"Where there is harmony, may we bring discord. Where there is truth, may we bring error. Where there is faith, may we bring doubt. And where there is hope, may we bring despair."
"I see no joy, I see only sorrow; I see no chance of your bright new tomorrow; so stand down Margaret, stand down please, stand down Margaret".
Nice one. It's interesting to contemplate how much of our landscape owes its shape to Thatcher and her acolytes: derelict industrial sites, the sad edgelands of housing estates, the relentless spread of retail parks, the soulless motorway corridors...
ReplyDeleteAnd the list goes on Ian. The amazing thing is that so much of beauty still exists (and is being created) in spite of the dark forces of unbridled brutal capitalism that Thatcher and her like have embedded as the bogus natural order of things.
DeleteWill now try and stay calm whilst watching and reading all the sanctimonious nonsense that will be spouted over the coming days for this departed 'great figure'.
I remember this picture being used for a cartoon, with the caption (borrowed from Christopher Wren's tomb in St. Paul's: if you seek her monument, look around you
ReplyDeleteI have strong memories of Sheffield in the 1980s and this photograph reminds me of the Don Valley in the east of the city, the ghosts of its erstwhile steel industry still strongly present. Not that Thatcher would dare have visited of course. I think that her death and all the sanctimonious hoopla that has followed has opened up quite a lot of wounds for many people. Maybe you need to be 45+ for it to have true resonance but what we have today is her legacy - banking crisis,a 'free market', no manufacturing, no jobs for skilled workers and a society more divided than it was since Victorian times. Today's generation are still 'Thatcher's children' although they may not be aware of it.
ReplyDeleteVery true. I think it is hard for those who didn't experience the fractures of Thatcher in power to understand that we all as a society impacted by the legacy of those times.
DeleteVery True.She Was Definitely Not "The Angel of The North".......
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