Blog: On The Day That Thatcher's Dead

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I'll never forget where I was when I heard Thatcher had resigned as prime minister- in a very dull lecture about Politics at Leicester Polytechnic. Our lecturer (who was, for the time and place, EXTREMELY right wing i.e. A Little Bit) said "Margaret Thatcher, who may not be Prime Minister for very long..." and someone put their hand up and said "No! She resigned this morning!"

It seems WEIRD to even think of something happening that way now - I'd had breakfast, wandered through Vic Berry's scrap yard, and been sat in a lecture for HOURS without knowing the Big News Of The Day. TODAY, when the Big News was announced, i knew within SECONDS, being first alerted by a text from Mr W Pilkington, closely followed by a LOT of other texts, tweets, emails, and facebook. Thatcher, everyone was saying, is dead.

And blimey, it feels really WEIRD. It's like January 1st 2000 or something, a day looked forward to for DECADES which finally turns up and... is the same as any other, really. Living under the EVIL YOKE of Thatcherism back in the eighties, when the country was in recession and there was a threat of nuclear war (DISTANT DAYS, i know) we regularly fantastised about her being killed, and working out what you'd do on the day of her death was a regular topic of conversation. It's strange - I bet nobody ever did that about Harold Wilson or Ted Heath, and I'm sure nobody does it now about Cameron. As loads of people in the media are saying TACTFULLY today, she was "divisive". By which they mean "Everybody sensible HATED HER but my BOSS thought she was great so I have to be careful."

This is quite different to how I expected things to turn out today - when Ronald Reagan died the Public Agenda was set ENTIRELY by the press and TV media, so it was a load of old bollocks about how ace he was, what a great leader, and nothing about the rollicking ride towards nuclear oblivion that he led us on, or how he (and Thatcher) did everything they could to profit the rich and destroy the poor. It even drove me to write a song about it, predicting the same would happen with Thatcher.

But, actually, it hasn't yet. The MIGHT of social media means that NORMAL PEOPLE have a chance to speak their mind IMMEDIATELY and say what WE thought of her and her legacy. Now, obviously, feelings are very slightly muted by the fact that she ended her life as a poorly old lady with dementia, and, despite everything, it STILL isn't nice to take joy in someone's painful death. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean we need to instantly forget everything she stood for, nor should we fail to stand up for the view of history held by those who live through her reign, rather than that of those who profitted from it.

What I'm basically trying to say is that we should fight for history, on the day that Thatcher's dead.



posted 8/4/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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