An exhibition at the V&A calls Margaret Thatcher a ‘contemporary villain’, alongside Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden (Pictures: Getty)
There have been calls for the Victoria and Albert Museum to lose its funding after describing Margaret Thatcher as ‘contemporary villain’ alongside Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden.
The former prime minister is mentioned as part of an exhibition called Laughing Matters: The State of the Empire, which looks at the role of humour in relation to ‘identity, empire and power over the last two hundred years’.
Under a set of Punch and Judy puppets, a caption reads: ‘Over the years, the evil character in this seaside puppet show has shifted from the Devil to unpopular public figures including Adolf Hitler, Margaret Thatcher and Osama bin Laden to offer contemporary villains.’
Elsewhere in the display, there’s also a puppet of the late Baroness from the popular satirical TV show Spitting Image – although there was no further reference to her supposed villainous ways.
A number of individuals – mostly connected to the Conservative Party – have publicly criticised the Punch and Judy caption.
Sir Connor Burns, a former trade minister and Conservative MP for Bournemouth, said: ‘Whoever wrote that caption should be called out publicly for being a moron, or perhaps more usefully sent to read a Ladybird book of modern world history.
‘They must live in a bubble, away from the real world, to think that it is rational to propose that a politician of the stature of Margaret Thatcher would equate to any of those mass murderers and vile human beings.’
The caption about Mrs Thatcher being a villain is displayed under Punch and Judy puppets
He said: ‘This sort of idiocy begs the question of funding’.
Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Baroness Thatcher and director of The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, meanwhile, wrote on X: ‘Disgraceful from the Victoria and Albert Museum. It should be stripped of public funding.’
According to 2022-2023 figures, the V&A received most of its funding – more than £67 million – from the government.
A Mrs Thatcher puppet from TV show Spitting Image
Businessman and political commentator Russell Quirk told GB News: ‘Thatcher was the mother of entrepreneurship. How anyone can say she was a villain – she was one of political history’s heroes.’
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A number of social media users, however, felt the ‘villain’ label was deserving.
One, Robert Finlay, posted on X: ‘Thatcher favoured the wealthy, weakened or destroyed industries and deepened social divides. Her policies caused instability and her neglect of communities left scars.
‘She prioritised individual success over the well-being of society, leaving a legacy of discontent and hardship.’
Several people criticised the caption, saying the former prime minister wasn’t a villain (Picture: AP)
Another, Richard Maloney, wrote: ‘Maggie “Chaos Merchant” Thatcher along with Clement “Sheep in Sheep’s clothing” Atlee was the worst thing to happen to UK. She vandalised England’s great grammar schools. She destroyed communities. Stalinists loved her. She did more damage than any MI6 Soviet mole ever could.’
The London museum, whose current director is former Labour MP Tristram Hunt, was criticised in 2015 for reportedly turning down a collection of Mrs Thatcher’s clothing and accessories.
Her family had offered the V&A hundreds of items, including her wedding dress, as they wanted to keep the collection together, as opposed to auctioning bits off separately.
Hitler was responsible for the murder of six million Jews during the World War II (Picture: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis/Getty Images)
Bin Laden was the founder and leader of al-Queda, the group behind the September 11 attacks in the US (Picture: Reuters)
However, the museum is said to have’politely declined’, claiming it collected items of ‘outstanding aesthetic or technical quality’ rather than those with ‘intrinsic social historical value’.
But later the V&A said no formal offer had been made and a year after it did exhibit some of Mrs Thatcher’s clothes.
The museum has been approached for comment.
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