Labour Queue Up to Slam Climate Sage Thatcher

It will have been difficult to miss the concocted outrage from left-wingers overnight after it emerged Boris made a joke about Thatcher’s transitioning of Britain from coal to lower emission energy sources on a visit:

“Look at what we’ve done already. We’ve transitioned away from coal in my lifetime. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher who closed so many coal mines [the Prime Minister then laughs] across the country where we had had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether… I thought that would get you going!”

A literal day at the coalface…

Lisa Nandy was first out of the gates to criticise the light hearted remarks, despite previously calling for Britain’s coal stations to be closed because they’re so polluting.

It's been clear for years that Britain's coal stations are so old and so polluting they would need to close over the next decade 1/3

— Lisa Nandy (@lisanandy) November 18, 2015

Keir Starmer is also furious, despite having spent months opposing a new coal mine in Cumbria as bad for the environment. Sounding like quite the Thatcherite. 

While the left may refuse to acknowledge it, Thatcher was undeniably the first eco-conscious PM. As the Guardian wrote upon her passing:

“she helped put climate change (or global warming as it was then known), acid rain and pollution on to the mainstream political map.”

She famously told the UN general assembly in 1989 “It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto.” She then took the cause to the Tory faithful:

For some reason, Labour is less willing to acknowledge Harold Wilson’s much greater role in closing British coal mines. Greta would have been proud…

* This article was originally published by Guido Fawkes

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