The horns of a dilemma

I'd like to see The Iron Lady, I really would. For anybody my age, who can remember her administration all too clearly, (my father coming home from working a night shift to declare with resignation to my mother, "She's got in") and spent their teenage years with her forming a constant backdrop to their lives, Thatcher is a hugely important and controversial figure.

Alan Davies, in his excellent, personal diary of the time for Channel 4, put all this much more eloquently than I can. His documentary recalled all too vividly the times we lived through. This was an era of the ending of free school milk, the miners' strike which so bitterly divided (and continues to divide) previously tightly-knit communities all over Britain. Of the absolute crushing of the union movement. Of the move towards privatisation of all our major national industry. Of huge job losses, massive cuts in private sector spending (any of this sounding familiar?) but most tellingly, the era in which money became the absolute prime motivator for everything. An era in which one woman, through the force of her personality, the culture of fear and contempt even within her own Cabinet and a dogmatic belief in her way that bordered on obsessive, managed to change the entire face of our society (a society which she didn't believe existed, of course) through sheer force of will.

Boom/bust economics, the culture of greed, the idea of banks as risk-takers rather than safe havens for one's savings, the abdication of responsibility for actually running pretty much anything, the idea that the 'market' will take care of things, all these concepts were actively made to flourish under her. She actually succeeded, I think, in moving the entire country to the right, politically speaking. People started to vote with their wallets rather than their sense of social responsibility. We are, for me, still paying the price for her government to this day, and in fact the present lot are recapitulating many of the worst policies, partly no doubt because they're Thatcherites themselves. She's left behind a dogma that plenty of Conservative thinkers still live by - she's still doing damage even now, even as a frail and evidently demented old woman. (I mean that in the medical sense – as in 'suffering from dementia' – not as a cheap shot).

The film has received mixed reviews, and I wonder how many of the reviewers were, like me, wide-eyed teenagers during this period. It may be that the film retains a bit less resonance for anybody older, or indeed younger, than my generation. Her family have distanced themselves from it completely, apparently unhappy at its portrayal of her as she is now. But here's the thing. I still can't stand the woman. I can't bear what she's made us, the legacy that Thatcherite economics, Thatcherite thinking, has left us. I've signed the petition (I realise this may sound morbid or even celebratory, but it's not) requesting that she not receive a State funeral on her death, because for millions of people she represents nothing less than the living embodiment of misery, bitterness, neglect, unemployment, despair, and they don't want to see that celebrated, however respectfully it's done.

So I think, on balance, I'll probably not go to see it. I worry that it'll elevate her, seek to celebrate her 'achievements', however bleakly it may paint a picture of her currently. I also worry that any portrayal of her as she is now may evoke an entirely understandable and human sympathy for the woman, rather than the politician, which overshadows the damage she did, and continues to do. Her family, it seems, are keen that she be remembered for who she was at the peak of her powers, not for what she is now. I heartily agree with them.

A positive post about telly!

Best thing I've seen on TV lately, oddly, I didn't see on TV. Just caught up with Alan Davies' teenage diaries on the Channel 4 equivalent of iPlayer because I missed it when it broadcast, and it was comfortably the most intelligent and well-written thing I've seen on telly lately.

He spoke with wit and passion of his experiences growing up in an era in which Britain was bitterly divided politically and seemed at war with itself over disarmament, gender politics, the union movement, anything you care to mention. It resonates with anybody of a certain age. I'm a bit younger than him but remember watching coverage of the miners' strike, Greenham Common, the poll tax riots etc on television through opening eyes, just as he describes his own experience. I'm of course a bit biased because I share his politics, so his views on Thatcher and her ideology for example, which featured heavily, chime nicely with mine.

But it's close to home and a bloody good watch for anybody of a certain age. And for those of you not yet of a certain age, an instructive tour of how things were and, frankly, how things might yet be again given what are likely to be swingeing cuts in public spending later this year. One of the things he did very well was contrast those times with the relative comfort and apathy of, by comparison with that era, a de-politicised society today. Certainly a de-politicised youth culture, at any rate. The obsessions and fads of today's student generation seem pale and wafer thin already, but especially so when compared to those of his era. Maybe it'll take some catastrophic denudation of our public services to open a few eyes as his were.

Anyway, there's about a fortnight left before it disappears from 4 OnDemand or whatever it's called. Catch it while you can.