So, Thatcher is dead. If I was in any doubt that most of my Facebook friend list is on the political left I'm not now. It's like they just heard that Hitler has shot himself in his bunker and it's VE day all over again. They are practically dancing on the tables. Over on the websites of the conservative press the response is equally predictable; sycophantic reverence for a political saint, on a par with Winston Churchill; a fearless crusader against homegrown trade union thuggery and terrorism, a champion of liberty and prosperity, defeater of the grubby Argentines etc. It's a stark illustration of how divisive a political figure Thatcher was, and maybe always will be, in this country. I find myself a little disappointed by this. Can't we look at her rationally?
Twenty years ago I'd have placed myself in the "hate Thatcher" camp. The oddities of our political system meant her party had total control over parliament even with only 42% of the vote, and within which she often exercised the power of total monarch unrestrained by any written constitution. Her style was overtly monarchical, sometimes assuming a manner of speech recognisable as Queen Elizabeth's and, in the manner of a Soviet dictator, taking the salute from a podium as tanks paraded past her to celebrate victory in the Falkland war. This last act had a treasonous quality to it. Most older trade unionists regard her as a figure of total evil who undermined workers' rights and tied unions up in a gimp-suit of legal restrictions which essentially destroyed them. During the infamous coal miners' strike she took an overtly anti-union stance and we saw police violence employed as a political weapon against labour, resulting in actual deaths. To this day many residents of former coal mining towns regard her as a politician who waged direct war against them and their children. This period also saw extensive rioting in several cities as a reaction against poverty and perceived police racism. Thatcher's conservative party, meanwhile, adopted a free-market ideology (the exact opposite of its ideology in the previous century) apparently blended with intense social conservative hatred. Greed and conspicuous consumption were applauded, all public services characterised as wasteful; gays and single mothers were vilified. The comedian Harry Enfield created a character named 'Loadsamoney' to exemplify the spirit of the age; a semi-literate, foul-mouthed drunken yob, perpetually sneering and waving a wad of bank notes in the faces of his audience. Eventually even Enfield himself found his creation too disgusting to bear and killed him off. Ultimately Thatcher herself became so unpopular that her own party unseated her as leader in order to avoid losing the 1992 election. I was so happy on that day. I remember it well. Yea, I hated Thatcher and I hated the revolting culture of which she was apparently the avant garde.
Was I right though? I'm not so sure now. How can one person be given the credit (or blame) for shaping an entire society of 60 million people for over a decade? Richard Dawkins put it well when his producers insisted that the title of his TV programme about religion be 'the root of all evil'. "No one thing is the root of all anything" he protested. Thatcher may have contributed to the political culture of that time but she didn't create it single handedly. Our electoral system may be unfair but the fact remains that Thatcher won elections. The opposition just didn't convince enough people. There was a popular movement in her direction. And was she really such a right wing extremist? As a committed trade unionist I'm supposed to regard her as a the antichrist but in terms of policy she enacted nothing which seems particularly unreasonable. Closed shops were banned (i.e. workplace trade union membership became voluntary) and strike ballots (democracy) made compulsory. If anything these changes just made trade unions more legitimate. The unions were dying anyway, not because of Thatcher, but because heavy industry and coal mining were becoming economically unviable. In industrial relations this is called the 'mountain gorilla' theory of shrinking natural habitat. Our manufacturing base has also declined catastrophically, but can we blame Thatch for that too? In Germany employers cooperate with each other and with unions to drive a high skilled manufacturing base. In the UK they've failed to do this at any time since WW2. As a war-mongerer she wasn't much cop either. She never invaded another country (unlike Blair) and she helped lay the foundations of the peace process in Northern Ireland, a sensible hand over of Hong Kong to China and a better relationship with Gorbachev and the USSR. As for selling off public industries, some of them should have been (British telecom). What else? Did she privatise state schools? No. Did she try and contract out the entire NHS? No. Did she impose tuition fees on university students? No. In policy terms the present government is far more extreme, it just has a softer image. In comparison Thatcher actually looks left-wing. As for the obscene excesses of that 'Loadsamoney' culture, did she really create that? Her founding political ideology was of an older variety, the Victorian ideal of thrift. Entreprenureal individuals were going to use their tax-cut wealth to save and build for themselves. Instead we ended up in a deregulated hell of credit card debt and mortgages, presided over by a finance industry who didn't give a fuck. Was that her intention? Probably not. Did subsequent leaders or the Labour government do anything to stop it? No, they did not.
