Thatcher and Me, or Thatcher - a front row view
Monday, 13 May 2013
Chris Mullin is probably best known as a novelist, especially for his best selling political thriller 'A Very British Coup', which was turned into a hit TV series, chronicling the downfall of a ficticious left wing Labour government by shadowy forces in the establishment.
However, he is also a former MP and Government Minister, campaigner for the Birmingham Six and diarist of the Thatcher and Blair years.
Chris Mullin will be discussing Margaret Thatcher's legacy as part of Hebden Bridge Arts Festival.
Mullin served as Labour MP for Sunderland South from 1987 so had a front row seat for the last years of the Thatcher era and he will be discussing the impact Britain's first female Prime Minister had on our nation at the Birchcliffe Centre on Friday 28 June.
Since leaving Parliament in 2010 after 23 years services he has published a series of brutally honest political diaries recording his life at Westminster including 'A View From The Foothills' which was described as being the 'central text for understanding the Blair years.'
"Politics is an intrinsic part of our cultural life, and nowhere more so than in Hebden Bridge, so it is a perfect booking to bring in Chris who dissects the whole process so astutely," says Festival Director Helen Meller.
"When Margaret Thatcher died everyone locally had an opinion, one way or another, so now the dust has settled I think Chris will help us to have a really good debate about what exactly her legacy was."
Chris Mullin made his name as a campaigning journalist on Granada TV's iconic World in Action programme helping to overturn the wrongful conviction of the Birmingham Six which was one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
Turning his hand to frontline polices he become a highly rated backbench MP standing up his constituents hit hard during the 1980s before surprisingly being appointed to a string of Ministerial posts by Blair before stepping down at the last general election.
Since then he has cast his journalist's unsparing eye on his former stamping ground with the latest installment of his diaries 'Decline & Fall' taking a hard look at the Gordon Brown years, and one commentator said it showed Mullin's 'readiness to like people who don't echo his politics.'
During the UK Parliamentary expenses scandal Mullin, one of the lowest claimers, provided some comic relief when it was revealed that the television at his second home is a very old black-and-white model with a £45 TV licence
Tickets for Chris Mullin;The Thatcher Legacy priced £10 will be available at the festival's open launch event in Hebden Bridge Town Hall on Sunday 19 May, two pop up box office in the Town Hall on May 25 and June 1 before the main box office opens on June. Tickets will also available at www.wegottickets.com.
Previously, the Festival on the HebWeb
- HebWeb News: Arts Festival programme launch details (7 May 2013)
- HebWeb News: Arts Festival needs your undies (29 April 2013)
- HebWeb News: Hebden Bridge Monopoly Board (23 April 2013)
- HebWeb News: Outdoor fun: local creative talent wanted (10 April 2013)
- HebWeb News: Trades Club Entertainment manager Mal Campbell joins Festival team (8 March 2013)
- HebWeb News:Budding playwrights needed for Hebden Shorts (23 Feb 2013)
- HebWeb News: Arts Festival 2013: first act to be announced is comedian Daniel Kitson (18 Feb 2013)
- HebWeb News: Record turnout for Arts Festival open meeting (Nov 2012)
- HebWeb News: Arts Festival is looking for your memories (7 Nov)
- HebWeb News: New faces at Arts Festival (22 Oct)
- HebWeb News: Festival and Parade team up for 'sensational afternoon' next year (25 Sept)
- HebWeb News: Arts Festival seeks new board members (18 Sept)
- HebWeb News: Arts Festival 2012 is over (12 July)