manufacturer, BAE, to the French and German government’s EADS, which makes the Airbus.

The proposed name for the new Continental conglomerate is … Airbus. Who would have thought it? Once again, the name “British” is to be wiped off the map, while Germans and French call the shots.

Ominously, influential Conservative MP, Claire Perry, who has been Political Adviser to George Osborne and PPS to Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, said on Sky last night that “we will probably agree to this, if we can get a guarantee on British jobs.”

Such complacency will destroy the Tories before the end of this Parliament. Doesn’t anybody think things through? Some backbone and clarity are needed. Drift should not be an option.

If Ed Miliband wants a big theme for his speech, he might start by opposing the BAE deal and following it up with the offer of an in/out referendum on Europe. Slogan? Time for Honesty and Action.

That would put Dave’s dreamy “I’m not bovvered” attitude back in the toy box where it belongs.

Then even Nigel Farage might consider voting Labour.

John Evans

… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Mystics in the Modern World is coming soon.

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With the British political scene dominated by the Leveson Inquiry into media shenanigans, it sometimes appears as if these islands are insulated from the growing disaster across the water in the Eurozone.

Frau Merkel talks a lot about fiscal union and “more Europe” while doing nothing about it. David Cameron urges the Continent to coalesce into a country called Europe, while half-promising that Britain won’t be involved.

Vetoes are whispered of into incredulous ears, and a referendum dangled in words as cheap as chips.

Let’s face it, no-one will nail their colours to the mast until somebody else makes the first move and our wretched politicos can act without being blamed for the mess.

We have also had much chatter about “real Conservatism”. Frankly, many of us would just like some Conservatism, real or not.

What the Prime Minister seems unable to grasp is that the more he imitates the vacuous Blair, the more a growing chunk of the electorate despises him. Does the man have no self-knowledge?

If he can leave his young daughter in a pub, surely he can leave the ghost of Tony somewhere appropriate?

Europe boils and bubbles, poised to shapeshift dramatically, almost all options for the worst. British politicians distance themselves from the darkening scene, but can’t resist delivering the occasional pin-prick of defiance, utterly powerless to act.

It will remind older folk of the phoney war at the close of the 1930s. They will no doubt reflect that it didn’t end well.

Rupert Sheldrake, whom I wrote about last week, has certainly stirred up some feedback here at Syntagma Towers, mostly positive. Read the article HERE.

Anyone near London interested in following this up might like to know that the controversial scientist will be live in dialogue with American evolutionary mystic Andrew Cohen at EnlightenmentNext Centre, 13 Windsor Street, N1 8QG on 20th June. Tickets £18 if booked early, £22 at the door.

I can’t make it, alas, but it should be a very stimulating evening for those able to get there.

Poppycock Watch
Have you noticed the increasing number of dotty job descriptions that have sprung up in recent years? I met someone last week who said she was an Activist.

You mean a kind of lobbyist, said I. No, not central government, just general, all-inclusive stuff.

So, a multipurpose, multifunctioning busybody, thought I. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Social, political, scientific, any area of deprivation or unfairness, quoth she, with a hint of superiority over the rest of us who mind our own business.

But who pays people like that? It can’t be the private sector. A company spokesperson wouldn’t be referred to as an Activist, nor anyone else for that matter.

It must be the infinitely giving public sector, where no waif or stray is knowingly rejected and is provided with an all-inclusive income for doing daft things.

I wondered if I should reclassify myself as a Mystical Activist?

But nobody on earth would pay me for that.

An orange plume of oily gunge has appeared on our river in recent weeks. It has the air of something originating from a sewage outlet upstream.

The alarming thing is that the swans can’t seem to get enough of it, scooping it up in their beaks with relish. What do they think they’re doing? They have ample grazing land and lots of river life to feed on.

Then, our local Met Office man solved the riddle. It is a plume of phyto-plankton, of vegetable origin and, as Holland & Barrett reminds us, super-nutritious.

Animals are not as daft as they look.

Another little vignette of life’s woe is being played out in the swan colony here.

Among the 200 or so white swans has appeared one black swan, an Aussie intruder into a living Tchaikovskyesque tableau. He (if it is a he — hard to tell) sails around on his own, seemingly shunned by the locals.

Yesterday, as if in despair, he plunged in amongst a group of fifty of them and uttered a cry of such anguish, head pointing to the sky as in prayer, that everyone stopped in amazement.

I should add, before Trevor Phillips or Polly Toynbee descend on us with cries of racism, the white ones are so placid it would be difficult to accuse them of anything at all. His only hope of finding a mate, I think, is if he comes across another swan as lonely as himself.

If Danny Kaye was still with us, I’m sure he’d have a song for it.

Profundity of the Week
“Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.” Hans Christian Andersen

John Evans

who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Mystics in the Modern World is coming soon.

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Britain urgently needs a drawstring to pull in the atomised aspects of its democracy, law and governance.

The recent slapstick over Abu Qatada and other so-called clerics, is waking politicans up to what has been a growing disaster for decades: the loss of the UK’s power to make and police its own laws, the authentic “rule of law”.

Some who should know better didn’t see this coming, or preferred to play along with the slow absorption of Britain into Europe.

Many of us didn’t, and spoke out strongly. The indefatigable John Redwood has a powerfully-argued piece in his online Diary today.

Our problem is that the present effete government ignores the alarming whooshing sound of power passing away, leaving them like emperors without clothes. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems bear much of the blame, but there’s not a lot of fight in the Tory leadership either. It will struggle to retain the votes it now has at the next election.

An even more pro-EU coalition is the likely result, unless the Conservatives awaken from their complacent slumbers now. Power has been needlessly tossed away by a dysfunctional and essentially anti-British parliament for many years.

It began as a single authority, the King, aided by his barons in the regions. Eventually, they became a parliament of barons, the current House of Lords, now under threat from the Liberal Democrats. Then the franchise was widened and the House of Commons appeared. Ultimately, a universal electorate gave the Commons an irresistible mandate to govern.

An elected Lords, or Senate (how unoriginal and unBritish), will again reverse that process, further weakening the UK’s strength. Is that the purpose of Clegg’s obsession, to give yet more leverage to Brussels? Divide and rule?

What happened in the 1970s is inexplicable and for many of us unforgivable. The Commons, or rather its leaders, began handing more and more of its supremacy to a dangerous foreign power, now the European Union.

Alarmingly, the amateurish European Court of Human Rights, reporting to the so-called Council of Europe, was allowed to trample over Britain’s ancient liberties with the mawkishly ridiculous notion of “human rights”, which were never meant to apply to England’s mature justice system.

Now the country can’t move without being chastised and bullied by this Ruritanian outfit and the equally out-of-kilter European commission and parliament.

Political power has also been distributed to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — although internally and for good reason — and to a mess of quangos run by right-on types of the Guardianista persuasion.

There is a solution, though, but it requires real leadership and energy, something our current parliament seems bereft of. Someone needs to fashion a political drawstring to pull back these essential governing powers that a free country can’t live without.

The imminent collapse of the Eurozone, and with it the European Disunion, should be concentrating even the most insouciant of minds now.

But there’s not much sign of life there.

John Evans

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