The death today of Margaret Thatcher has provoked much bile and attempts at celebration from those who were/are on the left politically and so opposed her every step of the way. Truth is Thatcher is hated precisely because she was so amazingly successful and achieved far more of her agenda than anyone would have dreamed possible when she became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975.
Thatcher whipped the asses of the left and the trade unions, and not in a way that was at all pleasurable to any bar the most hardened masochists.
We did return the serve nicely with the campaign against the poll tax.
But it was too little, too late.
Littlehampton
Like falling down several flights of stairs now
to a world gone as the Brixton riots
or “Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Out! Out! Out!”
Our answers easy and fast as fish ‘n chips twice
at the end of the night. Unanimity, as ever,
on the mathematical impossibility of you
twenty years on
giving the lawn
its requisite short-back-and-sides,
the gardens of Littlehampton all
standing to attention by the rich
green Lord Tennyson sea.
from Time Gentlemen, Please (Salmon Poetry, 2008)
