Tuesday 16 April 2013

DIDN'T SHE DO WELL....?


Mrs Thatcher gave us several lectures on bringing up children, so I was intrigued to see what kind of a job she made of bringing up her dearly beloved son for whom nothing (including the SAS being sent out to search for him when he got himself lost) was too much trouble. This from Wikipedia
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Having taken various short-term jobs he [Mark] moved to Hong Kong, where he built up a network of business connections, particularly in the Middle East and in motor racing. In 1977 he set up Mark Thatcher Racing which ran into financial difficulties.
During the mid- to late 1980s concerns were frequently expressed in relation to his business affairs. In 1984 his mother faced questions in the House of Commons in relation to his involvement in representing a British company Cementation, a subsidiary of Trafalgar House to build a university in Oman at a time when the prime minister was urging Omanis to buy British.
He has denied claims made that in 1985 he received millions of pounds in commission in relation to the £45 billion Al-Yamamah arms deal, a controversial arms sale by BAE to Saudi Arabia which was possibly the largest arms sale ever; he has not disputed that a house in Belgravia , London was purchased for him for £1 million in 1987 by an offshore company controlled by Wafic Said, a middleman in the deal. In 1986 his mother faced questions in the House of Commons again over her son's relationship with the Sultan of Brunei.
The government's PR advisers suggested that it would be best if he left the country. Alan Clark mentions the 'Mark problem' in his published diaries. He moved to Texas, where he worked for David Wickins of Lotus Cars and British Car Auctions and met his first wife in 1984. In the USA he started Monteagle Marketing which was a profitable company selling whisky and clothing. During this period he spent time in Switzerland as a tax exile until he was forced to leave when the Swiss authorities started to question his residency qualifications. He helped arrange the valuable contract for his mother's Downing Street memoirs in the 1990s. A security alarm business he ran in the USA failed and in 1996 he was prosecuted for tax evasion, at which point he moved to Constantia, South Africa with his wife and their two children.
In 1998 South African authorities investigated a company owned by Thatcher for allegedly running loan shark operations. According to the Star of Johannesburg', the company had offered unofficial small loans to hundreds of police officers, military personnel and civil servants and then pursued them with debt collectors. He claimed that officers had defrauded him and charges were dropped.It was also suggested that he had profited from contracts to supply aviation fuel in various African countries. In 2004 he was arrested in South Africa in connection with the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt(see below), and pleaded guilty in January 2005 to breaking anti-mercenary legislation. At this time the Sunday Times suggested that he had personal assets of £60 million, most of which was in offshore accounts. (Mr Osborne may be able to mention this to him at the wake.)
Following his guilty plea he left South Africa and lived in Monaco for one year on a temporary residency permit; this was not renewed as Sir Mark was said to be on a list of 'undesirables' who would not be allowed further residency and he was required to leave by mid-2006. His wife and children moved back to the USA, but he was refused a entry visa due to his conviction in South Africa. He was refused residency in Switzerland and settled in Gibraltar where he married his second wife in 2008. In 2013 he was reported to spend most of his time in Marbella. He was in Barbados when he received news of his mother's death.

14 comments:

  1. tris

    Personally i reckon Maggie got the family she justly deserved.
    as you sow so shall you reap! they say!

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  2. Are you SURE your piece is about Mark Thatcher Tris?
    It reads very similar to another story currently doing the rounds. I won't mention the actual story lest you end up with a lawyer's letter. :-)

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  3. Clearly she did, Niko. I just thought it worth reflecting as I saw some lecture she had given about children being brought up properly, by two good parents, in a Christian household, and I thought, well, I wonder how she fared with her kids.

    So I looked him up... and there you have it.

    I can see why his mother had some strange friends, if she thinks him well brought up. I wonder if his challenge was to see how many countries he could find that would label him persona non grata.

    Anyway, Niko. You've been remarkably quiet these last few days. Is everything OK with you and yours?

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  4. Ha ha .. Arbroath.

    No, the fact is that many Tory biographies read something like that. It's easy to confuse them.

    I shouldn't much care for the kind of letter that the Rev got, but if I got one, I'd be hoping very much that I'd have the sang froid and quick wit to respond in such an amusing way...

    Bless him, he's a wonder is our Stu.

