Which Side Are You On?

Only one topic today, all over the internet. The death of Baroness Thatcher, former UK PM and leader of the Conservative Party.
Death, the end of life, is not be be celebrated but as with anyone in the public eye their death leads to an evaluation of their legacy. As one of the most divisive figures in British politics in the twentieth century, it is impossible not to have an opinion. As many people have already said today, during the 1980s you were either for her or against her. Little middle ground.
I was too young to vote in 1979, but first voted in a General Election in 1983 when the Tories increased their majority, despite 3 million unemployed. There were already signs of things to come in their campaign of individualism at the expense of the collectivism that had seen the rise of the Welfare State in the years after WWII. Helped no doubt by the success of the Falklands War, Thatcher won and then embarked on her battle against the unions, and the miners in particular. Perhaps seeking revenge for what she saw as the unions role in the defeat of Heath's Tory government she prepared for battle, and sadly for the Left Scargill and the miners came out to fight on her terms and were ultimately defeated. I was a student in London at the LSE for much of the time of the strike, and the student union debates on Thursday lunchtimes were full of impassioned debates about how the Student Union should support the miners' cause. Could money be sent directly, or should it go instead to the miners wives support fund? Was it legal to send the proceeds of the games machines or not? While a student in Durham I had seen communities destroyed by the loss of old heavy industries. This was the nature of the fight. The battle was fierce, almost medieval at times, such as at Orgreave, where men and horses competed for supremacy.
Her policies championed the free market, but only when it suited her. Coal mines and steel works were uneconomic and therefore had to be closed but every farmer in Britain was subsidised to the tune of thousands of pounds a year. Publicly owned companies were sold off cheaply, and worse still, so to was the public housing stock in a ideologically driven campaign that exploited the aspirations of a generation of council tenants. The right to buy might be a right, but it only applied to public housing, and once it was sold, there was no reason for councils to replace it as the legislation meant that any new houses would also be available for sale. Without the widespread availability of cheap council properties to keep rents in check, private rents increased, and therefore the attractiveness of buying your own property also increased. Pushing up prices further still. Leading to the property boom and ultimately the banking crash.
Internationally she was seen as strong, siding with Reagan in the Cold War to an extent that made us fearful of a nuclear war to wipe us all out. She railed against 'terrorists' in Northern Ireland and South Africa but hailed 'freedom fighters' in Nicaragua and supported dictators like Pinochet in Chile.
Caricatured in Steve Bell's cartoons or in puppet form on Spitting Image she was also demonised in song and chant across the country.
As is often the case when someone finally dies their actual career, the thing that made them famous, has long since passed. The actor has not acted for many years, the singer has not sung. Likewise Thatcher herself has not been involved in politics for many years. I can remember very clearly the moment I heard she had been ousted by her own party. As the news spread around the office people assumed I would be delighted, but no, I was disappointed that 'we' on the left would never defeat her at the ballot box. In fact the boost that John Major received when her own party ditched her was enough to keep the Tories in for yet another term. So in the wider world her death is irrelevant. And yet it stirs up so much. And arguably her legacy continues in the present government. Cameron and Osborne continue what she started.
All of which makes today's outpouring of comment not in the least surprising. The shame is that the bile and vitriol could not be tempered, and the passion and energy used instead to mobilise a real opposition to everything she stood for. Bringing unity to the Left, there's a Thatcherite legacy I could get behind.