What I said about this recently, I stand by every word of it.
Most likely, we'd have still had some form of Thatcherism without
Thatcher, we just wouldn't have called it Thatcherism. But that
doesn't mean that, for those of us who lived through the Eighties,
today isn't something to celebrate.
Whether
someone else would have done it is in many ways akin to arguing “if
I didn't sell heroin to schoolkids, someone else would.” Or arms to
dictators... no, wait, that was her son. Thatcher should still be
held responsible for her appalling actions. Under the guise of
extending “individual freedom”, her policies exacerbated the
class divide to the point where the wealth gap is wider than ever and
social mobility is virtually a thing of the past. Once it was the
case on Albion's shore that you could fall ill, get old or lose your
job without having to worry about the consequences too much. No
longer.
She
talked about “rolling back the frontiers of the state”, but these
were oddly mapped frontiers where an NHS hospital was an example of
state control while a group of riot cops attacking a picket line was
not. Her 'deregulation' of finance-capital, continued by her
mimicking successors, led to the worst recession in post-war history
- the one we're now living through. And while the emphasis should be
on her political legacy, if we're being pulled into describing her as
a person she was a loathsome, racist, homophobic, self-righteous
bully.
But
more to the point, I'm joining in precisely because so many people
have told me not to. All the wrong people have said it's the wrong
thing to do – making it the right thing to do by definition.
Simples, really.
Over
at Mike Taylor's place, in the comments section someone
called Jdege insists “her opponents didn’t have rational
arguments.” Of course this individual is either trolling or being
imbecilic. (It scarcely matters which). But such comments act as an
outlier for right-wing opinion, in the same way the Daily Mail's
insistence Thatcher's state-funeral-in-all-but-name is part of a
leftist plot because it's not an actual state funeral (apart from all
the ways in which it is).
It's
a bit like the war on Iraq. Before the war, I was told numerous times
there was no point going on about this now, as war hadn't even begun.
As soon as it started, the same people told me now was not the time
to criticise, not now we were at war.
It's
a bit like strikes. The right won't come out and say they're flat-out
against them. Instead they always insist “now is not the time for
strikes”, staying strangely quiet on the subject of when that
mysterious time might actually arrive.
When
they say “this is not the time” the invisible corollary is “and
it never will be. At least not if we get our way.”
As
Professor
Nicholas Till argued in a recent letter to the Guardian,
this is “evidence, if evidence were needed, that the neoliberal
capitalist ideology that she forced upon Britain has now been
accepted as the official ideology of the British state. The message
it sends so clearly is that neoliberal capitalism transcends
politics: it is the natural and 'correct' state of affairs.”
A
similar trick was pulled in America after Reagan popped it. Though
even more than Reagan, Thatcher proved to be a divisive figure even
within her own party. After she'd been ousted, for the first time in
her life she provided a useful service by constantly criticising the
current leadership. (As the old saying goes, “with enemies like
this, who needs friends?”)
Cameron's
initial tactic was to draw a line under Thatcher and portray himself
more as a successor to Blair. (His 'social inclusion' stance dubbed
'hug a hoodie' by cynics. Or by anybody else, for that matter.) All
of which makes it even more vital for them to try and perform this
sancification. All that unfortunate truth business must be buried
under the notion that she's a symbol of national unity.
I
was against her policies then and I'm against them now. To those who
claim we're crowing over the death of an old woman, I say wait until
the next old woman dies of a stroke and see if we react the same way.
To those who accuse us of “bad taste,” Thatcher denied welfare
payments for strking miners' funerals. That's not exactly in the best
possible taste.
How
do I feel about the death of Margaret Thatcher? I feel this...
Inevitably,
Blair was one of those most loudly insisting no-one should dare
criticise her. Is it too early to start picking our song for him? Is
there anywhere in 'Wizard of Oz' where they burst
into something like 'Shut Up, You Sanctimonious Lying Little
Shit'?
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