If, as a nurse, I'd ended up caring for Thatcher in her old age I imagine I'd have found her much like many other educated, colourful elderly patients I've met in my job. I'd probably have disagreed with her on many issues but I bet she would have been interesting. No, I probably don't hate Thatcher any more. Hating is too tiring.
Twenty years ago I'd have placed myself in the "hate Thatcher" camp. The oddities of our political system meant her party had total control over parliament even with only 42% of the vote, and within which she often exercised the power of total monarch unrestrained by any written constitution. Her style was overtly monarchical, sometimes assuming a manner of speech recognisable as Queen Elizabeth's and, in the manner of a Soviet dictator, taking the salute from a podium as tanks paraded past her to celebrate victory in the Falkland war. This last act had a treasonous quality to it. Most older trade unionists regard her as a figure of total evil who undermined workers' rights and tied unions up in a gimp-suit of legal restrictions which essentially destroyed them. During the infamous coal miners' strike she took an overtly anti-union stance and we saw police violence employed as a political weapon against labour, resulting in actual deaths. To this day many residents of former coal mining towns regard her as a politician who waged direct war against them and their children. This period also saw extensive rioting in several cities as a reaction against poverty and perceived police racism. Thatcher's conservative party, meanwhile, adopted a free-market ideology (the exact opposite of its ideology in the previous century) apparently blended with intense social conservative hatred. Greed and conspicuous consumption were applauded, all public services characterised as wasteful; gays and single mothers were vilified. The comedian Harry Enfield created a character named 'Loadsamoney' to exemplify the spirit of the age; a semi-literate, foul-mouthed drunken yob, perpetually sneering and waving a wad of bank notes in the faces of his audience. Eventually even Enfield himself found his creation too disgusting to bear and killed him off. Ultimately Thatcher herself became so unpopular that her own party unseated her as leader in order to avoid losing the 1992 election. I was so happy on that day. I remember it well. Yea, I hated Thatcher and I hated the revolting culture of which she was apparently the avant garde.
Was I right though? I'm not so sure now. How can one person be given the credit (or blame) for shaping an entire society of 60 million people for over a decade? Richard Dawkins put it well when his producers insisted that the title of his TV programme about religion be 'the root of all evil'. "No one thing is the root of all anything" he protested. Thatcher may have contributed to the political culture of that time but she didn't create it single handedly. Our electoral system may be unfair but the fact remains that Thatcher won elections. The opposition just didn't convince enough people. There was a popular movement in her direction. And was she really such a right wing extremist? As a committed trade unionist I'm supposed to regard her as a the antichrist but in terms of policy she enacted nothing which seems particularly unreasonable. Closed shops were banned (i.e. workplace trade union membership became voluntary) and strike ballots (democracy) made compulsory. If anything these changes just made trade unions more legitimate. The unions were dying anyway, not because of Thatcher, but because heavy industry and coal mining were becoming economically unviable. In industrial relations this is called the 'mountain gorilla' theory of shrinking natural habitat. Our manufacturing base has also declined catastrophically, but can we blame Thatch for that too? In Germany employers cooperate with each other and with unions to drive a high skilled manufacturing base. In the UK they've failed to do this at any time since WW2. As a war-mongerer she wasn't much cop either. She never invaded another country (unlike Blair) and she helped lay the foundations of the peace process in Northern Ireland, a sensible hand over of Hong Kong to China and a better relationship with Gorbachev and the USSR. As for selling off public industries, some of them should have been (British telecom). What else? Did she privatise state schools? No. Did she try and contract out the entire NHS? No. Did she impose tuition fees on university students? No. In policy terms the present government is far more extreme, it just has a softer image. In comparison Thatcher actually looks left-wing. As for the obscene excesses of that 'Loadsamoney' culture, did she really create that? Her founding political ideology was of an older variety, the Victorian ideal of thrift. Entreprenureal individuals were going to use their tax-cut wealth to save and build for themselves. Instead we ended up in a deregulated hell of credit card debt and mortgages, presided over by a finance industry who didn't give a fuck. Was that her intention? Probably not. Did subsequent leaders or the Labour government do anything to stop it? No, they did not.
