Stand Down Margaret, Stand Down Please*
In the wake of Margaret Thatcher’s death, there has been an outpouring of remembrance of her role as Britain’s first female prime minister. Hugo Young, a political columnist for the Guardian from 1984 until 2003 and Thatcher’s biographer, wrote this piece in 2003, two weeks before he died.
… Thatcher left a dark legacy that, like her successes, has still not disappeared behind the historical horizon. Three aspects of it never completely leave my head.
The first is what changed in the temper of Britain and the British. What happened at the hands of this woman’s indifference to sentiment and good sense in the early 1980s brought unnecessary calamity to the lives of several million people who lost their jobs. It led to riots that nobody needed. More insidiously, it fathered a mood of tolerated harshness. Materialistic individualism was blessed as a virtue, the driver of national success. Everything was justified as long as it made money – and this, too, is still with us.
