As the old girl herself declared, it's a funny old world. The problem is that not everyone shares her sense of humour. Margaret Thatcher robbed the nation's infants of free school milk, miners' families of their livelihoods, sold off essential public services to profiteers, opposed sanctions on South Africa, suported apartheid, branded Nelson Mandela "a terrorist", sheltered a fugitive Pinochet from justice, before finally being deposed by her own party. But at her £10 million, taxpayer-funded funeral she was acclaimed as "a force for good".
David Cameron's description of his far-Right mentor called to mind Humpty Dumpty's assertion in Through the Looking Glass -- "Words can mean whatever I want them to mean." There was more of the same doublespeak in a rambling eulogy by the Dean of St Paul's, David Ison, but the presence of the Queen invoked the most embarrassing irony of all. At her accession in 1952 the monarch pledged: "I shall always work to advance the happiness and prosperity of my people." A pity that Thatcher got in the way. Brenda's presence at her funeral will have alienated at least half of her subjects, if they were not alienated already. A royal own goal? Let's hope so.
The so-called Iron Lady's pathological contempt for the working class was not confined to her disgraceful and brutal suppression of coal miners fighting for their jobs, it extended to all trade unionists who were indiscriminately demonised as "the enemy within". Officials were monitored like common criminals by her secret police. Even the National Union of Journalists did not escape the harassment. NUJ offices were illegally entered and searched. Never any sign of a break in -- spooks always use keys -- but papers and other items left in special positions were disturbed. Yes, there was an enemy within during the industrial mayhem of the 1980s. It was her.
Her toxic legacy remains with us in the shape of vast industrial wastelands, millions permanently unemployed, major banks controlled by spivs, and cold-blooded sociopaths running the energy companies -- the price of their recently doubled profits measured in 25,000 pensioners' deaths from hypothermia every year. No amount of hypocritical casuistry can disguise the devastation and human suffering caused by this arch enemy of the people.
But it won't deter Cameron, her natural heir, from trying. Another of his nauseating soundbytes was "We shall never see her like again" -- to which most of us living in the real world would add a heartfelt "Thank God".
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