I was watching HIGNFY earlier tonight and there was an item about Mrs. T visiting No. 10 to unveil a new portrait of herself commissioned by the Prime Minister.
It struck me as a bizarre thing to do. Namely, to voluntarily, without pressure or coercion, of one's own free will to invite THAT WOMAN back to Downing Street, and to have a picture of her hanging in the study that Mr Brown uses for meetings with foreign dignitaries.
Curiouser, and curiouser.
It was on this day in 1990 that she finally ceased being Prime Minister, and Britain started on the long slow and arduous trek to recovery.
Her eleven years in power left Britain "more spiritually bereft, more restless, unhappier even". She ushered in a brutal, destructive, and selfish society. She brought more machismo, bravado, and braggadocio to politics and we still suffer the consequences.
She and her whole Tory government destroyed whole communities, especially in the North, Wales, and Scotland, communities that have not recovered to this day.
She was probably the only Marxist Prime Minister we have ever had, inasmuch as she understood clearly the class structure, and to her shame she used that knowledge to exploit and utterly subjugate the working classes.
She set suspicion and greed loose, it was every man for themselves and devil take the hindmost.
She encouraged xenophobia, prejudice, and paranoia, she saw fifth columnists and betrayal everywhere.
Even her supposed strength, namely that she was a conviction politician, was ultimately a weakness, because she refused or was unable to see when the game was up.
I'd like to raise a glass to her, well her having left the political stage. Unfortunately, like the bum penny or the ghost at the wedding she keeps coming back.
I really, genuinely, honestly do not believe in personalising politics, but for Mrs T, I'll make an exception.
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