Mourning sickness
Since Monday there has been a near universal media lockdown on dissenting views of Thatcher’s legacy. Mark Perryman explores how to break through the consensus, effectively yet sensitively.
“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.
Where there is error, may we bring truth.
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.
And where there is despair, may we bring hope.”
Margaret Thatcher quoting St Francis of Assisi, Downing Street, 5 May 1979
And the rest, as they say is history. 1979 was a landslide victory with Thatcherism committed to an explicit destruction of the post-war consensus since the 1945 Labour Government put in place the welfare state, the NHS and full employment as the government’s top priority. A free market and a strong state, coupled with an alliance with US President Ronald Reagan focused on the siting of nuclear Cruise Missiles in Britain and the replacement of the Polaris nuclear submarines with Trident. Hugely unpopular yet able to restore the Conservatives’ electoral fortunes ahead of the 1983 General Election via both the jingoism of the Falklands War the year previously and the damaging split in the Labour vote with the formation of the SDP. The 1984-85 Miners strike generated a new wave of opposition to her policies but the Tories had prepared for the strike with huge stockpiling of coal reserves and the effective militarisation of the police. The most notorious episode of the latter the assault on the Orgreave mass picket now the subject of an investigation indicating a misuse of police powers by the same force involved with the Hillsborough cover-up. Her eventual downfall triggered by the widespread rejection of the Poll Tax, mass protests and calamitous by-election defeats. Forced out by her own MPs, the politics of Thatcherism nevertheless continued to shape Blairite new Labour which came to power with its own landslide in 1997. Today the Con-Dem coalition continue to embrace Thatcherism with policies including the Bedroom Tax and £9,000 per year university tuition fees not even she dared introduce.
08.04.2013, the end of an era? The current political landscape suggests the Thatcherite legacy remains. But for many this is something to oppose. Rejoice? Yes for the miners, the steelworkers, the printers, the firefighters, the millions unemployed, the injustices the Hillsborough families were forced to endure, the Poll Tax protesters, those who lost their lives on HMS Sheffield, and the Belgrano, for what? For the women of Greenham Common and the Trident missiles we didn’t want. For the Gay men and Lesbians and the prejudice of Clause 28. For Blair Peach and all those who suffered at the hands of the SPG. For Bobby Sands and the prisoners’ demand for political status. For Peter Wright and Spycatcher. For those affected by the racism sparked by suggestions of a ‘swamped culture.’ For the NHS and the nurses, our schools and teachers, the council houses sold off, the privatisation of our public utilities, railways and buses. For our school milk. For the reputation of St Francis of Assisi.
Next Wednesday should be a day of remembrance of all we lost 1979-1990, much of it never returned to us. Unlike the tidal wave of media re-writing of our history and the politics of non-opposition most of us can combine the decent human sympathy of mourning the end of a life with a remembrance of our own lifetimes too, for many scarred by divisions we’ll never forget.
11 comments
11 responses to “Mourning sickness”
Left Unity is active in movements and campaigns across the left, working to create an alternative to the main political parties.
About Left Unity
Read our manifesto
Left Unity is a member of the European Left Party. 
Read the European Left Manifesto
ACTIVIST CALENDAR
Events and protests from around the movement, and local Left Unity meetings.
Saturday 19th July: End the Genocide – national march for Palestine
Join us to tell the government to end the genocide; stop arming Israel; and stop starving Gaza!
Summer University, 11-13 July, in Paris
Peace, planet, people: our common struggle
The EL’s annual summer university is taking place in Paris.
More events »
GET UPDATES
Sign up to the Left Unity email newsletter.
CAMPAIGNING MATERIALS
Get the latest Left Unity resources.
History will judge her, regardless of the main stream media’s obvious propaganda.
People are alive now who lived through her tyrannical reign, and they do not forget. To expect them to stay silent is arrogance beyond belief. I literally cannot watch the TV news at the moment, it makes me so angry.
Besides, who in their right mind watches the main stream media – and believes it? They are fooling nobody
To throw a party over someone’s death and rejoice in it, is bad taste according to some (unless of course it’s Saddam Hussein – that seems to be acceptable apparently). Fair enough, but don’t expect the majority of “not so Great Britain” to shed a single tear over her demise either. And surely the Conservatives have to realise, that whether or not it is right is (conveniently) missing the point – the very fact that people did throw parties speaks volumes about how she was viewed.
Truth will out.
Absolutely on the button Mark.
Mark,
Like yourself mate i cannot watch the news either,i lived through and saw with my own eyes the destruction of our manufacturing industry and the rise of capitalism which has allowed crooked bankers and politicians to rape the financial sector, now there is nothing for our young people to look forward to.
Hi Mark, as an ex-steelworker who went through the 1980 steel strike and finally ended up redundant. Later we worked togther in the old CPGB (you as Marxism Today circulation manager, me in the industrial department) continueing the fight against Thatcherism. I can agree with a lot you say.
The feigned shock and anger coming from the right against those who wish to celebrate Thatchers passing is nauseating. They clearly know how divisve she was and the toll she and her policies took on peoples lives.
Yes we can rejoice that she has finally gone for all those people who suffered and fought her policies. But we must not forget those suffering from her legacy and out of control heirs today. As I have pointed out elsewhere we should also be mourning the more than 1700 disabled people died last year within weeks of being declared “fit for work”.
We can not change the past but we can change the here and now. The best tribute for those who had lives wrecked when Thatcher was in power is to fight the modern vicious form of Thatcherism in the here and now.
Yes we can look back but we must look forward if we are to build a new Left, especially if we want to attract people who weren’t even born when Thatcher was in power.
Agreed with all the above. This whole situation has revitalised my political interest. So much so that I recently joined the Labour Party and the Unite union. I’m also attending the initial gathering of Left Unity Croydon on the 18th, it’s going to be great to have a conduit for all the anger etc….
Great article and well done everybody.
I had literally just landed at Heathrow when this news appears on my mobile….and I jumped for joy in Baggage Reclaim!! And yes, I DID sing ‘Ding, dong, the Wicked Witch is dead’, not entirely sotto voce…and I think that was the immediate, spontaneous reaction of many who suffered through the Thatcher years, and are suffering the aftermath of her regime.
So it’s bad taste to celebrate her demise, is it? Anyone remember the unholy glee with which many on the right celebrated the death of Hugo Chavez? I think that those of us who suffered under Thatcher are entitled to our opinions too.
Thanks for the encouraging responses. I hope the generosity of spirit will be a characteristic of the conradeship of LU.
Lets be honest it is a difficult balancing act. Rejoice, yet respect for the mourning of any individual death. Thats what the piece tried to combine. At the same time the media lockdown and the politcs of non-opposition has sought to squeeze out any kind of critical voices on the Thatcher years. These are now beginning to break through, good!
Dave le Peuple. A very welcome blast from my past! Hi, what you been up to?
Mark P
Hi. Probably par for the course for a burnt out ex-party worker … wrecked marriage, unemployment and political wilderness. Finally got a job as a postie for 5 years then wangled a techie job in IT, which I was doing up to last year when I took early retirement.
Now getting back to where I should of been .. back from the dead or to coin a phrase the zombie left.
PS We must meet up some time although it might be seen as dangerously creating a faction/platform/tendancy or outdoor pursuits club ;)
Unite, Unite and sink the Tories into oblivion
What a load of tory propaganda the news has spilt over the past week. Must be the most expensive party politacle broadcast ever, discusting