Unable to sleep I have been reading many of the reports on the life and death of that incredibly divisive figure, Margaret Thatcher.
When I heard the news on the radio just before Twitter exploded, I didn't really think anything. You might say I was indifferent. Here was a woman whose policies I loathed, who had been in ill health for a number of years. It certainly wasn't the great shock that I felt on hearing of the deaths of Princess Diana or Kurt Cobain, or even Amy Winehouse. It was going to happen sooner rather than later.
But from an incredibly indifferent start I really haven't known how to feel. I knew that I didn't feel pleasure - and I don't mean that in a taking the high road sense. I genuinely can't be happy that a frail old woman died alone of a stroke in a soulless hotel. However, I knew that many in the UK would celebrate the fact that a woman who arguably wreaked so much social devastation on huge swaths of the country had died.
Do I blame them?
That is the question I have been asking myself all day.
After all, many on Twitter and on my own Facebook news feed have been calling shame on people who dare to express anything negative. The comments usually start "Whatever you may think of.."
My initial thoughts were to wish that people be respectful. A human being has died. Thatcher was many things, but she wasn't Adolf Hitler, she wasn't Pol Pot, she wasn't Augusto Pinochet (yes, a slight dig there).
But to many people she was someone really not very nice - scourge of the miners, enabler of police brutality, colluder of police cover ups of violence against miners and severe negligence and smearing of the victims of Hillsborough. All unforgiveable in their eyes. Why should they express faux RIP condolences? Are they not still allowed to be angry? After all, in the case of Hillsborough it took more than 20 years to uncover
the shameful truth.
Among all the extremes of emotion on social media I came across a Guardian article shared by someone on Facebook, which makes many excellent points and questions today's
misapplied death etiquette.
Dancing on graves is one thing, but to deny people the right to question a former Prime Minister's 'legacy' or her standing as an 'inspirational woman', well that doesn't sit well either. Not that it might be considered seemly to be holding street parties, it has to be said. But some people always cross a line. That is the world we now live in. Frankie Boyle tried once more, as did Morrissey. But such is the volcano of anger towards 'The Iron Lady' I fear their attempts to be controversial have been simply drowned out.
For me, rejoicing will not occur on the day Margaret Thatcher died - I already did that as a reasonably politically aware 13 year old on the day that she was so unceremoniously forced from office. That teary-eyed leaving of No 10 was the end - even though the effects of her policies were still being felt in the northern economic blackspot where I grew up, and probably still are.
But I guess many people didn't feel closure on that day in 1990. She had ruined lives, trashed whole communities and industries, made Scotland hate being part of the UK even more, and yes, expressed triumphant pleasure at the killing of young Argentinian men aboard the retreating Belgrano - because they were the enemy. No tears shed.
I have seen some chide:
don't forget she was a mother. And I nod sympathetically. But where was
mother's kindness then? She had much to lose and gain politically from that act of aggression. It is one of the many things she will be remembered for.
I wrote earlier in the week about how our attitudes seem to have shifted, how our hearts have hardened to the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves. Many charge this as a Thatcher legacy. It is said she hated workers and the poor alike. She certainly increased unemployment at a phenomenal rate. This
raised welfare spending majorly, something that the country has never recovered from. She put hundreds of thousands on disability benefit to keep them out of unemployment statistics - something the last (admittedly imperfect) government have been incorrectly taking the fall for - though it is true that they allowed too much of her work to carry on. Conservatives see this as amusing justification and acceptance, traditional Labour supporters a source of shame and missed opportunity.
And finally, what of the feminist question?
I was once a young Lincolnshire fisherman's daughter as she was once a young Lincolnshire grocer's daughter. Did she inspire me to think that 'even as a woman' I could rise to the top? That I could achieve power and really make a difference in the world?
I would have to say no.
Whatever I thought I could have achieved had no bearing on the fact that women were both head of state and high office. I may have been young but I still remember the oft-voiced opinion that no woman would ever be allowed to take the prime minister's office ever again. That she acted like the most brutish of men to dominate and bully people to her will. Yes, she was formidable on the world stage and it has to be admired that she stood up to all of the world's powerful leaders, including Ronald Reagan. But I think that she set the cause of feminism back a long way when she achieved what she did in the manner that she did it - just as she set the lot of those without privilege back.
So now the day of her passing has passed, let's set about scrutinising her legacy both good and bad, without the rose-tinted glasses. But more importantly let it be a starting point to reset the debate of what is currently happening in this country more than 30 years after she became Prime Minister.
It started in the aftermath of the recent Derby fire murders case/welfare debate - and it needs to continue uninterrupted by sentiment.
So, what are your thoughts on Margaret Thatcher, now that she is gone?
