She certainly did. Don't buy her vile clothing, V&A! She introduced entrance charges, didn't she? People who were on the dole couldn't go to museums any more. I don't like people reminiscing about that great time in the 1970s when people on the dole could sit at home and make music. We couldn't afford to eat, even. That's why The Slits wrote Shoplifting.
And the seeds of what we have today, the collapsed National Health Service and the
lack of national self-esteem, were all sown back then; the call-centre mentality, and zero-hours for all (re-branded in the last decade from 'McDonaldisation' after that wonderful shop where we buy shitburgers, who gave/give their staff two hours here, two hours there, just enough to stop them from being able to work anywhere else and make enough to live on). Thatcher made water, in this rainy country, into a saleable commodity (even the Tory taxi drivers didn't like that one; how long till we buy the air we breathe?).
All of the things we had clubbed together to buy as a society (there is no such thing as) suddenly belonged to the Conservatives to sell to their rich mates with a little bit at the edges sold to the wealthier members of the general public, who were bought off with the idea of shares portfolios; they thought they had bought into being posh
Osborne's fiscal head sprouts firmly from the trunk of Thatcher's tree, and his moral fibre from his older brother, The Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (spotted the resemblance?).
I don't care if Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable (although as it has been pointed out, he was elected as leader of his party in a more democratic process than any other MP has been before). He is a national treasure- he is a moral compass. It's completely wrong to trash the poor. I don't resent a single penny of the taxes I pay going to pay benefits to people who can't get a job. I don't even care if some of them have 50 children. Why shouldn't they? Those of us who work are supported by those who don't; it's a nasty trade-off of capitalism.
I have to stop ranting now before I talk myself into a dark mood. Here is some lovely music that sums up so much of what went on back then.
Thats not a rant. Thats a statement of fact. You would have had to mention that the current housing crisis is a direct result of flogging off council houses for it to have become a rant.
ReplyDeleteMaybe time to post a video of 'Stand Down Margaret'?
Yes, that's a good song!
ReplyDelete