The Rusty Wire Service

So farewell then Margaret Thatcher. On the morning of 8 April the former Conservative leader, who gave her name to an ideology of self-serving individualism, passed away peacefully in the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. Where was I when Thatcher threw a seven? Well, I was at work writing for a newswire when the story broke; rather more concerned with the movements of the dollar and the yen than the passing of the left’s great Bête noire. I got a call from a friend who was leaving work to get drunk and never have I felt more like cheerfully throwing myself off the wagon than when he told me the news. The media reaction was predictable. Sombre respectful tones tempered with some footage of the poll tax riots or Brixton. Unsurprisingly, she was dubbed a great Briton and her mark on the British political landscape was duly and dully acknowledged by the leaders of all shades of British political opinion that the media approached for quotes. Apart from Sinn Féin, who’s  p...