I\u2019ve been driven back to my Blog after a long absence by my growing astonishment, disbelief and sheer incredulity at the seeming shock in the media and amongst the political and chattering classes at the levels of hate expressed towards our \u2018dear departed leader\u2019 Margaret Thatcher.<\/p>\n
I confess myself stunned at this apparent lack of knowledge of the feelings of a large swathe of the population \u2013 in the North of England, Scotland and Wales, feelings have always run very high concerning Thatcher.<\/p>\n
Perhaps ensconsed in their cosy little metropolitan existence, the real, raw, heartfelt feelings of the populous don\u2019t touch these exalted and overly-privileged types. They professed shock at the plain truth of MP Glenda Jackson\u2019s tribute to Thatcher in the House yesterday \u2013 which were amongst the only true words spoken about the reality of Thatcher\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
Do these people genuinely not know how Thatcher affected ordinary people\u2019s lives, as opposed to yuppies and fat cats and barrow boys in the City?<\/p>\n
They seem to feel they have the right to CRITICISE normal, ordinary, decent folk in the North and elsewhere for daring to express real emotion. Perhaps \u2018hatred\u2019 is a bad word to these liberal types \u2013 but HATRED is the only word that can be used to describe the emotions of many decent people towards the woman who did her level best while she was PM to destroy their lives, their livelihoods, their communities, their children\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
While she enjoyed friendships with the likes of Jimmy Savile and General Pinochet…..<\/p>\n
If you didn\u2019t live under Thatcher\u2019s deprivations, didn\u2019t have to deal with the suffering she inflicted on whole communities, especially in mining areas, then you have no right to criticise those who did, and who are choosing now, after 30 years, to seek to vent those feelings.<\/p>\n
Personally, I am shocked at the restraint most people are showing towards Thatcher. Some of the things I have heard said about her over the years would likely turn a delicate liberal commentator\u2019s hair white. Absolutely decent, normal people declared their intention to dance on her grave. These are honest people, who I am certain would never say such a thing about anyone else. They are good people and KNOW it is a terrible thing to say really \u2013 but such is the enduring hatred that awful woman engendered. People need to vent their spleen.<\/p>\n
The reality of Thatcher was to destroy the social fabric of the UK, to tear down the post-war Social Contract that had worked so well to improve the quality of most people\u2019s lives. She legitimised and made socially acceptable the bad side of human nature \u2013 extolling greed and selfishness at the expense of caring and sharing. She turned moral values upside down in this country \u2013 as someone said yesterday on Twitter, what had always traditionally been vices now became virtues. It became a dog-eat-dog world, survival and thriving of the most amoral, an \u201cI\u2019m All Right Jack, sod you\u201d mentality. The poor and the old and the sick went straight to the wall, as Neil Kinnock said they would in his famous speech.<\/p>\n
Worst of all, she did her best to kill hope for the future in so many devastated communities, to poison the future of their young people. Totally unforgiveable.<\/p>\n
Thatcher was a divisive figure in British politics, perhaps like no other before her. You loved her or you loathed her. She was a typical lower-middle-class woman, who carried all of the snobbery, malice and small-mindedness of her class with her. With an extra dollop of cruelty all her own.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t even so much what Thatcher did that have made people hate her viscerally for 30 years– it was the joy, the delight, the sheer revelling in causing damage and hurt and pain to people that we cannot \u2013 and will not forgive. We simply wouldn\u2019t be human if we didn\u2019t hate Thatcher as we do.<\/p>\n
The reaction to Thatcher\u2019s death on Monday by so many in the North and elsewhere was genuine and it was heartfelt. Many truly did feel that \u2018Ding Dong, the witch is dead\u2019 was very apt. Thatcher was an evil, hateful woman who gave no quarter and asked for no quarter. In the end, she reaped what she sowed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been driven back to my Blog after a long absence by my growing astonishment, disbelief and sheer incredulity at the seeming shock in the media and amongst the political and chattering classes at the levels of hate expressed towards our \u2018dear departed leader\u2019 Margaret Thatcher. I confess myself stunned at this apparent lack of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunoia.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}