my humble opinion on Margaret Thatchers Death.

So this is a slightly different post from what I normally write on my blog, but it is something I felt the need to write about.

It has been well over a week now since the news of Margaret Thatchers death, and a few days since her funeral, so you may be wondering why I am writing about this now? Well for starters, the last week, in terms of Margaret Thatchers death, whether we are talking about news reports or the feisty opinions demonstrated across all social media platforms, has been overwhelming. This blog post isn't about Margaret Thatcher. It's about her death, the reactions to it, the reactions to the reactions to it, her funeral, the reactions to it, you get the picture. It's about stuff which I have had an opinion on, because who hasn't right? And now that everyone is taking the time to breathe and move on to the next newsworthy story to get riled up about, I have the chance to air my view. Which to be honest, is rather boring. Why is it boring? Because it's so bloody balanced, that's why. 
When news of Margaret Thatchers death hit, what overwhelmed me was not simply the reactions to it, which varied to the extremes, but the reactions to those reactions. It annoyed me that people were condemning people who had a negative opinion of Margaret Thatcher and were using her death as an opportunity to voice their opinion, which I believe is totally right and justified. People would say that you should 'have respect, no matter what you're opinion is', and that you should 'not speak ill of the dead'. I read an interesting Guardian article which voiced my own opinions to a T, and in a much more articulate way than I ever could. You can read the article here, but the gist of it was simply that no, you should not speak ill of the dead, if it is a personal affair. In terms of this death, if you are close to family or friends, are in the inner circles, it may be regarded as rude to the family. But when it is simply the public, speaking out about an opinion of a public figure, well, the whole not speaking ill of the dead saying just does not sit comfortably with me. To be honest, I'd rather people criticise me when I'm dead than when I'm alive. If we can not be given the opportunity to voice our views about somebody who was a controversial figure, and did affect many people's lives, whether directly or indirectly, whether for better or for worse, than we need to question our own autonomy. Our own democracy. Having said that, I've got to admit that the parties are extremely controversial, and I personally wouldn't be attending one. For starters, i don't feel I know enough about the issues. I know that Margaret Thatcher privatised everything, ruining peoples chances for education and taking jobs away, leaving families destitute. I know she helped the rich get richer as the poor got poorer. I do not know a lot else. Everyone has an opinion on her death and the reaction to it, but I don't see how I can comment on something I don't fully understand. I don't see how anyone can.
What I do understand however, is the present. And in the present, we get the message loud and clear from all angles in the U.K that money is tight. Cut's are here, there and everywhere. Cut's to wages, cut's to employment opportunities, the controversial new cut's to benefits (again, the Conservative government fail to support the poor and destitute in our country), so why the (insert explicit here) was 10 million, 10 MILLION, spent on Maggies funeral? The state funeral that she didn't even want? I mean, if we are gonna respect the dead like we are told to, at least abide their wishes for their own funeral right? Well, this was ignored, Thatcher got a state funeral anyway. A state funeral which cost a shed load of money, as £11.4 million is taken in an 'unavoidable cut' from the arts council, which in my opinion, is much more worthy of the money. What is quite funny though is, as my boyfriend pointed out, it is the ultimate irony that Margaret Thatcher, the privatisation queen if you like, got a state funeral. 
Another talking point has been about Margaret's gender. Anyone who knows me will know that I am an ardent feminist, to the point that I believe women who say they aren't feminists are liars and I believe that anyone who claims women already have equality is talking bull. So my opinion that actually, the fact Thatcher was a woman has nothing to do with the feisty reactions, has nothing to do with it. Grazia published an article this week about the very topic. I tweeted that 'this is the once case where gender has nothing to do with it' and that it is her policies that people react to. I stand by that. I totally believe the reactions would be the same if Thatcher was a man. She still would have been hugely controversial, and a hate figure for many. 
To be honest, like I said at the beginning of this post, my opinion is pretty balanced. I don't hate Thatcher, but I definitely don't love her. I admire the fact that she wouldn't stop at anything, that she fought the odds and became the first female PM. I admire that she didn't believe in luck, but instead, in hard work and determination paying off. I admire that she would sit in a room with 20 odd men and still maintain her arguments. However, I hated the fact that despite getting to the top as a woman, which is an amazing feat, she didn't help other women in to politics, a problem which remains in 2013, and that she didn't consider herself a feminist in the slightest.