It would be amiss to call Margaret Thatcher one of the world’s first stateswomen. She wasn’t. Elizabeth the First comes to mind – a monarch true but a stateswoman all the same. The shopkeeper’s daughter from Finchley was one hell of a stateswoman though and would not have been too bothered about the issue of primacy in time. The iconic figure has all the prerequisites to be become a giant in the history of politics – a sans pareil in many respects. Watching “The Road to Finchley” recently made me realise what tough material the iron lady was made of.
With Baroness Thatcher we do not only lose a huge piece of the jigsaw of political giants of the last century – we also witness the passing away of a dying breed. You may have disagreed with her politics, her aggressive militancy against communism, her tough approach with slack unionism (treating Britain with socialism is like treating leukaemia with leeches) and her ever so distant approach to the Common Market. You may not have appreciated her balls, her bull and her gall – tha lady who was not for turning might not have been your type yet she had one defining quality that appeared in a much more pronounced way than in most politicians of her time. With Margaret Thatcher you knew where you stood.
This was a politician who would call a spade a spade and who has been described as undiplomatic and whose rather direct ways were perhaps only pardoned because notwithstanding all outward appearance she was a lady playing the game in the men’s playground. Margaret and her politics had spine and backbone. This was not the kind of politician who could conjure up an ephemeral coalition or movement and hide behind a “politics for all” approach based on effortless compromise and pleasant policies. Rather, Margaret’s medicine did not go down well with most of the country to the point that her three-term election as Prime Minister was as surprising as it was effective.
This was not politician who would promise the moon to feed electors who swallow false promises recklessly. This was a responsible conservative with a clear idea of the Britain that she wanted and its role in the world with her beloved partners in the US. She would even shun the Commonwealth if she had to. For Margaret Thatcher’s world was one that was built on clear policies and positions – not compromises. Disagree if you will but you knew where you stood. There was no deceit. Ask the miners. Ask the workers of Britain who woke up to a brutally necessary dawn in the eighties while their cousins in the US were experiencing the Reagonomy revival.
To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
A beautiful heritage from Baroness Thatcher. We should not forget it. It should be burnt into the manuals of political movements and onto the foreheads of the pseudo-politicians of today who are busy playing a game that is beyond their wit, their ken, hell their very conception.
Politics, she would have told them, is not about being popular but about being effective and clear. Politics is about leading not about prancing in public and bluffing about leaving the reins in the hands of the people.
… so popular to the point of being despised. As Frankie Boyle put it, she could very well become the first politician to have the 21 gun salute pointed at her coffin. You know, just to make sure that she’s dead.
Fare thee well Iron Lady.
