Nearly everyone with just a passing interest in politics has posted something on her demise,many much better than i could ever hope to conjour. so, as i write this Blog i can be classed as a "Writer" of sorts,and what do writers write when they can't write? That's right.Musicals...
During Thatcher's regime from 1979 to 1990 there were plenty of tunes penned either about her or her policies.Many of which cracked the top ten easily...It's safe to say i can't recall one song in praise of Thatcher so if you find these tunes biased...Damn right they are!
"I see no joy,i see only sorrow.i see no chance of your bright new tomorrow" Proof that protest songs don't need to be tuneless dirges caterwauled by beardy folk singers...Once had the childish,but satisfying,pleasure of putting this on the juke box of a pub in the I-O-W in 1982 sixteen times on the trot knowing the local Conservative council leader was in the pub...
Originally penned by Robert Wyatt but this version is the better known.On April 2nd 1982(My Birthday btw,send money please) Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.Not many Brits even knew where they were never mind that it was British land.Never mind,if you need to win an election and you're in desperate straits at home what better than going to war.This is exactly what Thatcher did.I know this is not a view shared by many but the facts are that she knew Argentina were planning some action towards the islands and decided to sit on that until it was too late and her hand was forced.
Argentina had been saber rattling over these rocks for years,indeed in 1977 the then Labour Govt got wind of a planned attack on the Falklands and parked three nuclear subs off the shore of Buenos Aires letting it be know any action would be foolish in the extreme...Thatcher could have easily done the same...Still at least she won the election...
Thatcher made it her mission to destroy the Unions and so she went after the biggest of them all,The NUM.along with it's totem Arthur Scargill.Secondry picketing was banned and she bought the full weight of the UK police force down on the striking Miners.This lasted a year and cost untold millions.Perfectly good working mines were closed down for the only reasons that she wanted to break the back of the NUM.This is also the closest we have come in my lifetime to a police state,They were given unlimited powers of arrest and did so with gusto.I know people who were arrested just for wearing a "Coal not Dole" badge.Thirty years on and many of these communities still have not recovered,many never will...
Think this one is self explanatory....
THE defining song of Thatcher's tenure.Talk about catching the Zietgeist! Britain was burning with riots in every major city and the people WE'RE getting angry...The UK was dying a death of a thousand cuts,much as it is now...But hey at least the embittered kids of today have One Direction to see them through the dark days.The sad part is that this tune resonates today as much as it did then now that Thatcher's Midwich cuckoos are running the country into the ground...
I'm sure there are many more tunes that can sum up her eleven years in charge.I'm always open to suggestions...Thatcher! The Musical needs you...
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