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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29355 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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My favourite example of a British Tory doing this is Norman Tebbit, who was a key early ally of Margaret Thatcher and who would go on to be the main minister responsible for implementing her anti-union policies. Tebbit consistently maintained that the closed shop was a form of fascism, because it required workers to join a union they didn't want to in order to keep their jobs. In 1978, this eventually provoked Michael Foot (who was one of the leaders of the far-left faction within the then-ruling Labour party) to call him a "semi house-trained polecat".

Tebbit's wife was disabled by an IRA bomb in 1984, and he retired from front-line politics in order to care for her. As was then usual for senior politicians who retire while still young enough to contribute, he was made a Lord. This entitled him to a coat of arms - which led to the burning question of what does a heraldic polecat look like? Eventually the College of Arms decided that heraldic polecats were semi-mythical creatures similar to heraldic tygers, and could fly. So Lord Tebbit's shield is held up by winged polecats.

That's great.

Do you have a picture? Wikipedia only shows this. I'm not really up to date on my heraldry, but it doesn't seem to match their own description. And Google just provides news articles about the guy. He's been busy.

The description ("blazon" in heraldry-speak) includes "supporters" - i.e. animals that hold up the shield similar to the lion and unicorn on the royal arms. Not sure why they are not in the picture on wikipedia. I tried to find a picture of the shield with supporters, but my google-fu only found the wikipedia version.

Eventually the College of Arms decided that heraldic polecats were semi-mythical creatures similar to heraldic tygers, and could fly. So Lord Tebbit's shield is held up by winged polecats.

Reminds me of the "beaver" on the coat of arms of Irkutsk.

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