Independent UK: We live in Mrs Thatcher's monument

[marmar]

Alan Watkins: We live in Mrs Thatcher's monument
The Iron Lady launched an era of selfishness, greed and fraud which her successors have fostered with care

Sunday, 1 March 2009


In depictions of Margaret Thatcher quite a wide gap has already appeared between fact and fiction, between biographies (or other accounts of the period) and novels or plays. The latest television play was on BBC2 last Thursday. It was mainly about her fall at the hands of her own party in November 1990.

A previous TV play, broadcast some months earlier with a different and smaller cast, showed a young Margaret in her struggle to become a Tory MP. In both accounts, Mrs Thatcher was depicted as a clever and, most of all, a courageous woman, fighting off men.

In the first production, she triumphed unexpectedly over her rivals and adversaries. In the second, more recent, production, she was finally brought low. The producers' party line was plain for all the see: men are in a conspiracy to do down women.

In the first play, The Long Walk to Finchley (where she at last found a safe seat in 1959), she was shown in a dismal procession round selection conferences, rejected in favour of men. She had unsuccessfully contested Dartford in 1950 and 1951 under her maiden name of Roberts.

No matter. The programme showed one of her rivals at the selection meeting wearing his war medals on an ordinary suit. I had never heard of the practice before. I assumed the local chairman would have advised the hopeful candidate to take his medals off straightaway, as he had clearly kept them on through some oversight. I do not want to make heavy weather of this, but producers' tricks of this kind are not necessary.

....(snip)....

She was, I think, mistaken about Mrs Thatcher. She inaugurated an era of selfishness, greed and, latterly, fraud, all of which flourished under her three successors as Prime Minister. The era has now come to an end. If you seek a monument to Margaret Thatcher, look around you. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/alan-watkins/alan-watkins-we-live-in-mrs-thatchers-monument-1634758.html

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. The rise of the Yuppies under Thatcher and they came down with a bump!

[acmavm]

2. The rise of ours came with Reagan and ended in total disgrace with

bush**. In the meantime, we also had a guy who pretended to be the working man's best friend signing the legislation that led to the joblessness in our country today all while not having 'sex' with a chubby tart who thought cum stains on a blue dress were a keepsake.

Go figure.

[Idealism]

3. Thatcherism is a brother to Reaganomics

It has done the same thing in the UK and in the US. Great societies lay in near ruins, and it is sure to get worse. Eastern Europe is about to fall.

[bemildred]

4. Bullshit will only take you so far. nt

[LeftishBrit]

5. Good article. All too sadly true.