What I find very sad is the number of people who have held onto this level of hatred for this woman who was required to step down from politics over two decades ago.
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“Celebrating” someone’s death(s) is a bit ghoulish imo – especially those who never actually suffered themselves, or have a meaningful understanding of the negative impact that Thatcher’s policies had. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the partying students start voting Tory when they become accountants and start seeing the £££ signs.
Conversely, it’s very easy for those who condemn Thatcher’s “gravedancers” when as “individuals”, they are ignorant to, or were not directly adversely affected by her policies. And these policies can’t simply be brushed away by blaming the egotistical Scargill, the “it’s your own fault” mentality, or even Tony Blair in his Delorean. Her policies cut far deeper than “just” the coal industry - which left irreparable scars. She devastated and divided entire communities - black, white and brown – all whilst the rest of the country looked the other way and started flag waving and getting their rocks off on a shock-doctrined national sense of pride after a winning an avoidable fight. Yet many of those who were fortunate enough to return home from the Falklands found the very communities they came from in pieces and that their compatriots’ gratitude only extending as far as Portsmouth harbour.
“Grand” leaders like Conservative’s Churchill and Labour’s Attlee united the people (regardless of political stripes) in its time of need – both when under the threat of annihilation and when rebuilding it. Thatcher’s war “heroics” involved saving a few thousand people in the Falklands (who she previously didn't care about) against an imploding psychotic mirror image of her own regime. Both Galtieri and Thatcher needed a distraction. So announcing the withdrawal of HMS Endurance and the British Nationality Act 1981 would pretty much read as a green light to Galtieri to “come and get it” if any time was good as any. Thatcher needed this war as much as Galtieri to save her political skin (her approval level doubled between before & after conflict) - and she had the ideal opportunity to do so whilst appearing as the non-aggressor.
Prior to invasion, at best, the Thatcher Govt seriously miscalculated and neglected the ability of a panicking regime to make a claim on the Falklands (despite the warning signs being there). At worst, the entire thing was engineered deliberately via "dropped crumbs" to shock-doctrine through her economic policies at home. Either way, engineering a situation where you know the lives of people will be endangered via negligence, vanity, greed, need for popularity, or the masochistic desire to physically harm others is not good. Her son's exploits seem to have that "despicable" Thatcher UK product stamp too.
So, if any person whose lives were adversely affected by Thatcher – be they a Falklands widow - Argentinian or British, Hillsborough survivors, a black resident of Brixton or “terrorists” in Johannesburg; wrongfully arrested Irish political prisoners, surviving relatives of Pinochet’s victims; a steelworker from the North East; miners and minors who witnessed family breakdown due to hardship, then forgive me if I grant them a free pass in an outpouring of emotion triggered by an event which will have caused many painful memories to come flooding back - only to see the very same attack dog press that smeared them in the 80s shoving Nikon lenses in their faces again. I won’t be joining any gravedancing “party”, but I do understand the reasons why they exist. I also understand why Thatcherites will not have one iota of sympathy or understanding as to why large swathes of people might be a little bit angry about her legacy being glossed up in the mainstream media to Thatcheration point.
Apart from The Levellers, the only positive thing I can be take from Thatcherism is the need for economic self-enterprise. In a global market, it is a necessity whether we like it or not.
This could probably be helped if our daily nationals and job centres were full of ideas to create a “mood” of self-enterprise – how to responsibly day-trade, how to set up business on eBay, how to sell tat, how to win poker money from drunk Americans, how to set up your own online mini “John Lewis” model with colleagues. How to put your PC use to bring in the £. How to bring money into the country. You get the gist.
But no. What do we have? Our 2 most popular nationals full of the most poisoned propaganda targeting some of the most vulnerable people in society – often found in the very same places where Thatcher’s economic mallet caused so much damage. We see the writing off of entire sections of society as “scroungers” all so a couple of megalomaniacal meeja bosses can make a few quid by tapping into the hate of comfortably numb emptyheads who are obliviously happy to do the bidding for Cayman Islands customers; The same emptyheads who howl with outrage the moment a tiny fraction of the suffering they are indifferent to see inflicted on others should ever happen to them.
I could quite easily join the “I’m all right Jack” brigade in their indifference, as I’m quite a canny chap in keeping wolves from the door. However, not everyone is the same, and I’m pretty damn sure I wouldn’t be feeling very enterprising if I’d just lost my job and there was a very strong public discourse that I was a worthless “scrounger” as I took the walk of shame to the local job centre to sign-on. When we start encouraging self-enterprise instead of trying to "shame" people into unstable jobs, and start sussing out that maybe the Scandinavians offer impressive and responsible economic policies – THEN I’ll dance a jig at the death of Thatcherism.
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