The Iron Lady, The Silver Screen, and a Copper-Bottomed Cunt

Right; I think I've finally figured it out - there's a biopic of Margaret Thatcher doing the rounds at the moment, isn't there?  It's odd; you'd think that the thing might have attracted a little more media interest, would you not?  As controversial releases go, it's got to rank somewhere between "Happy Darkies: a Reappraisal of Slavery" and a feelgood rom-com based upon the life of Josef Fritzl: Maggie was - and is - undoubtedly revered and reviled throughout the UK, after all.  To the nouveau riche she pointed the way to Prosperity, Home Ownership, and a high old time generally; to others she was Satan's pre-eminent bitchwhore who shat all over Society throughout the 1980s with (I assume) the same lack of restraint that she now befouls the rubber sheets of her senescence.  Clearly there's no room for compromise on this issue: one is either a Thatcherite or not, and the film is guaranteed to do nothing more than strengthen either position.  After all; did anyone watch Downfall and find themselves musing that Hitler could well be forgiven for being a screaming, xenophobic nutcase - what with having such a lot on his plate during those difficult years and all? It's unlikely to say the least.
Ideally, of course, I'd refrain from commenting on the film until I've seen it - but then again, ideally, a visit to the cinema wouldn't be an over-priced, fagless, and soul-sucking ordeal that makes me want to die, so unless I happen to cop for a bent DVD of The Iron Lady it's going to be a while before I subject it to the sort of rigorous and impartial scrutiny that those that know me might expect.  Anyway; it doesn't really matter - as I say, I doubt that it's going to change anyone's view of Thatcher or her politics.  There are, after all, limits to even the powers of Meryl Streep's method acting and unnerving, angular face.
What is worth a look though, is the massive reaction to the film's release: all of a sudden, "Thatch" is once again the most talked about figure in British politics; the topic of conversation in the boozer and upon the Internet alike.  Despite the next recession looming ever closer, hardly anyone's talking about Cameron and his little cock-puppet; it's all "Maggie and the Miners", "Falklands", and "He liked a drink, that Denis, didn't he?"  There's also - understandably - a lot of anger.
Yes; it turns out that people do remember that there was more to the 1980s than New Romantics and the advent of home video recorders (which rather begs the question of why so many people voted for a déjá-vu government - but let's look at that some other time). People recall years of socially and economically divisive policies; a decade of deregulation and privatisation; an age of selfishness and greed unknown since the time of the Borgias - and they're appalled all over again.  Once more, Baroness Thatcher is a villified figure of hate and horror - only this time around, it appears, she might well be too bonkers to know it, or even care.
And that, I must admit, is what makes me feel a bit uneasy.  Certainly the dedication with which she attempted to dismantle not only the infrastructure of a compassionate State, but also the foundations of what used to be called "basic human decency" in order to create a Monetarist Utopia in which all was sacrificed upon the sanctified altar of Market Forces and Choice can't be forgiven by anyone with even a passing interest in having a social conscience; nor can we escape the possibility that the damage done to the world (both temporal and spiritual) may well be beyond hope of repair - but should we gloat with such immoderate joy over her decline into senility and her imminent death?  I'm not so sure. 
I won't mourn Margaret Thatcher, and I won't have any time for the mealy-mouthed tributes of apologists who describe her in obituaries as "a worthy opponent" or point to her "remarkable strength of character" - similarly the tributes of her political descendents will stick in my craw. Having said that, the crowing won't be any easier to swallow: contempt and scorn for the weak and vulnerable was the central, Darwinian principle underlying Thatcherism, wasn't it?  It fuelled the "me first" culture of the City and of global finance; it helped to close down the nut-houses and practically paved the streets with delusional characters in slippers screaming at non-existant camels; it was the ugly genie that came rushing out of the bottle of our collective consciousness and is still rampant and thriving to this day.  Should we then, give into it? Tempting though it is, I think not: our hatred and rage is wasted upon a frail and bewildered old woman; a toothless ogre who can no more grind up anyone's bones than she can walk to the toilet unassisted.  In addition to being futile (it isn't like one of those horror/science-fiction films where destroying the mother-ship or arch-vampire will destroy all the subsidiary lackeys instantaneously and restore everything to hunky-dorydom, after all - her bastard children and even-more-of-a-bastard grandchildren will still go on with her work), a celebration will rob us of even the minimal consolation of being "better" than Thatcher and her ilk. In fact, it's conceivable that in her lucid moments, the ageing beast's lips might contort into a travesty of a smile at the sound of our triumphant jeers.  Like the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, she will revel in such vindication of her belief in the essential rottenness of humanity - "let the hate flow through you" indeed.  Though it's tough not to laugh and applaud one of History's greatest monsters in its death throes, I'm going to have a pop at it - I'd like to cheat the Iron Lady of that last, grim chuckle, if nothing else.