If, as a nurse, I'd ended up caring for Thatcher in her old age I imagine I'd have found her much like many other educated, colourful elderly patients I've met in my job. I'd probably have disagreed with her on many issues but I bet she would have been interesting. No, I probably don't hate Thatcher any more. Hating is too tiring.
It's been a wonderful week for poking fun at Emperor Palpitine and the Rome branch of Hogwarts, but we mustn't neglect our historical homegrown Taliban. I found this circulating on Facebook and have been trying to think up some of my own Puritan billets-doux...
Roses are red, violets are blue. I'd love to go smashing church windows with you.
I need you......to help me kill every single Papist in the world.
My love for you is as pure as the whitewash with which we erase the idolatrous frescos.
I was talking to a Sudanese doctor at work today. He was telling me how absurd it is that countries like his own, or Somalia, are held back by violence and political chaos, when they could so easily be economically successful. He told me this little story which I love....
During Sudan's 20-year civil war he was conscripted into the army and sent to a camp in the middle of nowhere which was occupied by 3,000 soldiers. He was the only doctor. Sickness wasn't a big problem in the camp but starvation loomed large. The enfeebled government was unable to supply the garrison with a single scrap food and they were stuck there. However, they were saved, because one thing that the camp did have in abundance was mango trees. These trees produced such prodigious quantities of fruit that soon the whole camp was living on them. Day and night the soldiers were eating mangoes. They were eating them raw, making them into salads and even cooking them. Never before or since has he seen so many mangoes consumed in one place.
"Now imagine" he concluded "what could have been achieved if, instead of fighting a war, we had been exporting mangoes!"
During Sudan's 20-year civil war he was conscripted into the army and sent to a camp in the middle of nowhere which was occupied by 3,000 soldiers. He was the only doctor. Sickness wasn't a big problem in the camp but starvation loomed large. The enfeebled government was unable to supply the garrison with a single scrap food and they were stuck there. However, they were saved, because one thing that the camp did have in abundance was mango trees. These trees produced such prodigious quantities of fruit that soon the whole camp was living on them. Day and night the soldiers were eating mangoes. They were eating them raw, making them into salads and even cooking them. Never before or since has he seen so many mangoes consumed in one place.
"Now imagine" he concluded "what could have been achieved if, instead of fighting a war, we had been exporting mangoes!"
For some reason a newspaper in Toronto, Canada, has posted this photo (above) on their website, so I've had hundreds of hits on Flickr today.
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I've just heard that Kazakhstan's Alexandr Vinokourov won the race. I managed to capture him here smiling as he passed by us earlier.
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A white-legged damselfly.
Some of my experiments this week with my long lens. It's harder than I thought to get a whole animal in focus.
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Chesil beach yesterday. An unearthly place baking in the sun. An 18 mile bar disconnected from the land for most of its length. Small gravel at one end increasing in size to easter eggs at the other. 18th century smugglers could guage their position by the size of the pebbles when they landed on it at night. Dozens of men, regularly spaced to avoid entanglement, silently angling for mackerel, like some religious order worshipping the sea.
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Just met this family of Norwegians on the central reservation of the A24 next to Mickleham. They are going to camp there overnight ready for the Olymic cycle race tomorrow. Of course I had to go and say hello.....
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