Talk:Sermon on the Mound

Comments

I read the whole speech and nowhere does Thatcher mention the Good Samaritan, so I removed it from the article (although I know she did comment on that parable, but not in this speech). - Johnbull 03:21, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Quite right. I don't know why that quote has become associated with this speech, but in fact she made it away back in 1968 in Blackpool [1]: "The point is that even the Good Samaritan had to have the money to help, otherwise he too would have had to pass on the other side." But she repeated it on TV in 1980 [2]: "No-one would remember the good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well." In 1988 it was quoted back at her in Parliament (PM question time) by Win Griffiths [3]: "The Prime Minister thought that the most significant thing about the parable of the Good Samaritan... [Interruption] ...was that he had money in his pocket to help those in need. Will she now, in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, advocate that all those who have received money beyond their wildest dreams from the Chancellor in the Budget should give it back to help those people, or does she prefer the parable of Lazarus and the rich man?" --Doric Loon 13:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Picture

Does anyone know if it would be possible to get a photo of the actual event? The photo in this newspaper article would be perfect, if it is in the public domain: https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/16240741.thatchers-sermon-mound-widely-misinterpreted/. --Doric Loon (talk) 01:31, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sermon on the Mound/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 19:28, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Comments

• "made by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to" perhaps -> "made by Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister, to..." just because it's good to underpin the fact that Scotland and "Britain" aren't the same thing.
• Four citations in the lead, they can easily be moved to the main body per MOS:LEADCITE as nothing in the lead should be missing from the main part of the article.
• "address" is mentioned several times, can we mix it up a little with "speech"?
• "1985 Faith in the City report" italics?
• " a play on" link for "play"?
• "her Oxford years" link that savage university here.
• "And it has..." never keen on seeing sentences beginning with "and....
• "idea in Margaret Thatcher's political" no need for Margaret.
• "famously summed" notably
• Is linking Evangelical Methodist Church worthwhile? All my experience of Methodists is the opposite to evangelical!
• "and each one counts."" reference.
• "Choice played a significant part in Thatcherite reforms and Thatcher claimed choice" repetitive, re-word.
• "stating that Christ chose" claiming, or suggesting, rather than "stating". And do we really need to link Christ?
• Or God for that matter?
• " Spirit - something" en-dash.
• "Thacherite" typo.
• "in the press as " no need to link that to a different target.
• "end for Conservative" link.
• "English Methodism and" overlinked.
• References with online links need to be formatted properly, suggest using the {{cite web}} template, happy to help with that if it's a problem.
• Page numbers normally have a space between the p. and the number.

That's all I have for this first read. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Thanks so much for your thorough review. I have implemented everything you suggested, except one point: Evangelical Methodist Church is a separate American denomination. But I did link Evangelicalism - the Methodists today are mostly fairly liberal, as you noted yourself, but their origins in the Wesleyan revival were Evangelical, and that still had an impact on Thatcher as a girl. I have also changed the references to a newer format that I now prefer - hope you approve. Please do look in again and tell me if I have missed anything. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:40, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:36, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the Sermon on the Mound was an address made by Margaret Thatcher to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1988? Source: "The Margaret Thatcher Foundation" ([4])
  • ALT1:... that the Sermon on the Mound was a speech in which Margaret Thatcher offered a theological justification for capitalism and the market economy? Source: "Crossley, James G. (2014). "'Your Arms are Just Too Short to Box with God': Margaret Thatcher's Neoliberal Bible". Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse Since 1968. London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark. pp. 95–126"

• Comment: This is my first attempt at DYK - please be patient! :-)

Improved to Good Article status by Doric Loon (talk). Self-nominated at 07:42, 9 September 2021 (UTC).

Interesting speech and reception, fine GA on good sources, offline sources accepted AGF, no copyvio obvious. Welcome to DYK! I think that in hook and article, we need to clarify that the title is a nickname. Quotation marks, as in one of the headlines, might be the easiest way. Both hooks are correct, but I believe it would be more "hooky" saying that she claimed it was her speech with the most copy requests. Would you like to try, Doric Loon? - In the article, I tried to fix a link to ref Raban, please check, but couldn't find ref Torrence. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: Thanks for your kind words. Thanks also for correcting the Raban error. The Torrence article seems to have been taken off-line, but it was originally a print source, so it should still be citable. I have simply deleted the URL. Good idea about the hook. How about:

ALT2:... that Margaret Thatcher's office received more requests from around the world for the text of the "Sermon on the Mound" than for any other speech? --Doric Loon (talk) 09:34, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Doric Loon! may I suggest an

ALT3: ... that Margaret Thatcher had to wait while a series of parish ministers objected before she could give her "Sermon on the Mound"?

Comment: Several paragraphs are unsourced—Gerda, I think this would need to be addressed first? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 08:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the offer, and the check. In a GA, I am surprised. I hope Doric Loon can fix that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:26, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: I think you're referring to the "Background" section which I expanded in the last week (i.e. it's new since GA); I've added some references there now. If there is anything else you think needs referenced, maybe you could add a citation-needed tag at the relevant place in the article text, and I will deal with it at once. Thanks. Doric Loon (talk) 02:52, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks! I added some cn tags, we should have addressed the sourcing requirement after that. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 03:00, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: OK, I've dealt with those. However, all three of them were quotes from the speech itself, so all I could do in those three cases was repeat the reference to the text. I'm grateful for all suggested improvements. Doric Loon (talk) 11:23, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

• @Doric Loon: gotcha. I'm not the reviewer on your nom, so once Gerda comes back, you should be close. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 16:17, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

  I left 2 to choose from, - thank you two! I fixed 2 ref calls. Doric Loon, I recommend you keep this watched until closed, and then watch WP:DYKQ where it will be prepared for the Main page and placed in a queue. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

  • Thanks Gerda! Small correction to Doric Loon, though, watching WP:DYKQ won't help you in terms of finding your hook—you're going to want to wait until this nomination is closed by the promoter, they'll usually leave a note as to which prep set they put it in (the prep sets can be found at WP:DYKQ, it's just that putting it on your watchlist probably wouldn't help). theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 05:14, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

    All fine, but I said then, saying - at least I tried - that after the nom is closed it would be useful to watch the queue. This is general, - not all promoters tell the nominator so well what they do. I've seen unhappy people who had not noticed until Main page credit that their hook had been changed, for example. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

T:DYK/P1