So many column inches in so many places have been written about Margaret Thatcher over the past week that it feels almost redundant to add further to the topic. Like so many, I have my own experiences of Thatcher’s Britain and the desiccated and broken lives blown out the exhaust pipes of its engines. But these stories add little more to what we’ve heard and read already, other than to further confirm the bitter legacy of power untempered with humanity. Besides, it would be tough to top comedian Russell Brand’s remarkable piece that appeared in The Guardian: I Always Felt Sorry for her Children.
Rather, at the end of the week that was, perhaps the more interesting question is to now ask what is to be made of the reactions to Thatcher’s death? To consider the haze made visible by the moonlight, as Conrad might put it.
It would be tempting to conclude that time has caught up with, overtaken and now looks back in disdain at Margaret Thatcher and her legacy. Certainly, much of the discourse around her death has focussed on the viciousness of her reign and the moral vacuum in which she encased it. It is easy to become drawn in by the drama, emotion and humanism of this narrative. But it is not the full picture.
When I was a kid – an oddly politically-conscious lad living in Melbourne’s outer fringe – my understanding of Thatcher’s Britain arrived to me via popular culture: The Young Ones and the other heroes of the alternative comedy movement, The Clash and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. Then, in the late 80s, my family moved to England for a year. Nestled away in the Cotswolds, I can remember being amazed at discovering that a lot of people actually liked Maggie. How could that be? How could so many people be so wrong? Surely, there was only one way to feel about such a tyrannical figure?
God, you’d think Devil Woman had never been written!
Even now, this division exists. For every person rejoicing that the wicked witch is dead, another bemoans the loss of an admired leader. This is not just a British phenomenon either. In Australia, we see the hard-faced, hard-haired daughter of Maggie, Julie Bishop, chastising Foreign Minister Bob Carr for daring to challenge the unreality of Thatcher’s noble image by relating a story that underscored her innate racism and the lens of conflict through which she viewed the world. But Bishop is not alone in seeking to protect the mythology of Thatcher.
Here in lies the paradox: that the reaction to Maggie’s death reveals that Maggie isn’t dead. The world has not moved on beyond the grasp of Thatcherism and a conservative politics of rampant individualism, of reprisal rather than fairness, of brutish authority rather than stewardship, of division and dollars and the building of economies rather than nations. We hear the echoes of Thatcher’s voice in those who speak about deploying drones to help “stop the boats”. We see the flicker of Thatcher’s merciless swinging cane in the cuts to TAFE funding in Victoria. We feel the chill of Thatcher’s shadow when we hear PM-in-waiting Tony Abbott talk about “Australia Inc.” and “adaptable workplaces”.
No, Thatcher’s passing does not signify anything. It is just another twist in the writhing evolution of conservative politics, where the skin is shed but the beast remains the same. To review and debate Thatcher’s legacy as though it were an artefact and unconnected to the conservative politics of today and, equally, to celebrate her passing as some kind of final karmic justice is to focus on the tail of the beast rather than its head. And that just seems a good way to get bit ... [fades to static]
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