THE grandest of Tory grande dames turned up at the conference hall yesterday to the usual acclaim and managed to spark a pensions row by branding Tony Blair's policy on the subject ''an outright fraud''.
After last year's performance when Margaret Thatcher stole William Hague's thunder by appearing alongside ex-Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet and using Scots Night to lambast our continental cousins for bringing about two world wars, Tory Party managers were noticeably keeping a tight rein on the ex-Prime Minister.
Yet despite their best efforts the baroness was able to attack the Labour Government over pensions. ''For years, as a young MP, I was a junior Minister for pensions and the money people paid into their pensions, they got out in their pensions in their old age. Not now . . . that to me is outright fraud. ''
It was, of course, Lady Thatcher who controversially broke the link between rises in pensions and average earnings, and last night Jack Jones, President of the National Pensioners Convention, hit back, saying her remarks ''took my breath away''.
Later another former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, attacked Mr Hague, accusing him of producing policies ''out of the blue'' on fuel cuts and pensions increases. He warned him: ''They say you are just making it up on the spur of the moment . . . that is a very dangerous technique.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article