This is the kind of politician who…

I can’t resist beginning this post with a clip from ‘Not the Nine o’clock News’ about reactions to dead politicians:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T17VzztS60M

Now: I won’t be the only person doing this, for sure, but as one who lived through the Thatcher years I feel impelled to spend some time summing up her legacy and what it meant for me.  It’s too much to cover in one post, so each day I’m going to take one aspect of her reign (sic) and deal with that.  Today: women.

Thatcher’s Women

Clearly the most significant factor about Thatcher was that she was the first woman prime minister – and it might have seemed counter-intuitive that this should happen on the right-wing of politics rather than on the more liberal left.  However, I don’t think her election should be seen primarily in the context of women’s rights.  When push comes to shove, caste has always trumped gender, otherwise there would never have been any women leaders in human history.  When it comes down to it, if no men of the right social class are available, the powers-that-be will put up with a woman from the right class rather than a man of the wrong class.  Consider, for example, Indira Gandhi: the important thing about her was not that she was a woman; but that she was Nehru’s daughter.  And so it is: from Cleopatra to Elizabeth I (and II) women have been allowed to rule if – and only if – a man of the right caste was unavailable.

So that’s the first point.  Secondly, having clawed her way to the top, Thatcher showed no interest in helping other women to get where she was.  ‘I got here on my own merits and so can you’ seems to have been her attitude: not only that but she failed to inaugurate any female-friendly legislation during her time in office.  Her attitude to other women seems to have been somewhat scornful.  She clearly revered her father and ignored her mother: as I said, she didn’t get on with the Queen at all, and seems to have favoured her son over her daughter; the result of which was that he became a spoiled prat (sic) while she turned out a fairly decent human being.

Her cabinet was exclusively male; and every man in it seems to have been either afraid of her or desperately in love with her.  These public-school educated men saw her as a combination of  all their female role-models: distant mother, strict matron and inaccessible ice-queen.  She was utterly savage towards the more unassertive men, in particular Geoffrey (‘dead sheep’*) Howe, whereas one of the most repugnant men of that period, Alan Clarke, was head-over-heels in love with her.  The point is, that no-one seems to have been able to relate to her as an equal.  To be fair, towards female ‘inferiors’ she seems to have displayed a gentler side: Constituency Secretary Tessa Phillips, interviewed on radio yesterday, describes a softer, more human person – and even an ability to discuss handbags.

Handbags???

So, to sum up, the fact that she became PM says less about the advance of women than it does about the available men: and once in office she did nothing to help other women.  She doesn’t seem to have had any truck with notions of equal rights in any case…

I used to dream of being stuck on a desert island with Thatcher and being able to tell her exactly what I thought of her an her policies: however, I suspect that being a consummate politician, she would have known exactly how to disarm me.

More on Thatcher tomorrow.

Kirk out

*http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/232600.html

A Private conversation…

This is a response to something which happened yesterday: Carol Thatcher (whom I have always thought a reasonable human being in spite of her parentage) apparently referred to someone in the Green Room of a daytime TV programme as “looking like a golliwog” – and the comedian Jo Brand, who was there at the time, reported this to the media. Now, I’m not sure what I think about Jo Brand welching on what was essentially a private conversation, but I also think that such a comment is not only unacceptable in public is also unacceptable in private. Which led me to ask myself a question: how do we police ourselves? And what would happen if we didn’t? So here’s the question I asked myself:

Private Conversation

What manner of nig

nog

nastiness

lurks in my drains –

what kind of slag

whore

slapper

hides under the carpet –

and what fairy

nonce

pansy

crouches in my cellar

waiting

for

my policeman

to fall asleep?

Here in Britain we have a national crisis, precipitated (literally!) by several inches of snow. This has given rise to great joy, because we can now indulge the national pastime of Moaning. In fact we can push the boat out (not literally) because there are two major things to moan about: the snow itself, with all its attendant problems such as losing money, trains being cancelled, blah blah blah (incidentally this brings the further joyous opportunity to give another outing to the phrase “the wrong sort of snow”.) – and secondly, how we are Never Prepared. In vain do I stand in the supermarket queue and try to persuade people that we can’t compare ourselves with Canada because they have this every winter from October to March whereas we only have it once in every eighteen years – logic does not enter the equation. Nothing must deprive people of the chance to gripe, in fact they pounce on the legitimate opportunity to use the phrases “like a third-world country”; “two inches and the country grinds to a halt” not to mention the bonus of being able to work in a boast at the heart of the moan – a sort of “boan-us point”: (“When I was in Finland they didn’t have this problem”; “Yes, I used to live in Switzerland and they didn’t grind to a halt every winter”… and so on.) You would think that someone who lived in Switzerland would have observed that they have snow every winter, regular as – well, clockwork, and can therefore be expected to be well-prepared, whereas we poor sods have to cope with scattered showers, sunny intervals, hurricanes, floods, blazing sunshine (I think I remember that once) and now, snow – all at the drop of a hat.

So stop moaning!

Got to leave you now – I have to go and look at my daughter’s snowman in the yard. God, it’s cold! My feet are like blocks of ice! And I hate having to wear lots of layers! Where’s my scarf….I don’t know; two bloody inches and the entire country grinds to a….