We are in a slight pause in the social storm surrounding the death of Margaret Thatcher: finally, news programmes seem to have moved her death off the top slot of the agenda (or, in reality, the top slot, second slot, third slot etc.), other news is being reported and 'reality' has returned. That is, until her funeral on Wednesday when we will have three hours of coverage on TV, there will be demonstrations against it and things may possibly get out of hand. But then division and strife were never strangers during her time as PM, so plus ca change.
When I heard the news that she had died, I actually felt very little. I might have felt differently had she died at the height of the Miners' Strike or during the introduction of the offensive idiocy that was Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988. There might have been a spring in my step had she departed during the inappropriate triumphalism of the return of forces from the Falklands Conflict (only around 900 servicemen died after all, so let's rejoice!) or during the introduction of legislation that allowed the sell-off of social housing but, crucially, failed to allow councils to replace that stock because, in the new world of the free market, we would all have our own homes bought with our well paid jobs so why would anyone need a council house? When she was PM, that was when I was angry with her, that was the time I wanted her gone. Now that it has happened, it's almost too long after the fact. We have the current Tories in the form of the clear and present danger that is Cameron and Osbourne to worry about. Her passing is not going to make their awful government any more palatable.
I have also worried about the type of vitriol that has been directed towards her - some cruelly misogynist, some just rather OTT. Although I hated so many things that she held so dear, I guess I can't help but also consider that she was a living, breathing person who is now no more and, in the moment of death, deserves something more considered than a tirade of abuse that she won't hear but her family will have to endure. Just as I think we can never descend to the level of those who would wish to destroy us (and using drone bombing raids in densely populated areas is getting perilously close to acting as terrorists), I would like to think that we can be better than the baying mob of the right: I have no praise for Thatcher but it does not mean that I have to abuse her. We should not present the right with the stereotype 'lefty' (a word recently rehabilitated by newspaper editors - how quaint!) as they will use it as a weapon to beat us. I like the approach of those Labour MPs who stayed away from the Commons 'Thatcher remembered' session this week: if you have nothing good to say, say nothing.
I will be clear that I hold no candle for Margaret Thatcher as a politician. As far as I am concerned, her achievements as Prime Minister begin and end with her being the first female PM of this country. For her to be lauded as the most significant Premier of the 20th Century is hugely disrespectful to the memory of Churchill and, even more so for me, Attlee.
Having said all of the above, however, I can understand why there are people out there who would use her passing as a moment to celebrate and I am amazed that the right-wing press and politicians can't see it. Everything the Tories love about Thatcher - her decimation of the Unions, her overly-enthusiastic crushing of the miners, her willingness to put up with millions unemployed and the destruction of communities in the pursuit of political dogma, her stubbornness - had such a significant negative impact on hundreds of communities, thousands of families and millions of individuals, that their personal hate for her has finally found an outlet: the reasons why the right love her are exactly the same reasons why the left hate her. So there is no point in my trying to pick out the 'good' bits of her legacy: for me there are none. However, I won't be dancing on her grave at any time in the near future.
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