It would be a remarkable legacy
for any British political leader to leave behind them, to bequeath their nation
a culture of individual selfishness, divisiveness, indifference, intolerance
and in some cases maybe even hatred, between peoples of the same national
tribe, all in the name of a particular economic and political ideology.
Who could forget the words of
Margaret Thatcher, quoting St Francis of Assisi with "Where there is
discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where
there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring
hope." How hollow those words and the sentiments appear to be now, some
thirty-odd years after she chose to utter them on the steps of Downing Street
in May 1979, after defeating the Labour Government of James Callaghan.
Could we live in a more
discordant country, one which is error strewn and where truth is often the very
first casualty of our politician's and our media's everyday propaganda
exercises? Have the people of Britain ever been more doubtful, suspicious,
sceptical or dubious about the words coming out of their politician's mouths,
their broadcaster's news bulletins, or their newspaper's editorials? Has there
ever been such a lack of faith in our national leaders, to find solutions to
the multitude of daily problems that are affecting peoples lives? Have the
people of the UK ever been so desperate and hopeless as many are today, to
escape the clawing apathy, indifference, despondency and misery that blights
their lives each and every day?
Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Co
are just the latest in a long line of political incompetents who have helped to
drive Britain to the edge of national destruction, creating a country where sixty-odd
million cowed and neutered citizens fear more for their own personal incomes
than they do for their own basic principles, or indeed for the fate of their
neighbours and friends. Along with Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown they have
helped to create a truly fractured state, one where the equally important
regions of Scotland, Ireland and Wales have been driven away to the political
periphery, to where hopes of their territorial independence could now be a
realistic outcome.
It is remarkable to think that
within the space of forty years, these half dozen mediocre British politicians
have somehow managed to systematically undo nearly three hundred years of our
country's economic, social and political history, much of which was
orchestrated and built by far better men and women than them. Although the
supporters of such changes undoubtedly believe that Scottish, Irish and Welsh
devolution is an inevitable part of any modern political process, the fact that
further territorial separation will almost certainly be accompanied by
increasing antagonisms between the various national populations cannot be
anything but damaging to all of the people of the UK, regardless of their
nationality.
Interestingly, even though she
was widely regarded as the most divisive politician of the entire post-war
period, Margaret Thatcher's recent death has lead to an almost incomprehensible
outpouring of political revisionism bordering on religious fervour, social
propaganda and commentary, most of which would not be out of place in some of
the world's most suppressed societies. In spite of the catastrophic harm that
she undoubtedly wrought on the former industrial heartlands of Britain, their
businesses, their communities and their individual workers, any public
criticism, condemnation or even celebration of her passing is deemed to be
spiteful, anti-social or unwarranted, by those within the chattering political
classes who would have us believe that she somehow rescued our country from the
"enemy within", even though this phrase alone would tell us we need
to know about her own implicitly divisive, inflexible and uncompromising
attitudes, when it came to the British society that she so easily dismissed as
being non-existent.
Anyone who lived through the
three-day-week, the power cuts, the mountains of uncollected refuse, or the
dead not being buried, would recall those dark days as being enjoyable, or
indeed ideal, but neither were they ever sufficient justification for
introducing legislation that essentially sold our country off to the highest
bidder, or to undermine the rights of workers to sell a fair days labour for a
fair days pay. Ultimately, the 1970's and the 1980's became periods of
extremes, when an elected government extensively used national agencies, the
media, the courts, private money, Parliament and an awful lot of good fortune
into rolling back many of the gains that the working population had fought for
over several generations.
Of course nobody in their right
mind would have wanted the country to be run by the great union barons, who in
some cases hadn't been properly elected to their posts, let alone given
permission to hold sway over the economic, social or political future of our
nation. But then, with conflict rather than compromise being the primary driver
for both leaders of the dispute, maybe the outcome was almost inevitable, most
especially where one side has the national media supporting their actions,
albeit for the most selfish and self-serving reasons. Whether or not the newly
revised history of Thatcherism agrees or not, it was during her leadership of
our country that the concept of British society, began to be swept away, as she
purposefully set class against class, worker against worker, neighbour against
neighbour; and friend against friend. Her periods of office marked the
beginning of the now widespread idea that being rich was good, being poor was
bad, being self sufficient was good; that dependency of any form was bad, small
or non-existent state was efficient and good, big state was inefficient and
bad.
The greatest economic, social and
political myths also largely emanate from Thatcher's years, most especially
that private enterprise does things better and more cost effectively than their
much maligned public counterparts. As has been mentioned many times, here and
elsewhere, in reality the privatisation of the Telecommunications, Gas,
Electricity, Water, Mining, Steel and Shipbuilding industries has only
benefited their private shareholders and certainly not the millions of
consumers who are now regularly held hostage to the annual price increases that
each of these vital businesses apply. As an interesting note, it is ironic that
a number of these highly important national assets, formerly owned by the
British people, are often in the hands of overseas governments, meaning that
the German and French people now own more of our vital industries than we Brits
do, which would perhaps be funny, were it not so tragic for our own national
population.
