Whether we like the title or not, many of us are Thatcher\u2019s children because she was in power when we started to work.\u00a0 Everything she put in place had an effect on all of us, in a way that no politician since has done.\u00a0 What I find hard to understand is the rejoicing of the few at her death.\u00a0 \u2018Distasteful\u2019 is far too polite a description.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t a tyrannical despot, philanderer or a philistine.\u00a0 She\u00a0didn’t\u00a0plunge us into unnecessary and costly (lives not money) wars.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t a slippery crowd pleaser either.\u00a0 She was a scientist and a mum who became a politician; she led from the front and was the driving force behind how this country works and how we are viewed on the world stage.\u00a0 In case anyone\u2019s in any doubt, much of this is for the better.<\/p>\n
Even now there are a lot of people who don\u2019t like change; Margaret Thatcher wasn\u2019t one of those either.\u00a0 She\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0interested in supporting the old ways if they were past their sell-by date; she was interested in exploring the new, even if it took her down a path that was unpopular.\u00a0 You could never accuse her of courting popularity, but she was because we kept voting for her and she was the longest serving prime minister of the 20th\u00a0century.<\/p>\n
Her confrontation with the unions is something that always sticks out in my memory.\u00a0 No, not because it was long overdue, and that no one had ever had the mental strength to grasp this political nettle in previous governments; it was because of desktop publishing.<\/p>\n
Desktop publishing must sound so old today, but in the 1980s it was new technology that would revolutionise the speed in which newspapers and magazines could be produced. \u00a0This was the future and opened the doors for Wapping and the digital age of publishing a few years later.\u00a0 Where technology steps in, less people are needed. \u00a0So, while \u201ceverybody out\u201d was still ringing in our ears, thousands of pickets were surrounding the offices of Eddie Shah, who was launching a new national newspaper using this technology.\u00a0 The pickets were there for months, it was violent and it was ugly, but the newspaper, Today, was published.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s difficult to imagine, but replace Eddie Shah and Today with Sergey Brin and Google.\u00a0 Unthinkable\u00a0isn’t\u00a0it?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to know what the history books will write about this time, but it\u2019s more likely to be that Margaret Thatcher stood for progress and competitiveness while the unions wanted to prevent both to protect its members.\u00a0 You can\u2019t stop the future from happening\u00a0 so you have to look forward and work collaboratively, but this was impossible for the unions to do then; they were locked in a time warp that thankfully\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0exist now, but it was a painful journey getting there.\u00a0 But we did get there.<\/p>\n
Better to think outside of the box and embrace the new than to keep your mind and spirit locked inside it.\u00a0 That was Margaret Thatcher\u2019s legacy and we should be rejoicing that we have it.<\/p>\n
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