‘Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!’ ‘Which old witch?’ I hear you ask. It is an interesting question
indeed. If we have learnt anything from the aftermath of the death of Margaret Thatcher, it’s that
no one seems capable of forming a balanced opinion of the lady. Ask a friend on the left and they’ll
put down their kindling and effigy for just about long enough to mumble something about miners or
milk before returning to their party. Look to a friend on the right and they are more than likely blub
out a sound bite about the birth of ambition in the midst of their inconsolable sobs. No matter what
logical, balanced or objective argument you put forward their opinion won’t change. People who
previously seemed perfectly rational will refuse to listen to reason. No one, it seems, is for turning.

This dichotomy was painfully obvious in the media coverage that we have been exposed to over the
two weeks. It was a depressing sight to see the Daily Mail juxtaposed with the Mirror in Essentials,
reverting to their political extremes without room for constructive analysis. While we may expect
this of the tabloids, even those publications which are presumed to adopt a more balanced approach
were quick to fall into line with the norm. The right wing press moved to condemn the left as morally
repugnant for daring to revel in anyone’s death, selectively forgetting their own reaction to the
death of Hugo Chavez a matter of months earlier of course, while the left took pains to eliminate
mention of anything vaguely positive that occurred between 1979 and 1990, despite the fact
that Thatcherism directly begot the longest period of Labour government Britain has ever seen.
Considering that British politics has undeniably shrunk ideologically since 1990, leaving a space
less significant than a small, isolated group of islands in the South Atlantic between the three main
parties, this is particularly peculiar.

Politicians, as usual, proved to be worse than the rest of us. The tributes in the House of Commons
were painfully ‘diplomatic’ in their handling of the facts, and went in the opposite direction to the
media, preferring to say nothing controversial at all, but they massively over compensated and
ended up saying nothing of worth. The expected eulogies from the Conservatives were all present
and correct, although the solitary tear from George Osborne at last week’s funeral was clearly as
much of a surprise to us as it was to him. ‘Red Ed’ turned out to be decisively yellow and shied away
from any form of criticism at all, presumably for fear of missing out on the £10 million buffet at the
wake. Instead, the only Labour MP who engaged with both sides of the debate was Glenda Jackson,
whilst the best inputs from the government benches came from Thatcher’s former colleagues in
the House of Lords, now too politically insignificant to damage their careers and many of them with
entertaining personal anecdotes that were genuinely engaging. The Lib Dems? Well, Nick Clegg
probably said something, but as always no one was really listening to him.

Neither newspapers nor our political leaders seem to have had anything constructive to say about
Margret Thatcher in the aftermath of her death, instead they have been either reverting to type or
trying desperately to avoid it. There have, of course, been a handful of constructive, engaging and
funny commentaries, but they remain tucked away in the back half of broadsheets, the backbenches
of parliament or the back end of the internet, and let’s face it, no one was paying attention to any
of those places. Instead we were all watching the pomp or the parties while sobbing or celebrating.
This thoroughly depressing, because the most divisive figures in history are those about whom
debate is most important and if we’ve learnt nothing else from the events of the past few weeks it’s
that Thatcher was certainly a divisive figure.

 

By John Briggs