One of our longest standing 2oceansvibe Characters, Simon Reader, penned this obituary on behalf of 2oceansvibe. Simon and his family have been friends with Lady Tatcher for many years, and he has had rare insight into the lady behind the public persona. – Seth

Cynics will argue that the public response to Margaret Thatcher’s death illustrates all that is right and wrong about modern day Britain.

In Brixton and Bristol violence has erupted at impromptu gatherings. David Hopper, General Secretary of the Durham Coal Miner’s association, announced that the news of her death was ‘fabulous’. George Galloway, the former Labour MP and current RESPECT MP, declared, ‘he would dance on her grave’. Discredited left-wing journalists such as Johann Hari and Owen Jones have seized her legacy as being one of alleged hatred and demonization of the working class, while the BBC, itself guilty of allowing its emotions to steer its judgment, published pictures of the celebratory ‘street parties’ featuring banners with the words, ‘The Bitch is Dead’.

Yet underneath this dreary facade of self-importance and unhinged, misdirected rage, a tremendous sense of loss is apparent. It can be felt in the flags flying half-mast in London, in the words of global leaders and the tributes that have surfaced in some of Britain’s finest broadsheet newspapers. Those experiencing the impact of this loss will tell you that it is not simply the death of a grandmother, a mother – or even an elderly lady. Her departure on Monday perforated the essence of an identity that she herself fought to inspire, establish and maintain. But this sense of loss should not be confused with mourning; it is squared on confusion and doubt and gratitude more than tragedy.

Confusion is ultimately superficial. Thanks to successive New Labour governments and the consequences of a society intoxicated by benefits and welfare, few will be in a position to appreciate the history of her leadership. Doubt is all too human – those who do appreciate and remember will be torn by the conflicting public opinion, exacerbated by the arrangements of modern British politics. Fortunately gratitude is perpetual: it was Margaret Thatcher’s work the City can thank for its status today as the world’s financial capital.

In her own words she was neither a saint nor a princess of hearts. She made mistakes. Her resentment of terrorists was not born from some elitist ideology but from personal experience. In the application of simple practises she learned from her father, she was able to forge a formidable combination of competition and national pride. For her it was a calculation of priorities: being Prime Minister didn’t necessarily mean being a crusader for or of women’s rights. The position, she believed, was centred on candidly old-fashioned values of which the most important was the uncompromising advance of principle. It was this consistency that she was able to use against the unions, including the nebulous Arthur Scargill and other political foes who she loved to fight. And she was victorious: no other Prime Minister since Winston Churchill had managed to capture victory as being such a part of British identity.

Her secret weapon came in the form of her husband Denis – a fearless, rugby-obsessed, chain-smoking gifted businessman. At his funeral in 2003, she cried openly during her own tribute: “Dennis was the golden thread running through my life”. Very few people, save for the aforementioned left, could fault him for consistency; he was outspoken, especially regarding the BBC whom he described as being ‘vile’ and ‘spineless’ being manned by ‘bloody poofs’ and ‘Trots’. Like his wife, he demonstrated a talent for friendship and suffered neither fools nor delusions of grandeur.

(A few days after Harrod’s was bombed in 1983, Denis was spotted carrying the store’s bags – asked by journalists if he was worried about his safety, he shouted, ‘no murdering Irishman is going to stop me doing my Christmas shopping at Harrods’).

Context in these circumstances is annoying yet important. The question floating through public statements and user forums has not been answered: did she support apartheid? The answer is an overwhelming no – she saw the wretched folly and the cowardice regime for what it was. Despite Pallo Jordan’s best efforts to cast her as an apartheid sympathizer, she was nothing of the sort. The former Minister is not only disingenuous but he all too eagerly illustrates the same mediocre grasp of reality that characterized his mediocre term as Minister of Arts and Culture. She was not the architect of colonialism but it became, for better or worse, her inheritance. Under the circumstances, she confronted its legacy in a manner dictated by her unwavering belief in principle.

Modern day Britain exists in stark contrast. Repeatedly disastrous attempts at social engineering have resulted in proponents of the Thatcherite identity feeling like strangers in their own country. The policies initiated by the incumbent Conservatives are bereft of any Thatcher residue: as Nick Scott puts it, ‘we remain an island of whingers, in desperate pursuit of obscurity.’ At the root of this disillusionment lies the psychology of benefits and welfare practised by those who subscribe to the culture of entitlement accompanied in most cases accompanied by an irreversible repulsion of intelligent, hardworking and successful people. But Britain’s so-called descent is vastly exaggerated and in itself reflects an astonishing irony: that it has managed to alter so rapidly yet simultaneously maintain its stature is a tribute to a politically mature – aware – society. In this way the fabric of her spirit has silently woven its way into the heart of British society, whether the left like it or not.

My own experiences of her were peculiarly – almost disappointingly – normal. As Seth Rotherham will attest – she was kind, fair, genuinely interested and alarmingly accessible. A day before meeting her in London in 1996, three live bullets were lodged in her postbox. Her personnel were frantic but she stubbornly refused to oblige any concerns for her safety – she insisted that the entrenched routine be adhered to. In both London and Cape Town her gentle demeanour seemed to betray the constructs of fame and immortality; there was nothing remotely famous, or grand about her. There was simply a trusted conviction, tested and victorious through time, and depth of dignity.

It is this victorious dignity she leaves her supporters – those whom she inspired and empowered – along with political standards, principles and perspectives that will in all likelihood never be surpassed, in Britain or anywhere else.

– Simon Reader