Margaret Thatcher

I have an admission to make, last night I watched the BBC2 programme Margaret, there I've said it and would you believe it the world hasn't imploded.  

Why am I sharing this terrible secret with you? Well for those of you who didn't live through, or were having too much fun at the time and can't remember the Thatcher years, it may seem a strange thing to be so secretive about. But just try something for me - the next time you are talking to your parents/grandparents or any one over 50 that you know reasonably well, ask them if they ever voted for Maggie Thatcher's government.  I can guarantee that the answer will be a resounding NO.  I have never met a soul who will admit to be a Conservative supporter in the 80's and 90's - strange, when she was Prime Minister for almost 11 years.  But it's just something that nobody will admit to.

Did I ever vote for Maggie? Honestly the answer is no. 

As a card carrying member of the then Liberal Party I would never have dreamt of voting Conservative but, and this is a big but, I was tempted.  After all she was running to be the first ever woman Prime Minister of this country.  I, along with many of my friends, thought that this would be the turning point for women in this country.  No longer would Westminster be dominated by the old guard, the men in suits who ran the country as if it was their own private club.  I really believed that the doors of boardrooms throughout the land would be opened up to talented professional woman for the first time.  I imagine we felt much like Barack Obama's supports felt, this could be our time and believe me like America in 2008, this country in the 1970's was ready for change.

With hindsight though I can't believe how naive we were.  Maggie didn't open up doors for woman, she made sure that they were firmly shut in our faces.  Her hectoring and that incessant bullying tone of hers were legendary and the worst insult any young woman in business could be called was a Thatcherite (or possibly a raving feminist, but that's an other story).  The problem was that dear Mrs Thatcher didn't believe in sexual equality, she believed that she was better than any man. She ran the country as she ran her Cabinet, there could be no dissension, no discussion, no exchange of ideas, it was her way or noway.  She was a tyrant with a perm.

She was personally responsible for the emasculation of the Trade Union movement in this country, she shut the coal mines, destroyed the steel industry and decimated the docks and because of her actions in deregulating the City she is inadvertently partly responsible for the mess the banking system is in now.

During the 70's and 80's I was working in the City of London and saw first hand the effects of that Conservative government.  The Fat Cats were getting fatter and the 'boys' in the City were spending money like it was going out of fashion.  And all this was going on in a country where whole communities were being destroyed through unemployment.  In some of the old coal mining towns the despair was palpable.  Grown men were crying themselves to sleep because they couldn't see a way of ever getting back into work.  Many woman were working very long hours in degrading low paid jobs just to pay the rent and put food on the table while young City Dealers and Traders were drinking Bubbly at lunch time while arguing for a good deal on their latest new Porsche on their new fangled mobile phones.

Last night's drama concentrated on the eleven days leading up to Maggie's spectacular fall from power. Watching it brought back many memories for me of those days; from working in the City to getting married and eventually becoming a parent, all to the backdrop of Poll Tax riots, mass unemployment and the rise of a 'New Home Owning Democracy'.  It was a strange time to live through if you had any kind of social conscience and the one memory I will hold of the Drama is that of a defeated Thatcher sitting at the kitchen table in Number 10 sobbing.  I would like to believe that happened but somehow I doubt it, after all the woman who wasn't for turning certainly wasn't human.

If you missed the programme you catch it for the next 6 days on the BBCiplayer