If you want to protest, you really should mean it

Its pages were mainly filled with tales of misery and misfortune played out in the parts of the city you wouldn’t dare tread.

‘I’m grieving for my murdered wife’, ‘I lost my son to heroin’, ‘I’ve had 13 kids and got another on the way and I have no idea who their fathers are but can I have a bigger house please’ – those sorts of tales, told by people who end up pouring their hearts out to Jeremy Kyle when a cheque and a free night in a Travel Lodge are dangled in front of them.

It was not well received in the west of the city. But in the council estates of the east it was read cover to cover. And it was red through and through. And it was of little surprise that the first comment on its website story of Margaret Thatcher’s death read: ‘My only hope is that when they dig the grave they make the dance floor big enough.’

By the end of the day sporadic street parties had broken out in this city and many others in the north. Twitter and Facebook were awash with jokes or joyous postings celebrating Thatcher’s demise.

That evening the audience at a West End production of Billy Elliot were asked to vote on whether ‘Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher’ (a song containing lyrics anticipating the former PM’s death) should be given a miss that night out of respect. Only three audience members voted against it and the song was played.

And by Sunday, ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’ had entered the UK official Top 40 at number two.

By this time tomorrow the Thatcher hate-machine will be in full flow and there will be an unprecedented police presence at her ceremonial funeral. The days of not speaking ill of the dead are long gone. And rightly so. We all mess up. Sometimes we mess up other people’s lives. Or sometimes we do things that are simply unforgiveable. And to believe that any criticism of our time on this earth should end when we leave it is absurd.

But there was something about Thatcher’s death that brought out the worst in British society, something that we haven’t really seen since the summer of 2011.

It was the street parties that were the most pitiful of all. The young and the feckless gathered in public squares, mainly stoned or drunk, ranting about a woman that most of them would not have been able to name just a few hours earlier.

It was the fact that most were not even born when Thatcher ruled, and that most had not a single clue about her many achievements and her many, many failings. And it was the fact that most of them were there simply because they wanted to belong. They wanted to be part of the show. They wanted to play a leading role in that night’s entertainment. Just like the riots two years ago.

They moved from street to street with their beer cans and banners, largely without a clue, until someone decided it was time to go home. The only difference was that this time around no one put in any shop windows. And if any of them did have a reason to be there, it wasn’t the reason they thought. They thought they were there to attack an easy target, to join those who genuinely believe Maggie ruined the 80s, made their fathers redundant and their mothers unhappy, when in reality they were there because they are unhappy with their own lives – the unemployment, the pay freezes, the tax hikes and spending cuts. It was just an escape from their own miserable existence.

And their pitiful, almost cringingly embarrassing attempts to explain themselves made their actions even more desperate.

‘Thatcher closed all the pits’ (sort of true, but more pits closed in the 1960s and 70s than during Thatcher’s time in office), ‘Thatcher trampled over the working classes and gave us no hope’ (in some ways, yes, but she was the reason your parents bought their council house – the one you are about to inherit) and ‘Thatcher destroyed British industry’ (but factories boosted their output by more than 7% between 1979 and 1990). If you are going to protest, the least you can do is swot up on your history.

Even the assertion that Thatcher was hated by everyone but the rich minority can be tested with a simple question: How exactly do you win three general elections in a row if you are despised by the majority?

Thatcher did achieve an enormous amount during her 11 years in office. She made a great many people rich. She made a lot of people’s lives. And she ruined countless more. Her handling of the miners’ dispute and her obsessive attempts to crush the unions fuelled anger and resentment rarely seen in British politics.

For those reasons alone a good many people – including many readers of my former paper – had a right to raise a glass last Monday. They have a right to celebrate. They have a right to share their feelings by way of a posting on social media or joining a party on a street. And if they want to protest at the woman’s funeral, then good luck to them.

But so, so many of that angry mob in London tomorrow will have absolutely no idea what they are doing there. They will be there for the show. To be part of it. To belong. Just like the riots. And that’s pretty depressing, because if you are going to turn up to someone’s funeral with a placard in one hand and the middle finger of the other extended in the direction of the coffin, you really should mean it.

Richard Heath