12 April 2013

The left's sexism on Thatcher (and Friday favourite 103)

Politics in many Labour heartlands is a pretty brutal affair.  It's often signified by corruption, vote rigging nepotism and sexism.  Trades union and Labour clubs are often unwelcoming places for women and ethnic minorities.  So it's hardly surprising that a strong streak of sexism has (and continues to) run through the left's attitude towards Margaret Thatcher.  The success of the campaign to get 'Ding, dong the witch is dead' from the Wizard of Oz up the charts - no doubt organised by some twenty something trots whose only knowledge of Thatcher is gleaned from the pages of the Guardian or Socialist Worker - is just one example.

And if you don't think it is sexist - imagine juvenile right wingers doing the same on the death of Harriet Harman.  There would be outrage.

There's also a perverse jealousy that a reactionary party had a women leader and PM before the
supposedly progressive Labour party.  The sense of certainty that only the left can be progressive, fair and principled couldn't cope with the fact that the right had achieved something 'progressive' that to this day the left haven't.

Now I'm no fan of Margaret Thatcher.  She was essentially only destructive - she rightly broke the power of the union barons, but instead of using the sensible industrial conditions this created to create a modern, skilled manufacturing industry, she carried on ripping things up - destroying the physical and social infrastructure in much of the north of the UK.  There was no reason that places like Teeside or Clydeside couldn't have been like Germany's Ruhr valley - with a government committed to education and skills and adding value to production.  But instead we got a pile 'em high sell 'em cheap government that destroyed apprenticeships and industrial skills and used high unemployment to keep pay low.  And the rest is history.

Anyway if you are tempted to download a Thatcher tribute song I'd recommend the deeply ironic 'I'm in love with Margaret Thatcher', by Burnley's finest punks the Notsensibles.

 

3 comments:

  1. I remember watching a press conference on TV when Margaret Thatcher was the leader of the Opposition. When asked about youth unemployment she said the best and the brightest would get jobs.When asked what about the others she repeated the best and the brightest would get jobs. She certainly stuck two fingers up at the youth of Britain.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "I remember watching a press conference on TV when Margaret Thatcher was the leader of the Opposition. When asked about youth unemployment she said the best and the brightest would get jobs.When asked what about the others she repeated the best and the brightest would get jobs."

    But wasn't that always Thatcher's substitute for rational debate? Stating the same opinion over and over again _very_, _very_ slowly and emphatically, on the principle that if she said anything in a deep enough voice people would be bound to agree with her.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think both sides can be horrible. Cherie Blair really got it badly from the right wing press, deeply depressing because she was an ambitious and hardworking woman.

    ReplyDelete