The witch is dead. Ding dong?

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.

Justice for the 96

Back in November of last year I wrote this piece, on the successful efforts of countless thousands of people in applying sufficient pressure on the Government to fully disclose documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster.

Those documents would not ordinarily be released for another 7 years, and their content shows that there are plenty of people with good reason to wish they hadn't been. Many of the families, and many within the football supporting community as a whole, have suspected all along that there was a cover up of the facts of the case. But just how shocking some of the revelations are has led to the Prime Minister standing in a packed and silent House of Commons to offer a formal apology for what he called the 'double injustice' of the original disaster and subsequent smearing and blame of the Liverpool fans.

Some of the main points raised by the independent review, but never published before today, include:

• New evidence about how the authorities failed, including documents which show a delay from the emergency services when people were being crushed (evidently up to 41 lives could have been saved if the emergency services had acted differently)
• Shortcomings in the response by the ambulance service and other emergency services in addition to failings by police
• Rescue attempts were held back by failures of leadership and co-ordination
• Victims' families were correct in their belief that some of the authorities attempted to create a "completely unjust" account of events that sought to blame the fans
• "Despicable untruths" about the behaviour of fans were part of police efforts "to develop and publicise a version of events that focused on allegations of drunkenness, ticketlessness and violence"
• Police officers carried out police national computer checks on those who had died in an attempt "to impugn the reputations of the deceased"
• 116 police statements amended or shortened to remove negative comments about South Yorkshire police's handling of the incident

These quoted from the BBC's website. 

23 years of campaigning for the truth are finally over, but this must not be the end. The findings of the original public enquiry must be quashed, and the people who have lied, the people who have covered up, and the people who have blamed the fans must be punished. The police's part in this must be revealed to the full glare of public scrutiny, and those responsible both for exacerbating the disaster and then smearing the victims in the aftermath must be punished.

I particularly want to see Kelvin MacKenzie sued for what he did. "The Truth", screamed his despicable rag, The Sun, while the victims still lay in the morgues. Liverpool fans caused the crush. Liverpool fans robbed the dead. Liverpool fans spat at, abused and urinated on police officers. It must be true, right? Football fans - tribal, snarling, atavistic scum, right? The Sun said it was their fault, and millions believed them. All now proven, as has been said all along by those who were there, to be utter lies. His former paper's forthcoming apology will cut little ice in Liverpool, where sales of The Sun have never recovered after what they did, and never will.

I want to hear Thatcher apologise for basically demonising football fans for years afterwards, choosing to believe the lies of a police officer over what eye witnesses were saying, and for her government's refusal to properly and impartially investigate what happened.

There is no sense of celebration, of course. The families and friends of the victims have vindication but not yet the full justice they crave. But they will. As I said back in November, the truth will out in the end. Tireless work by campaigners, notably among them Andy Burnham MP, who deserves great credit for his determination on this matter, is finally going to get justice for the 96.

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.