This is set to be Margaret Thatcher’s year. At the time of writing, she is still with us, but obits are being updated. I know this because I am sometimes asked to appear in programmes being prepared for posthumous broadcast. I refuse, because I have no wish to speak ill of the dead, even when they are still alive. But I’m sure all manner of people have lined up to pay homage, Tony Blair gushing, ‘She was the People’s Pinochet.’
No mention of her friendship with the Chilean mass murderer and torturer appears in the rather silly film The Iron Lady. Indeed, according to that version of history, her motivation in taking on General Galtieri was in part that he was a fascist. But, in common with her friend Reagan, fascist dictatorship wasn’t something she frequently held against people.
The one thing the film usefully reminds us of, as the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War descends upon us, is that she had sanctioned the winding-down of naval protection for the Falklands. The film might have gone further and shown that Argentina was being given a growing role in the future of the islands until they blew it by invading. In trying to use military force to rescue his popularity, Galtieri only succeeded in rescuing Thatcher’s. But in a sense, Argentina won the war. They got rid of their crazy, right-wing ruler; and we were stuck with ours for several more years.
In the end, it was her own party that ditched her, denying us the chance. Today, I bear her no malice. I’m sure she thought she was right. People generally do. But I’ll say it now rather than when her loved ones are grieving: she did terrible harm, and little of any merit.
Jeremy Hardy thinks… about the death of the coalition 'Conservatives have never truly been convinced by this country’s experiment with universal suffrage'
Tory think-tanks’ tangled web Right-leaning think-tanks play a big part in David Cameron’s Tories, writes Hartwig Pautz
Jeremy Hardy thinks… about hating the Tories The Tories have taken on human form, which is when they’re at their most dangerous
February 15, 2003: The day the world said no to war Phyllis Bennis argues that while the day of mass protest did not stop the war, it did change history
Egypt: The revolution is alive Just before the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, Emma Hughes spoke to Ola Shahba, an activist who has spent 15 years organising in Egypt
Workfare: a policy on the brink Warren Clark explains how the success of the campaign against workfare has put the policy’s future in doubt
Tenant troubles The past year has seen the beginnings of a vibrant private tenants’ movement emerging. Christine Haigh reports
Co-operating with cuts in Lambeth Isabelle Koksal reports on how Lambeth’s ‘co-operative council’ is riding roughshod over co-operative principles in its drive for sell-offs and cuts in local services
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The problem is she is cited as being a ‘conviction’ politician, hence she attended Eric Heffer’s funeral, respecting his different, but genuinely held, beliefs.
Unfortunately its not true, as the ‘market’ doesn’t decide, because its rigged. She was also the beginning of destroying the state to make large businesses’ richer and employ politicians.
Finally, not withstanding her mendacious attitude to her father, Councillor Roberts, she destroyed the concept of public service, replacing it with a poisonous culture of greed, which seems to drive people insane and distanced from 99% of the rest of humanity.
Before Margaret Thatcher the number of children living poverty had been roughly level since the ’50s at 15% (one child in six)
Under Thatcher’s prime ministership the number of children living in poverty doubled – from 15% (one child in six) in 1979 to 35% (one child in three) in 1990.
In the ten years since then the rate has reduced by about 5% – but the IFS is currently forecasting that that reduction will be reversed in the next 2-3 years.
Sources
http://www.cpag.org.uk/povertyfacts/index.htm
I was always taught if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything.
So……………