I have a difficult line to tread on this one. If I'd written this 15/20 years ago, this would have been an ill-considered and exuberant celebration of the death of a woman who polarised opinion then, and who continues to do so now. I've read hagiographic, fawning praise and open celebration of her passing today, with very little in between. But, oddly, the moment I was told of Margaret Thatcher's demise, I felt nothing. No sense either of vindictive happiness or sadness at her passing. This is, you'd think, a reasonably normal response to learning of the death, at an old age, of somebody you never knew.
This was not, though, if you grew up in Britain when I did, a woman you didn't know, at least in some form. You certainly knew of the effects of her policies - you could see it everywhere. Millions unemployed, the emasculation of the union movement, the complete abandonment of Liverpool, the selling off of the UK's major nationalised industries, her disgraceful protection of Pinochet - I could go on. Worst, for me was the fundamental change of mindset which her economic policy engendered in Britain. The deregulation of the banks and the promotion of an attitude that money was everything, that a social conscience and a sense of social responsibility could be sacrificed in the pursuit of money. That's what most effectively encapsulates the damage her dogmatic pursuit of her ideology did to us, for me. (I realise that, for many, the worst thing her government did was Clause 28, but I would argue that it's her economic policy, with Lawson at no.11, that has had the most lasting impact, done the most damage. We're still reaping what she sewed then today).
So fundamental was the change in British attitudes that the Labour Party had to move miles to its right to make itself electable again - the idea of socialism, even in a modern form, was anathema to people who were earning hundreds of thousands, and borrowing up to seven times their salary for a mortgage they'd learn to regret later, when the 'bust' part of Thatcherism's boom/bust economics inevitably rolled round.
Her political ghost, her influence, hung around the Tory party right up to the modern day - maybe it still does. She may only have died this morning, but her phantom presence could obviously still be felt guiding the minds of the more right-wing, patrician elements at Conservative HQ from the day she resigned back in 1990 'til now.
I've read that, regardless of one's views on her politics, she deserved respect for being a genuine and committed politician, who had the strength of conviction to stand up for what she believed in totally, and who blazed a trail for women in politics. I'd say that, in fact, both of those things only serve to further damn her from the perspective of the present day, looking back. For years afterwards, women in frontline politics in Britain, particularly on the Tory side, were compared to her. This is not a comparison I'd want making, were I a woman entering politics, even if I were a Tory, because of the antipathy Thatcher engendered in many people. People would wonder if a female Tory was 'another Thatcher', rather than considering them for their own merits. And in an effort to appear completely unlike her, we ended up with the supposed opposite, 'Blair's Babes', a ghastly byword for all that was wrong with latter-day Labour's style-over-substance politics and a completely damnable reduction of those women's abilities.
And those powerful convictions of hers were, ultimately, among the things which brought her down. She was utterly incapable of contemplating a change of course - remember 'the lady's not for turning'? She held so true to her word that Thatcherism became a byword for dogmatism, and ultimately brought her into conflict with even her most loyal colleagues. She couldn't face the prospect of bending, even slightly, to the views of others. Geoffrey Howe, a Tory I do have the utmost respect for, perhaps delivered the coup de grace. Delivering his resignation speech to a packed and silent Commons, he made it clear that her intransigence over Europe (she was almost fanatically, paranoically anti-European, politically speaking) had driven a fatal wedge between them. He said:
"The conflict of loyalty, of loyalty to my Right Hon. friend the Prime Minister – and, after all, in two decades together that instinct of loyalty is still very real – and of loyalty to what I perceive to be the true interests of the nation, has become all too great. I no longer believe it possible to resolve that conflict from within this Government. That is why I have resigned. In doing so, I have done what I believe to be right for my party and my country. The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long."
Under a month later, she was gone – her icy veneer finally cracking as she left no.10 in tears, clearly stunned at what she perceived as a stab in the back by her own party. In truth, they were just trying to keep the Tory ship afloat and needed a more human face, and a more flexible mind, to take over. That stubbornness is one of the reasons she's so reviled by many to this day – adherence to policy and the free market was more important than people, and anybody even slightly on the left of the political spectrum will never understand or forgive that, nor the fact that there are unsettling echoes of it in Cameron's Government.
So while I may not feel the sense of grim joy that may have been the case when I was younger, I can't say I feel any sense of loss at her death either. That she left an indelible mark on British society is unarguable, but that mark is a horrible, dark stain which reeks of money. I signed a petition set up to try to help prevent her being given a State funeral, a petition which was opened while she was still alive. I didn't do that out of any ghoulish desire to see her die - that's how strongly people feel about her, how strongly I felt about her. So while I may be treading that line more carefully than would once have been the case, and would certainly join in the condolences to her family, who have lost a mother and grandmother after all, I'm still standing fairly solidly on one side of it.
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