An old woman of 87 died today following a stroke. Millions of other old women also died today. Let's put the death of Margaret Thatcher into context.
Yes, she was the Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990. Yes, she was Britain's first, and to date, only female leader. Yes, she was the 'Iron Lady' and all that.
But did she really change Britain for the better? Was she really Britain's 'greatest peacetime leader' as current Prime Minister David Cameron said today?
Whilst the global media machine sucks all intelligent analysis out of this story and honorable members of the Establishment eulogize Thatcher to death, let's take off the rose-tinted spectacles.
The roots of today's financial crisis can be traced by to her deregulation of banking in the City of London.
Her draconian crack-down on the miners' strike of 1984 undermined the political power of ordinary people.
Privatisation is no great success story. Just travel by train in the UK and find out for yourself.
Would Britain today be so precariously perched on the edge of Europe without Thatcher?
Her record on human rights is tainted: she opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa and was an admirer of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Finally, just like her successors Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron, she was certainly not a peacetime leader as the British military has been kept busy since Ireland and the Falklands, in the Gulf, Afghanistan and most recently Libya.
It is arguable that Prime Ministers David Lloyd George (1916-22) and Clement Attlee (1945-51) with their welfare policies, notably the National Health Service created under the latter, did far more for the basic needs of the British people than Thatcher. (Whilst Churchill was clearly in a class of his own!)
So when you watch the BBC tonight and witness the blind celebration of a 'national icon', with mere lip-service to what a charmingly controversial figure she was, spare a thought for what Thatcher really was about and what she really did for the people of Britain.
Thatcher toned down the power of the state institutions and opened up scope for enterprise and initiative.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that rail services are worse today than in her era. On a recent rail trip (Nottingham to London) the journey went smoothly and on time.
Pre-Thatcher public services were bottom heavy with card clubs, boozing clubs etc lurking in every back office.
The UK is a more exciting, dynamic place to live than Germany or the smug, dreary Scandinavian countries rolling along under their money-gobbling, initiative-sapping, so-called protective Auntie States.