Margaret Thatcher is dead. Some people are sad, some are happy. Very happy. I don’t particularly like Thatcher, I think the best thing she did was keep Neil Kinnock out of No10. What I also don’t like are the celebrations that have sprung up. I understand some people are going to more affected by her policies than I am. This, though, is a real old woman that has died. Any harm she could’ve done was either done a long time ago or started a long time ago. Dancing and cheering and generally partying about the death of an old woman strikes me as vindictive and nasty, everything Thatchers’ opponents see themselves as not being. The celebration of the death of a leader could be understood if they died whilst in power, justified by the celebration of the end of their reign or tyranny, but not after they left office over twenty years previous. Some might argue that Thatcher still had influence. In those passing twenty years, but she didn’t. Her ideas did. You can’t blame her for that, especially when thirteen of those twenty odd years were under Labour prime ministers, the very people that should’ve stamped out her ideology. Blame the people in power that succeeded her for letting her have a legacy, never mind such a long lasting one. An old woman dies. People party in the streets. Welcome to Broken Britain.
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it’s partying about the death of a political enemy. which might well be equally vindictive and nasty, but the fact that “a real old woman has died” isn’t what people are celebrating. personally I think this argument really boils down to whether you think hatred has a legitimate place in politics or not. I think it does.
Well, they’re certainly not partying because Thatcherism is dead.
They’re not partying because Thatchers’ personal influence is dead either. That died years ago.
They are partying because an old woman is dead.
I also think there is a place for hatred in politics, otherwise you wouldn’t get people on antifascist demos, for example.
Maybe I just try to see the good in people too much.