Ever since Margaret Thatcher stopped appearing in public due to poor health, the left has seemingly been split between those readying themselves to celebrate her eventual passing and those who have resigned themselves to adopting her ideas.
Ever since Margaret Thatcher stopped appearing in public due to poor health, the left has seemingly been split between those readying themselves to celebrate her eventual passing and those who have resigned themselves to adopting her ideas.
Undoubtedly much of the news in the coming days will gloss over the political life of Mrs Thatcher with empty platitudes, focusing on the superficial aspects of Mrs Thatcher’s “firm government” at the expense of more detailed analysis of her policies.
Many on the left, however, are unlikely to forget the lives her government destroyed, the dictators she championed or the lives thrown on the scrapheap by her government’s casual disregard for the fate of the unemployed. One can accept the notion that capitalism is the least bad economic system without parroting the dictum that we are ‘all Thatcherites now’.
Many of us are not and never will be Thatcherites, and we will continue to believe that a more responsible capitalism would roll back much of the consensus championed by Mrs Thatcher and her government.
There are of course those on the left who will view Thatcher’s death as an opportunity to get one over on her family, her friends, and her supporters in a way that was not possible in an era when her ideas triumphed so emphatically. For these people, Margaret Thatcher’s death will not only to be greeted with sullen contempt but with active celebration.
Considering that during her reign Mrs Thatcher trounced the left at every opportunity, the desire to see the back of the woman is perhaps understandable. As well as this being deeply unpleasant, we on the left would do well to remember that the ideas embodied by Mrs Thatcher are not going to be dented, let alone killed-off by the departure of Mrs T from the physical realm.
The left would do well to examine with clear-sightedness where it went wrong in the 1980s, how it has behaved since then and how it can continue to learn from those historic defeats.
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25 Responses to “The left still has much to learn from its defeats to Margaret Thatcher”
bootsy
You can say many things about her, but taken from the last few lines of the Guardian’s obituary: “Speaking engagements made her moderately wealthy and she made her final home in London’s Belgravia.”
Compare that to some other people I could mention. I think you know who I mean. So who is the better person exactly…
bootsy
You can say many things about her, but taken from the last few lines of the Guardian’s obituary: “Speaking engagements made her moderately wealthy and she made her final home in London’s Belgravia.”
Compare that to some other people I could mention. I think you know who I mean. So who is the better person exactly…
bootsy
What, by building a country that feels entitled to receive welfare and handouts rather than having to work for it*. For taxing the middle classes more and more, both directly and via stealth tax, than ever before in our history.
For taking us into unwanted wars.
Oh wait, that was the other bunch who did ‘well’ for Britain wasn’t it.
* Not including bankers
XerxesVargas
I’m no supporter of New Labour. So your point is? In relation to Thatcher I mean? Oh yeah you don’t have one do you? Just generalised Daily Mail lines about New Labour.
But you could look at Thatcher decimating working communities and then leaving them to rot, for totally political reasons, as a good place to start with the blame for your supposed “country that feels entitled to receive welfare and handouts rather than having to work for it” and you can include the grapsing bankers in that too.
bootsy
Yeah, like Blair decimating the middle classes-depends on who you hate doesn’t it. Personalyl I don’t have a problem with rich or poor, black or white, as long as they did it without cronyism and govt support, otherwise any success is fake.
Let alone the architect of the destruction of the middle classes swanning off to work for dubious regimes and companies, some of which were beneficiaries of govt bailouts. Can you spell JP Morgan?
Not forgetting his dubious tax set up with his consulting companies.
Don’t tell. It was Thatcher’s fault wasn’t it.