A campaign by anti-Thatcher protesters following the former U.K. prime minister’s Monday death may prompt the BBC to play “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” on its Sunday music charts show. That should be interesting, given that BBC execs aren’t sure the show’s target audience of 16-to-24-year-olds knows who Thatcher was. As of Friday, “Ding-Dong!” is No. 3 on the Official Charts list, the one used by the BBC Radio 1’s “Official Chart” show. It’s currently behind something called “Need U (100%)” by Duke Dumont and AME at No. 1 and P!nk feat. Nate Ruess’ “Just Give Me A Reason” at No. 2. But the Munchkin-based ensemble number from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” is selling about 2,000 copies a day online, prompting the BBC to indicate that it will play the song if it remains on the charts. Now, the BBC’s trying to figure out how to explain it to the show’s audience.
I’m not at all certain why the BBC feels they’d have to explain the outpouring of vitriol and pure, abject hatred directed at the late Margaret Thatcher. Most any Englishman who survived the Iron Lady’s reign understands why emotions are running so high.
A daughter of the working class who turned her back on her roots and attempted to tear up England’s social safety net by the roots, Thatcher fostered a dog-eat-dog economic environment that would have made Ayn Rand and Niccolo Machiavelli proud. She supported thugs, tyrants, murderers, and dictators, with the only real requirement being that they hate communism as much as she did. Most any sin could be forgiven, no matter how egregious, as long as the commonality was a shared hatred of the USSR. That she was in many ways no more democratic than the communists she hated was lost on Thatcher.
Her wasteful, immoral war in the Falkland Islands was a cheap stunt that cost British blood and treasure without accomplishing anything of value. Her economic policy, while a boon to the upper class, decimated England’s poor and middle class. Her foreign policy, notable primarily for her willingness to break bread with dictators, was indicative of a leader with no moral center. In short, her reign of error was a disaster for England. Sure, there are those ready, willing, and able to step up and lionize Thatcher the tyrant (et tu, David Cameron?), but they represent the very small sliver of the population who benefited from her corrupt classism.
There’s little to lionize about Margaret Thatcher. She did not “save Britain,” as David Cameron opined. Not by a long shot. More accurately, England survived Thatcher and emerged far worse for the experience. Those who celebrate her passing are merely being honest about her legacy. Much of the history that Thatcher was involved in has yet to be written, but there’s little reason to believe that it will be kind to her.
Margaret Thatcher amply deserves her reserved parking space in Hell. If you don’t believe that, just talk to the poor and the middle class Britons who survived her reign.