Although Margaret Thatcher and
her personal ideology no doubt formed the basis for where we are today, the
fact is that her initial foundations have been built upon and added to by a
succession of likeminded individuals, all of whom have been in enthralled by
the "Iron Lady" and her theories of monetarism and the free market.
The likes of John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are all equally guilty of
building upon the social divisions and deprivations initially set out by
Thatcher, to the extent that there is little if any chance of these changes ever
being undone by any future government, even if they wanted to.
Now more than ever there is a
need for our vital services, our water, gas, electricity, health services,
housing, schools and transport infrastructure to be safeguarded by government,
yet they would seek to hand over what little is left to private interests,
despite the fact that this would leave them open to rampant financial
exploitation, thereby making them scarcer and far more expensive to the
consumer. However, if you happen to be wealthy, greedy or acquisitive then you
probably won't be that bothered, as you'll be able to pay the costs of such
vital services, regardless of whether or not your poorer neighbour can or not.
After all, if you happen to be a
follower of the Mail, the Express, or the Telegraph, then you'll need no
persuading that virtually all benefit recipients are work-shy listless
layabouts, who struggle to raise themselves simply to sign on every now and
again. just look at the case of Mick Philpott, proof, if proof were needed;
that some benefit recipients are not only lazy, but potentially dangerous too.
It must be true mustn't it, because it says so in these quality papers? Also,
if you're a true believer in these same newspaper's articles and editorials,
then you definitely wouldn't think about being treated in a NHS hospital, where
the nurses generally treat you like you're a prison inmate, assuming of course
that they can be dragged away from their computers where they're busily surfing
the net. Not that it's related of course, but it is interesting to note that
many of these same newspaper articles and editorials just happen to carry
banner advertising for one of the many private healthcare companies that are
busily establishing themselves around the country. But of course that'll just a
happy coincidence, won't it?
Interestingly, the BBC ran a
piece about the expansion of the old class system, which suggested that the old
three class system, the upper, middle and lower classes have been superceded by
seven new classes, giving a fresh view of where the British population sits in
their standing to one another. Of course, it might well be viewed that modern
Britain could easily be broken down into pairs of distinct classes, the
"haves" and "have-not", the "rich" and the
"poor", or "northerners" and "southerners", or
better still, the "plebs" and "patricians", whichever of
these particular terms happens to rock your boat.
Whatever your preference, there
seems little doubt that Britain is more divided now than at any time during its
recent history; and possibly since the United Kingdom was formally created by
the various national treaties. It cannot just be coincidence that all three
regional assemblies have seriously contemplated full political separation,
resulting in Scotland actually holding a national referendum on the subject in
2014? Despite the fact that such campaigns are likely to be unsuccessful in the
short term, the fact that they're being thought about, talked about and even
planned seems to say much about the divided nature of British society, none of
it good. Increasingly, the northernmost regions of England are beginning to
express their disillusionment with and detachment from their southern
neighbours, to the extent that the idea of a fully regionalised and therefore
separated England is no longer thought of as unimaginable, but is inevitably
becoming possible to contemplate. For the southern counties of England,
especially London, there is probably much to recommend the idea of an entirely
separate capital state, one that owes no political allegiance or indeed
financial support to its much poorer northerly cousins; and one cannot imagine
that they would lose much sleep over the fate of the millions of people who
presently live beyond the limits of the M25.
Although the idea of a federal
UK, or even a regionalised England might seem fanciful today, given that there
seems to be growing tensions between the North and South, England and Scotland,
England and Wales, as well as between the mainland UK and Northern Ireland,
over time these tensions and differences are almost certain to increase,
leading to an erosion of the common ties of Britishness that have previously
held the four home nations together. Even though no-one could legitimately
claim that Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair or even Gordon Brown have
deliberately or purposefully set out to fracture the historic cohesion of these
four distinct nations, ultimately their shared destruction and undermining of
our country's common ties, including its culture, habits, populations and laws
have undeniably helped to cultivate the very worst of people's human nature; at
the same time eroding the very best of the British character.
Today, large numbers of our
Parliamentarians celebrated the life of our former Prime Minister, Margaret
Thatcher, recalling how, in their opinion, she had saved this country from its
own self destructive impulses and from the enemy within, the working classes
who had helped build our country in the first place. Today in the Commons,
fictions largely replaced facts, and party political ideology replaced personal
integrity, as one after another elected representatives revised our country's
recent history in an attempt to eulogise and lionise the chief architect of our
nation's social, political and economic decline, Margaret Thatcher.
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