to hate Gideon even more after seeing him crying at Thatchers funeral?

[ssd]

detest that man, he cries at a funeral like this then goes back to ruining lives

utterly hate him

If he'd been christened 'Peregrine' people would now be calling him that. It's not the name, it's the trying to make himself sound a smidge more ordinary when he's far from it.

Well he's a wanker whatever the reason for changing his name, whether it was to sound more "everyman" or to disassociate himself from Jewishness.

It obviously makes him uncomfortable to be called Gideon, so I shall continue to refer to him as such.

So who started this Gideon stuff? Apart from it still being one of his names. Was it upper class people who don't like him, because he's not quite 'one of us'? Private Eye always caricatures the Tory cabinet as regarding him as an 'oik' - presumably because he's not an Old Etonian.

Mrs Thatcher - not exactly renowned for promoting any women to her cabinet. One, I think, eventually.

"Mrs Thatcher - not exactly renowned for promoting any women to her cabinet. One, I think, eventually."

And this is why I have been in a perpetual state of radge over the last week on Facebook, what with everyone proclaiming her a feminist icon. Feminist icon my arse.

When he changed his name to George it was not an ordinary name. It has become one- but at the time it was most definitely posh. There is no doubt in my mind that he changed it because he is anti Semitic. Nothing to do with "wanting to be like us" more not wanting to be identified as "one of them"

Not much generalising on this thread, then?

Guesswork, supposition and spitefulness.

By all means disagree with his policies and his actions, but the rest is nasty.

It was a funeral for the former leader of his party, Why assume she was a stranger?

And I am no apologist for Maggie (though please bear in mind, she was democratically elected three times, whether you agree with that or not), and I cried, politics completely aside - the music was wonderful and I did feel for her family.

He may well have felt the same.

She was a stranger to him. He admitted last week that he had "very little personal attachment" to MT.

I think that anyone who cries for someone they didn't know is a bit mad (people who've died in tragic circumstances/children excepted)

But she was a stranger to him. Maybe he cries at the drop of a hat watching sad films and nature programmes . . . . . . . seeing as he has so much empathy.

So, at 13 he changed his name as an act of anti-Semitism.

Really?

@NannyOgg Would this name change have co-incided with his going to St Paul's and is it a hotbed of anti-semitism? He was already from a 'posh' family. Did he want to sound more posh?

It would have taken a heart of stone not to laugh

Me too LaQueen

He was secretly tweezing his pubes out one by one well known in acting circles as a tip to aid crying on cue

NannyOgg, what you're forgetting is that he went to one of the country's most elite schools. If anti-semitism is bred into the elite (evidence says it is) then he might have been ribbed for the Jewish connotations of his name. Thirteen year-old boys are as capable of taking the piss out of religion/class etc as adults. I know this only too well as a Sikh boy at my secondary school changed his name to Stephen to fit in :(

I am pretty tired of all the recent push to abstract Tory policies from their apparently warm and fuzzy personalities. What is this? Hug a fucking Tory week? Give me a break!

This was not a private funeral, neither did it have any personal connection to him. He was there for political reasons and so therefore WE can comment. And we can be snidey and angry because life is pretty fucking hard for a lot of people right now, while the mega rich - helped by soggy potato face Osbourne - only get richer.

He has no feelings. He is the Borg.

He has said that he wanted to change his name to George after his grandfather, who he refers to as a war hero, and because neither he nor his mother had ever liked Gideon. I know several people who go by their middle name because they don't like their first name, and think it is really clutching at straws to suggest that he or his peers were anti semitic.

Furthermore, being Jewish doesn't seem to be a barrier to Tory politicians - the Goldsmiths, Michael Howard, Edwina Currie, Nigel Lawson, Malcolm Rifkind and loads more, right back to Disraeli.

Sheshelob, I think I'm in lurve with you.

I can imagine what was going through his waxy little napper when he squeezed that tear out... "The Caring Face of George Osborne" I bet he thought that's what all the headlines would be today, instead of the slightly queasy reaction that he has got.

Sheshelob - of course people can say whatever they want, but others are going to think that savaging someone for crying at a funeral, or for their potato-faced personal appearance, or for attaching made-up significance to a child deciding to change their name at the age of 13, sounds a bit playground, and they're free to say that too.

I've said the same on threads savaging Gordon Brown for looking dour, or attacking Ed Milliband for speaking nasally, because it says more about the observer than the observed.

Twatkins! Ha!

He'd seen actual humans do it so he thought he'd give it a try.

Ade - so what CAN we say? Is it allowed to be funny, or is that too playground, too? I hadn't realised that we were on the Newsnight message board.

It's good you're here, then. Playgrounds need a dinner lady to keep everyone in line.

Odd question. Say what you want.

I didn't realise that disagreeing meant that I was trying to keep everyone in line.

If you must disagree, can you try to be a bit funnier.

No.

I think the source of derision is not the tear per se but the way he left it rolling,un wiped, down his face in an attention seeking manner. This strategy is popular amongst the under 8s I know....