Thursday doors – 16 February 2023

Doors 209 – Doors of Westminster with blue plaques

I am having a break from Croatia doors today, but will return to them next time.

I had a meeting in Westminster last week, and as always when I am there I took a few door photographs (some might say I am obsessive, I prefer to think that I am curious and interested). When I was downloading the pictures, I noticed that there were a few blue plaques adjacent to the doors and decided to do a themed set of doors this week.

I start with a notorious building, 55 Tufton Street, which is the geographical hub for a raft of right wing “think tanks”. I have stressed the name think tank, because it is a term used to give some kind of credibility to organisations with strong agendas who disproportionately influence government policy. These organisations, such as the Taxpayer’s Alliance, the Centre for Policy Studies, Institute for Economic Affairs, The Free Market Forum, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (climate change denial group) and the Adam Smith Institute, are not remotely transparent and their funding cloaked in secrecy and yet they have extraordinary power over our right wing politicians. 55 Tufton Street is known as the birthplace of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget that crashed the economy.

So what does this have to do with blue plaques? Well, a left-leaning campaigning organisation called “Led by Donkeys” pulled off a stunt about 4 months ago in which they erected an enormous blue plaque on the front of the building stating “The UK Economy was Crashed Here”, and they filmed the whole thing, describing what happens behind the doors of 55 Tufton Street and the influence it has over our current Tory Government. You can watch the YouTube video here, and if you are interested in UK politics I cannot recommend it enough.

Other blue plaque doors I encountered follow:

This one was the home of Sir John Gielgud, one of our great actors and luvvy, whose acting career spanned 70 years. I once named a fish (a tilapia) after him.

This next place was the home of The Lord Reith, who established the tradition of  independent public service broadcasting in the UK

Finally this building was the home of TE Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, who was played by the magnificent Peter O’Toole in the film of the same name.

Lots of links and reading in this post for those with the time, and some nice pictures for those with less time. May I wish you all a wonderful weekend ahead.

If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.

by Scooj