The Thatcher Funeral

The extraordinary situation that directly followed the death of Princess Diana shows that in the UK certain kinds of event generate their own momentum. Floods of publicity on the mass media act as the driving force, and public attitudes firm up by accretion or repetitive suggestion. So it was with the funeral of Margaret Thatcher. This time we do not have what Ian Jack called "the grief police", but we do have an epidemic of revisionism--the selective use of historical fact to create interpretations which bear little relation to how things really were at the time.

She was a grocer's daughter who had pretensions to grandeur: in fact, "Queen Margaret" was a common appellation during her "reign". Thatcher is credited with modernising British society and striking a great blow for the emancipation of women. She is also credited with a Churchillian resolve in the face of adversity. I would question all three achievements.

In the confrontation with the miners she brought to bear the entire resources of the British State. She was bound to win, much in the way that in 2003 overwhelming US military forces were bound to conquer Baghdad. Breaking the power of the unions may have ushered in the age of a more "flexible" workforce and a freer labour market, but it did so at appalling cost. Communities were damaged beyond recall, the ranks of the underclass were swollen with new members, and a process was set in motion of redistributing income from the poor to the rich. Under the banners of individualism and enterprise Thatcher laid the foundations for casino capitalism and in the end the struggling families of the working and lower middle class are having to pay for that legacy.

No British politician has been so divisive over the past 100 years. One disturbing consequence is that, far from withering away, class distinctions have remained and become even more ingrained in British society. On the face of it, Thatcher represented upward social mobility. Sadly, the controversy over her funeral has seemed to pit a tawdry working class against an articulate, self-satisfied oligarchy. Rather than freeing people from the constraints of their class, Thatcher condemned them to it.

She was a "conviction politician", one of a long line that included Genghis Khan and Hitler. Never a subtle person, her lingering presence has annihilated any subtlety in the debate about her legacy. Her acquired, artificial patrician accent always sounded phoney. This may have been a small matter, but it, too, contributed to the fossilisation of the class culture. She was an arriviste in the ruling class, not a leader who suddenly empowered citizens of humble origin.

Her election as the first female prime minister in British history did very little for the rights of women, as it represented playing the political game according to men's rules, rather than creating an equivalent for women.

British culture makes much of the Churchillian spirit and this aspect was shamelessly played up during the Falklands/Malvinas war. The case for British possession of these islands is probably slightly stronger than that for returning them to Argentina, but it is far from unassailable. It does not represent a huge moral imperative on which to sacrifice British and Argentinian lives. Granted, in 1982 the Argentine Government's attitudes and actions were even more reprehensible than the British Government's, but adding yet more ethical failures does little to alter the moral case.

Margaret Thatcher governed the people of Britain with minority support. People admire the hardness of her attitudes under pressure, but let us remember that Hitler and Mussolini had the same kind of allure and it did not make them admirable leaders. Two of the great characteristics of "iron leaders" are their insensitivity and inability to recognise the drawbacks of their policies.

In Europe, the Left has become weakened and fragmented by its failure to assert moral principles over economic ones, coupled with bickering, infighting and a reluctance to modernise its ideas. It gets its residual support by feeding off the remnants of the class system, not by offering to try and dismantle it. Under Blair and Brown, Britain continued its Thatcherism and even in the dreadful aftermath of the banking crisis resources have continued to be transferred from the poor to the rich. Hence, not only has the class system survived, but it has gained the precariat, a massive underclass.

Carried away by the maudlin gravitas of the occasion, the BBC commentator at the Thatcher funeral said "We are all Thatcherites now" What a gratuitous insult! On the contrary, we damn well are nothing of the sort. Britain has steadily become the most capitalist country in Europe, a place where communities of people struggle to preserve some sense of humanity and solidarity in the face of a thousand forms of exploitation. The social tensions are palpable and ubiquitous. For decades, Government policy has done nothing to alleviate this misery. As a consequence, quality of life surveys place Britain well down in the ranks of European countries.

Industrial transition could and should have been achieved by other, less destructive means. The Falklands/Malvinas should be seen for what they are. I do not wish to belittle the actions of those who fought and served, but there is a huge moral difference between their sacrifice and the decision making processes that put them in the position that they were compelled to make it.

Thatcher's very public funeral, with its opulently militaristic ritual and gathering of the rich and powerful, did much to consolidate the Severn-Trent line in British culture--and to marginalise those who live north of it. Moreover, it was the triumph of the establishment, the folks who brought you taxpayer bail-outs, service cuts, the presumption that the unemployed are scroungers, along with higher prices, lower benefits and the concentration of wealth in tax havens. This is a return to Victorian values, but not the values of Samuel Smiles or Charles Booth. Instead the values are those of the bigots and self-made men who looked upon poverty as a threat and a sin just as they contributed to creating it. We have come a long way back to where we were.