Margaret Thatcher: My Part In Her Downfall.

[rhythmaning]

Cartoon: Steve Bell - the Guardian

I had resolved to do something positive during the funeral today of Margaret Thatcher - something creative. This was prompted by Lloyd, who wrote

I think we need to focus rather on the release of resentment and ways to find reconciliation...

And I agree.

But it is awfully, awfully difficult not to pick at old wounds; and whilst I find it very hard to think of possible positive outcomes from Margaret Thatcher's legacy. In part, I think this is because she did such a good job at polarising British politics - the divisions she created within society ran deep, and are deepening.

I think my politics have been moulded by the rise of Thatcherism, and in rational opposition to it. (That is, I am centre-, not far-, left!) I first voted in the 1979 general election - the election that took Thatcher to Downing Street. I can't remember if I voted Liberal or Labour - if the latter, I think it was the only time I have voted Labour.

I was a student for the next seven years, four years of which were in Scotland. There I marched in sympathy with the miners in 1984; I became aware that, frankly, every decision one makes has a political dimension (it was choosing fruit in a supermarket that taught me that: Chilean, South African or Israeli?); I took part in student boycotts of Barclays Bank (easy, since there was only one branch in Edinburgh!); I objected when the government "sold off the family silver" - something that I had a stake was being sold off, and I wasn't getting anything for it (except, perhaps, higher bills - and, Thatcher might have argued, a better service!). I objected at a much more personal level that funding to universities was cut and cut and cut till jobs in my field were near impossible to come by, and I left academia. (There were many other reasons, too, and I have no regrets about that career choice - except that I did exactly what Thatcher would have wanted me to do!)

In other respects, though, I benefited a lot from the Thatcherite revolution. I took a summer job after my PhD working for a merchant bank, merging the filing systems of three companies that were merged - or taken over - in preparation for deregulation and "the Big Bang" - which, with hindsight, I hold responsible for the mess our economic system has got itself into. I did very well out of the Big Bang, making what was for me (a recently graduated student) a lot of money for several months, when I needed it. Then, after a year in academia, I became an accountant, and swallowed the idea of market supremacy (which I still largely adhere to - though even I have to admit that there are many things the market can't do, and it is government's job to regulate and manage the market, to prevent excesses we are all so aware of). I do not believe there are better alternative to the market - yet. But I do think we need some viable alternatives.

I became part of the share-owning, private-pension-plan classes, worked for some big firms and more or less prospered. But I saw that many didn't. The divisions in society deepened, and widened. Industrial policy - closing large industries like steel-making, shipbuilding and coal-mining - wreaked havoc in many parts of north Britain, whilst the south - where the services industries, particularly finance, were based, prospered. I have been told by an accountant who worked for the coal board in the 1980s that the economic basis - the very reasoning - for the closure of the pits was flawed (the government included the sunk costs - money that had already been spent, and hence was irrecoverable, in their analysis, which thus came out in favour of closure).

Maybe the economics was in favour of closing all those big industries - but the expectation that the private sector would step in and find jobs all those unemployed seemed unlikely. At the very least, the change was unmanaged - it was rapid and hardly gave those subject to it a chance. There are towns and villages that still suffer because the mines and steelworks closed thirty years ago; generations have grown up with limited hope, because of the Thatcherite policies of the 1980s.

So I celebrated when Margaret Thatcher resigned in 1990: it is one of those landmark moments which people of a certain age remember - we know where we were when we heard. And a very great many celebrated. And I celebrated when Labour took over in 1997, though I thought John Major had the potential to be a better prime minister than his warring party allowed him to be. With hindsight, Labour had bought into the Thatcherite ideals, and maintained many of the Tory policies; they too accepted the new orthodoxy.

Thatcher's legacy has prevented a Tory victory for twenty three years, and the damage she caused individuals - who she believed in, it was all about individuals - and society (which, perhaps, she didn't) remains, and may well prevent a future Tory majority. (The Conservative once again seems riven with factions keen to prevent their government governing - doing the opposition's job for them!) The strength of feeling against the Conservatives in Scotland, and, I assume, in much of northern England too, have lead to a divided country. Thatcherism was a real boost to the SNP, and took us to the road to the referendum. I can't see a Tory government uniting north and south (though Tony Blair did - first in three elections, and then against Gordon Brown...) - whatever the outcome of the next election, I doubt a Conservative government would be taken to be representative of the whole country.

That is what I think of Margaret Thatcher, and her legacy. She divided the country thirty years ago, and she still does. And I can't think of much that could heal it. (So I guess I failed in my attempt to be positive...)