The Iron Nanny
"I think they were absolute fucking scum — especially Thatcher, who I think should be shot as a traitor to the people. I still think that, and nothing will ever change my opinion. We're still feeling the effects of what they did to the country now, and probably always will: the whole breakdown of communities, trade unions, the working class — the dismantling of lots of things."
Paul Weller, 2008
Until George W. Bush came along I never thought I could hate a politician as much as I did Maggie Thatcher. All the things I complain about on this blog that depress me about modern England can be traced back to her doorstep in one way or another and we'd be here all day if I went through the litany of her crimes but Mr. Weller's quote above pretty much sums up my feelings in his usual blunt style. Maggie was the stern Nanny/Headmistress who told us we'd all been bad children in the 60s and 70s and we had to take our medicine no matter how bad it tasted or she'd send us all to bed without any supper — or throw us out of work. Your average English Public Schoolboy gets turned on by that sort of cold-shower discipline which explains why so many chinless wonders loved her, it's just a pity the rest of us had to take the medicine too. Maggie wanted to re-make Britain and she did, but to do that she had to tear it apart.
As a 20-something student you'd expect I'd be politically involved but it could be a depressing experience in the 80s. I voted for Ken Livingston, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and she won every time — though with Ken it wasn't at the ballot box, she just abolished the GLC instead. I went on marches to save the GLC, in support of the Miners Union and CND, I joined the Labour Party and even took part in demonstrations and a sit-in to save my own college from being merged with another one in the next town, all to no avail. She always won — apart from the Poll Tax of course, I missed that little riot though.
But her biggest victory is everywhere you look in Britain today. It was a bit of cliche on the Left in the 1980s that she wanted to turn the country into the 51st State of America (though that was mostly a joke about her sucking up to Ronald Reagan) but that's basically what happened, she turned the country over to the free market and big corporations who now dominate the landscape both metaphorically and literally. The rich got a lot richer and everyone else had their jobs, traditions and communities traded away for the price of 24/7 shopping in bland town centres dominated by a few big chains and an entire industry devoted to the worship of wealthy celebrities. The country has become just as soulless, vulgar and status-obssessed as America at its worst. Even sadder, the process has continued and been even worse under a bloody Labour government. Well, she did say there was no alternative.
Though I would like to thank her for all the wonderful music she inspired, without her we wouldn't have these records (and many, many, many more). Maybe she wasn't that bad after all. Actually, she was.
Download: Blue - Fine Young Cannibals (mp3)
Download: Homebreakers - The Style Council (mp3)
Download: Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt (mp3)
Download: Talkin' Blues (Story of The Blues Pt. 2) - The Mighty Wah! (mp3)
Download: Strike - The Enemy Within (mp3)
24 Comments:
Respectfully, I think you're giving Thatcher too much credit, which is underlined by your amazement that "the process has continued and been even worse under a bloody Labour government." Considering the history of the class system in Britain, it's a bit rich to blame Thatcher in particular for the inevitable curdling of that into celebrity worship after the ironclad particulars of class - birth, boarding school, university, club, job, marriage - became far more fluid and even dissolved in the last two generations. I think Thatcher was largely irrelevant in a lot of the social change that happened to Britain, which had been fermenting for decades. Celebrity worship is really just the inevitable end of the explosion of pop culture as an industry in the '50s and '60s, which took on the rather hypertrophied shape it's assumed in Britain partially as a mutation of the culture of deference to the wealthy and famous that was a hallmark of Britain long before Thatcher. Whatever economic or political sins you might lay at Thatcher's feet, it's a bit of a reach to blame this on her.
No, it's all Thatcher's fault.
I felt quite bad about myself when she was taken into hospital the other day - I got excited that I might be able to Tramp The Dirt Down, cf Elvis. I don't want to wish death on any person, but it's a struggle not to in her case.
The celebrity thing is just a gripe I have with the state of Britain these days so I threw it in there. I do blame her philosophy for the screeching volume it's reached though.
If I was a Marxist I'd say it was all Bread and Circuses distracting the proles, but I'm not so I didn't.
Well, that would work if it were just "proles" (whatever they are) being distracted, but the culture of celebrity has sucked everyone in.
Marx was a dim bugger, really.
We may be "soulless and vulgar", but a lot of us know how to use "it's" correctly. Thank you.
A lot of us don't have sub-editors checking our grammar either.
Fixed now, happy?
Somebody else mentioned Tramp The Dirt Down. I always think of that song whenever anybody mentions That Woman. I was visiting my parents in South Wales last week; down in the Valleys. Things have never recovered down there since the mines shut down. There's still no work as such; a lot of people get by on bartering - exchanging skills for skills. For instance somebody trained as a plasterer does a wall for the local butcher - no cash changes hands just goods. The only money coming into the valleys seems to be people working in Cardiff buying houses so they can make the 45 minute drive into and out of Cardiff to countryside living.
But yeah, how much good music was That Woman (I can't really say her name)responsible for inspiring!??
i'm just impressed that you managed to write something that makes sense - whenever i get on to the tories of my youth i can't help but just swear and cry and fume. well done duckie
x
I remember seeing the party going on outside Downing Street the day she resigned. And the chants of "no more years".
Weller is bang on, and so are you londonlee.
And I thought I was the only one in the world to own 'Strike'. Scargill is no 50 Cent, but,...
Dark, dark days!
I also have the single Weller put out in support of the Miners Union - 'Soul Deep' by The Council Collective. Anyone remember that?
With Junior!!
And Jimmy Ruffin!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bEThK7QMcjU&feature=related
Oh dear...Weller rapping...
"What's job securidy Daddy?"
Soul Deep. Yes londonlee I own that on 12" too!
I remember being being abused by my workmates for putting a fiver in the union's weekly miner's collection.
She turned the working class on themselves. Most of the guys I worked with back then loved her and all she stood for.
It was hard to be a leftie on the shop floor during those times. Nobody talks politics on the shop floor now.
And nowadays...I find myself talking to trade union reps in their late 20's and 30's who don't even know about the miner's strike. Surely they teach this in schools!!
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You do realise that there are 227 music bloggers out there who have Hefner's 'The Day That Thatcher Died' in the draft section of their blog as they wait for the special day?
Any chance of uploading Soul Deep? Only ever heard it once and that was on Top of the Pops.
only 227?!
my father-in-law has a bottle of champagne in the fridge waiting for the day her death is announced - true and i bet he's not the only one.
great post, lee.
I've already posted it, impatient soul that I am.
Thanks Lee, for saying what everyone else was thinking (again).
To the guy who cribbed about the punctuation: suck on my fat one.
Great post Lee...I too did the GLC marches back in the day. In retrospect though their main legacy is that they enabled the cash strapped and great unwashed to see some great bands like The Smiths etc...oh and Mari Wilson...(sigh!)
I saw Orange Juice, The JoBoxers and The Selector at some free GLC-sponsored gig at Victoria Park.
Ken had my vote!
So true about 'Thatch', though I must say most southerners seemed happy with their loadsamoney and newly acquired BT shares when I moved to London in 1984 from the grim north right after the miner's strike etc.
I still describe myself as a refugee from Thatcher's Britain. I went back for a while in 97 thinking it might get better under Labour. It didn't.
More memories, I was a soft southerner down in rural Somerset but I still hated the fffing bitch and always will, sure Labour have continued to screw the British people but she really started the rot.
I used to go to Bristol and put money in hands of the Miners who were there collecting for their communities and I was earning only a little then, I knew if we did not help support them then England would be lost.
I had Strike and also Soul Deep. I was also loving the music of the time, Billy Bragg and The Redskins really had 'IT' around that time.
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