Mel C has said that Geri Halliwell’s claim, in an interview back in the 1990s, that Margaret Thatcher was “the first Spice Girl” left her “nervous about going home”, given the views that are commonly held about the former UK Prime Minister in her hometown of Liverpool.
In a 1996 interview with The Spectator, Halliwell claimed: “We Spice Girls are true Thatcherites. Thatcher was the first Spice Girl, the pioneer of our ideology - Girl Power”.
Asked now if she agreed with that sentiment at the time, Mel C - or Melanie Chisholm - tells The Independent: “Absolutely not! Geri, in the past, was very vocal about her support for Margaret Thatcher. I’m from Liverpool. It was a name that was not celebrated in that region”.
“They were never the thoughts or feelings that I shared”, she goes on. “People knowing me, from the things I do, are quite aware of what kind of person I am. I don’t think people think I’m a raging Tory! There have been a couple of times in my career when I’ve been nervous about going home. And that was one of them”.
Looking back now she says that she thinks that speaking to The Spectator at all was “slightly misguided” and “so inappropriate”.
So, Chisholm has stuck fast to her views in the intervening years. And so seemingly has Halliwell. Earlier this year she was seen hanging out with former Tory Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries at the Euro 2022 final between England and Germany.