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    1. I agree, Rev Stu certainly is someone you do NOT want to be on the wrong side of. :-)

      Maybe thelawyers thought he would be ab EASY target him being a Rev and all but I guess they have picked on the WRONG guy this time and boy has he let them know it. :-)

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    2. Fat chance. He's as sharp as a tack!

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  5. The daughter-in-law certainly doesn't look the caring type either Maybe poor auld Maggie was incontinent and the little rich girl couldn't bear to be too close to her

    When Carol arrived home there was no embrace with her twin brother, they had lost their Mother after all and you would have, in a normal family expected some show of shared pain but no she just swept straight past him I found that odd
    So yes they probably all do deserve each other

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  6. Dysfunctional lot.

    Mother who worked all the time and never had time for them...well except Mark. Father that seemed to spend most of his time on the outside of a bottle of spirits.

    On the other hand, if she'd taken over that shop in Grantham, they wouldn't have had the millions that they are sitting on ...offshore of course. So everything's mixed with mercy.

    Sister of the Earl of Rothermere... is his wife. I doubt if she'd have much truck with anyone that needed looking after. They have people to do that kind of thing.

    I was amused to see that Mark was sent to Harrow, where he got 3 "o" levels...hardly showing himself to be very bright. He then failed his accountancy exams on three occasions... but he is thought to be worth over £60 million. So obviously being as thick as sh... well, a thick thing, is not all bad if you have the right contacts.

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  7. Just noticed this in Wiki:

    Planning for the funeral began in 2009. The committee was originally chaired by Sir Malcolm Ross, the Queen's former Master of the Royal Household. Following the 2010 general election that brought the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition into power, the codename given to the plans was changed to "True Blue" to give it "a more Conservative feel". Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude was made the new chairman of the committee.[18]

    Can you imagine? If it goes off smoothly, it will be the first time Francis (keep petrol in a can and blow yourself up) Maude has ever done anything right.

    Jolly well, Francis bloody Maude... OMG... pass me the smelling salts. They end up with the old bat in the river!

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  8. I'm sure Labour having done the ground work are a bit miffed they are not giving the eulogy How inconsiderate of Maggie to deprive them
    It is an obscenity that food banks are being set up by the week and yet all this money can be spent The living should take precedence over the dead The family could and should pay for her funeral just as other families do

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  9. Agreed. But Cameron seems to think that we are being petty and mean minded and politically partisan over it (odd seeing that he appointed Jolly Old Maudie to give it a true blue flavour).

    The living do count more than the dead, but, you have to understand that the kind of living that are going to food banks don't actually count as actual people. They are just "the poor"

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  10. Some background music for the big day tomorrow...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiKOhOzQyZg

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  11. Time stands still for Thatcher. I doubt if you'd hear their clock with all the shouting that is likely to be going on.

    Personally, I'd prefer if people just lined the route with their backs turned to the entourage, including the political and royal leaders that are gracing this idiotic performance with their presence.

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  12. Tris

    I have always thought the family came across as dysfunctional anyway, all of them. Maybe that is the curse of some politicians but certainly not all. I have met some children of MPs who were ok but I have also came across a few that feel a sense of entitlement. That is possibly what comes with power and wealth for some. I don't envy them at all, I don't have much and my kids have certainly had to do without the last few years, as a lot of people have, but while it can hurt sometimes to feel you want to do more but can't, I do also think that the lessons they will learn from an honest life is maybe worth it as they hopefully will pass an honest life on to their kids if they are parents in the future.

    Thatcher will have shown her kids that milking the system for all it's worth is ok, using your influence and who you know for dis-honest gain is ok. They are same as the so called benefit cheats, the difference being they have made it that the so called benefit cheat is breaking the law while they are using it to their advantage. What a bloody country we live in, so much to love but so much more to hate.

    The world has moved so far in the last 300 years but some things are still the same, there are us and there are them. Us toil in many ways to generate the wealth for them, yes some might win the lottery, sell an ex council house for a wee bit of dosh, land a good job because you are smart and they allow you into a part of their club but for most of us it will always be us and them. I just hope us wake up before it's too late because waking up after next autumn will be too late and we will have lost all that we strive for and we will be made to suffer.

    Bruce

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