The Laughter Of Our Children

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  president  Gerry Adams said that Thatcher “did great hurt to the Irish and British people during her time as British Prime Minister. Working class communities were devastated in Britain because of her policies.”

Interestingly, but again not surprisingly, the Hunger Strikes, while not entirely expunged from the obit record, were nevertheless confined to side-bar status. (Proof on at least one reading, that the British media and the public have yet to fully come to terms with their government’s starring role in that dirty little war in that dirty little Six-County ghetto.)

Of course Adams went on to outline the Republican laundry list of grievances while at the same time reminding people that even while she postured and manipulated the spineless British media into believing that she would never ‘talk to terrorists’, “she authorised a back channel of communications with the Sinn Féin leadership but failed to act on the logic of this.”

The response in some nationalist/Republican areas of the Six Counties was – understandably enough – to throw parties. Gerry Kelly, MLA for North Belfast , was reported in the BBC saying the former British Prime Minister was “not a peacemaker she was a warmonger”.

Kelly, convicted of bombing the Old Bailey in 1973 and a former Republican prisoner who both served in and escaped from the Maze Prison, was characteristically forthright in his assessment of the IRA’s one-time nemesis. “In my opinion she didn't represent anything good for working class people whether that was Britain or anywhere else in the world, one of her best friends was one of the worst dictators in South America - Pinochet. That's my opinion, why should I change it because she has died?”

Others in the Sinn Féin leadership were more diplomatic in their response to Thatcher’s death. Martin McGuinness tweeted that people should “resist celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher”. This was qualified by the ‘we’re bigger than this’ type of reasoning in the following; “She was not a peacemaker but it is a mistake to allow her death to poison our minds.” Of course, he’s probably right but it’s not like Irish Republicans were the only ones sharing ‘Ding-Dong, The Witch Is Dead’ all over the networks.

There’s been a lot of worthy guff spouted about ending the ideology being more important than the death of one grumpy, bitter old lady with dementia. And yes, that is an aspiration to be respected but we continue to live in a world where the momentum of Thatcherism seems almost relentless.

We live in a world where plump, doughy overgrown public school boys still run the show. Their policies remain true to the doctrine of individualism. We live in a world where the poor are blamed for their poverty; that they’d be prosperous if only they’d learn to help themselves.

It’s always fascinated me how Tories endlessly remind us of their virtuous philosophy of self-reliance; as if socialists and the workers’ movement actually wanted to create a world of dependants.

The difference between the left and the right on the issue of self-reliance is simple, both are in favour of it but one side will leave people to starve on the roadside if they fail to keep up while the other aspires to pick up the stragglers. Which side are you on? Actually, let’s not pretend it’s about ideological niceties of left and right because it’s not. It’s about whether you’re a selfish greedy fucker or whether you believe the people at the bottom should be helped; even if that could be at your expense.

Despite all the bumpf and bluster, Britain was never any better off under Thatcher than it would likely have been under any of the fuckwits that populated the Westminster village on any side of the house.

Seumus Milne in the Guardian presents a rather inconvenient truth for Thatcherism and its 21^st century acolytes. “A common British establishment view – and the implicit position of The Iron Lady – is that while Thatcher took harsh measures and ‘went too far’, it was necessary medicine to restore the sick economy of the 1970s to healthy growth.

“It did nothing of the sort. Average growth in the Thatcherite 80s, at 2.4%, was exactly the same as in the sick 70s – and considerably lower than during the corporatist 60s. Her government's savage deflation destroyed a fifth of Britain's industrial base in two years, hollowed out manufacturing, and delivered a ‘productivity miracle’ that never was, and we're living with the consequences today.”

The scars are evident up and down the country, economically and sociologically. This is a society traumatised by the big lie that promoted greed and big business over compassion and community.

Even now, we are watching a government which was apparently knowingly prepared to release half-baked statistics (admittedly it would appear, the hospital’s own figures on deaths) as part of its campaign to discredit the Children's heart surgery unit at Leeds General Infirmary which had been earmarked for closure as part of the Tories’ ideologically-driven policy of NHS cuts.

The Chancellor had no problem weighing into the recent Philpott affair, blithely using the deaths of six children to remind the public that the real problem in our society is benefit scroungers who have questionable lifestyles. And this insidious message appears to be getting through. If The Sun and The Daily Mail are to be believed, we are haemorrhaging money to a legion of Frank Gallaghers that are bringing the country to its knees.

But let’s take a closer look at these figures: Back in 2010, Channel 4 told us that the “Department of Work and Pensions estimates benefit fraud costs £1bn a year. Putting that in some kind of perspective, the department expects to spend a total of £148bn on benefits, including income support, housing benefit, disability and unemployment payments and more. A billion pounds going AWOL isn’t to be sniffed at, but it’s worth pointing out that it’s just 0.7% of total spending on these benefits.”

As someone who has tried to live on benefits in the UK, I can safely say that no-one lives comfortably on the niggardly handout that this state provides and I am by no means a man of expensive tastes. 

But still, our Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith was arrogant enough to assert that he could live on the £53 a week jobseeker’s allowance. Smith, who apparently lives in a 16^th Century mansion, dismissed a petition with more than 460,000 names calling on him to back up his claim as nothing more than a stunt. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?

If this is the tone being set by the political class, is it any wonder that people from Glasgow to Brixton and many points between are raising a glass to celebrate the passing of a woman who laid their green and pleasant land so low?