Standing on the wrong side of history

Today, as a nation, we stood on the wrong side of history.  This country stood up and gave an almost-state funeral to a woman who makes me ashamed to be British.

Today, I have paid for a 3 hour party political broadcast for the Tory party and I am not happy about it. 

In a month where the Tories have told us that cuts to benefits are “essential” yet they have been able to afford to give a £100,000/year tax cut to the rich we have somehow found the, potentially, £10 million needed to pay for Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.  The irony of the state funding the funeral of a woman who believed that no-one should rely on the state has, apparently, been lost on the Tory party.

She made me complicit in apartheid when she refused to back sanctions against the South African government.  She was also a supporter of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe saying that “A successful Zimbabwe will undoubtedly contribute to the peace and stability of Central and Southern Africa as a whole, and we wish you and your colleagues well in your endeavours,”  Her support for General Pinochet in Chile was similarly damaging. Juan Gabriel Valdes, a former minister in the Chilean government, has spoken of the close relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet. “She was never overly pre-occupied with the issue of human rights” and claimed that "She had a shared vision with General Pinochet, no doubt, and also with other dictators in the world”.  Not in my name.

This is a woman who called the people of a community which had 20% unemployment “moaning minnies” when they blamed her, rightly, for their situation.  She destroyed communities across the country with her economic policies – for instance Barnsley lost 25% of its jobs during Thatcher’s time as PM.  The town still has fewer jobs today than it did in 1979.  She took over in 1979 vowing to bring unemployment under control as it hit 1 million for the first time in history.  By 1983 it had hit 3 million.  It never fell below 2 million during her time in Downing Street.  200,000 out of 250,000 miners lost their jobs between 1979 and 1990. Families were divided, children went hungry and inequality increased. 

The north lost 1.3 million jobs between 1979 and 1990, the south gained 3,500. She wasted the windfall from North Sea Oil by lowering taxation to buy votes at the next election.  Norway got the same windfall and has a Sovereign Wealth Fund and we are dreadfully in debt and have lost our AAA credit rating. She stole from EVERYONE in GB and then had the gall to sell them back their stolen property.  She stole their banks, their railways, their oil, coal, gas, electricity, phones, postal service and then turned up on their doorsteps to sell it back to them.  She couldn’t have been more of a thief if she’d carried a bag labelled “swag”.  And they didn’t even notice!  Beyond the theft element here is another factor – if government still controlled gas etc they could have used it to aid recovery from our current financial crisis – subsidising gas would have given people more money in their pockets to spend and stimulate the economy.  The government lost part of its flexibility to respond to economic crises when she sold the family silver. She stole from me and she made my government weaker by her theft.

Last week, Obama described her as having defended freedom.  She defended freedoms if they were used as she wished.  Any potential opponent had their freedom reduced.  In 1980 she introduced legislation to Parliament that allowed police to stop and search without cause.  She authorised the use of wire-tapping without a warrant ( for instance in 1984 a study referred to a case of evident phone tapping. Without a warrant the police had tapped the phones of miners in south Wales.  They chartered a bus to take them to Derbyshire during the strike, within moments of the booking the police rang the bus company to see how many pickets they would be taking)  a clear violation of civil rights. In Ireland her government colluded in the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989 and, by advocating what she called a “Cromwellian” solution to the trouble in Ireland suggested Catholics should be moved over the border from NI to Eire in 1985. She turned the mounted police on protesters at Orgreave and destroyed unions ability to defend the rights of their members – we are far more vulnerable at work as a result of her policies.

She failed to protect the weakest in the country including veterans from the Falklands conflict. Her “care in the community” programme saw veterans suffering PTSD being turned out of mental health facilities and into a "care in the community" programme that couldn’t cope.  Falklands veterans have a higher suicide rate than those returning from any other conflict, more have committed suicide upon their return than died in the conflict – they were not adequately supported on their return. The failure of "care in the community" fuelled a homelessness crisis across the UK.  20,000 people in London alone were living in charity accommodation and shelters by 1990 with a further 1000 sleeping rough.  The post-war low for sleeping rough is 6 in London.  Drug addiction rates rose with the BMA stating in 1984 that drug addiction was “not just an epidemic but a plague”.  Thatcher’s role in this became clear with a further study published in the BMJ in 1986 that found that “long term unemployment” was a causal factor in drug addiction.  Her demonisation of homosexuals with the infamous section 28 fuelled a spike in suicides with gay teens four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight contemporaries.  Thatcher did not unite Briton she divided it.

One of the most frustrating thing about today has been that, on the day we bury a woman who supposedly “defended” freedom, I have spent today without my freedom of speech.  Because I have not approved of this Tory led pity fest and the seeming canonisation of “St Maggie” I have been accused of being “crass”, “insensitive” and worse.  I would like to remind people that today was not a private funeral; it was not a private, family memorial service. It was a public occasion that the public have been forced to pay for – people had a right to protest and, if you truly defend freedom, you should be defending “to their death their right to say it” even if you don’t agree with what they are saying. I have a right to comment on how my taxes are spent and if you spend them on a funeral Mr Cameron then, I am afraid, you can expect my comment on that funeral.

As a nation we stood on the wrong side of history today. We stood on the side of the oppressor rather than the oppressed. And I will not stay quiet while we do.