Why is Liverpool Rejoicing at Thatcher’s Death?

Bluey and the Great Spirit Moon The Hardest Part About Writing

Why is Liverpool Rejoicing at Thatcher’s Death?

As a Liverpool working class kid, growing up or rather trying to survive during Thatcher’s reign in the 1980′s was to say the least a depressing time. Much of the world today will be bemused at the reaction Margaret Thatcher’s death has evoked from the people of Liverpool, the irony being the people she tried so hard to divide and break, today stand together, resolute and strong through her death.

If the reaction of such joyous relief that a former prime minster’s demise can instill in a city is bewildering to you, you need only look at the decimation of communities, poverty and suffering the people of Liverpool endured at the hands of a person who’s aim was to fracture a society, bring them to heel, while creating a pool of cheap labour powerless and living under an oppressive state.

It’s not just the policies she employed to starved Liverpool of money and resources, to create poverty in order to bring the working man or woman to heel, but the underlying structure to create a mindset through a nation, a whopping great divide, one that the scars of her actions are still visible today. She created a mindset or rather forced it, one that decided societies structure – working class people were there for the grace of the wealthy and as such a disposable society who’s only use was cheap labour.

It sounds rather like some Dickensian, outdated ethic, and yet, there in the latter of the 20th century it was happening. At 15 I collected food parcels for starving miners and their families as their strike continued, faces that still haunt me today. Conscription to the Youth Training Scheme for 16-year- olds was brought in, and for £27.50 you got the privilege of working 35-hours a week. Considering transport would set you back £10 per week, try living on £17.50 each week to clothe and feed yourself, let alone enough to rent a flat, if you were without a family, such as I was.

Youth Training Schemes were terrible, being placed in businesses and companies, the amount of children used and tossed out at the end of their term were horrendous and no doubt I was not the only 16 year old that found the sexual harassment at the hands of some bosses abhorrent. But something else was evident about it all, Thatcher’s policies were creating a mindset. In the 1980′s an ex KGB officer gave an interview discussing the process of indoctrination – he said it took only 3 generations to condition a society. Throughout the working classes in the 1980′s a seed had been sown, Thatcher’s policies instilled in the working classes their place in society, their only use being the cheap labour they brought to industry and the UK marketplace.

As I watched the Jimmy Saville child sex abuse case unfold recently, casting light on his awful behaviour to children in the 1980′s, I wondered how many of the children he abused were working class and how many came from middle class families. My guess is working class kids were far more easy to abuse and were easy pickings. This was the state of the 1980′s.

But I digress, why is the city of Liverpool rejoicing in Margaret Thatcher’s demise? Probably on the closure of an era, one in which she created such a dystopian society that robbed Liverpool’s sons and daughters of opportunity, pride and hope. When 96 men, women and children died in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, the Government were quick to sweep it under the carpet and protect those in power who were responsible for the accident – after all they were only dead Scousers, no-one of any real value!

The people of Liverpool with their indomitable spirit, their strong resolution for justice where a tough people for Thatcher to break. They care not if you are a prince or a road-sweeper, Liverpool people will address either in the same manner, status or wealth is a consequence not an identity. Truth is a way of life for Liverpool people and as a result of such spirit, Liverpool would not give in to her policies, they fought her every inch and as such Thatcher retaliated in the only way she knew how – bullying and force.

But even after Thatcher, her legacy carried on, instead of creating opportunities for people, she created victims, and as such a new manner of manipulation was found by other political parties. Victims do not take responsibility for their life, they give responsibility to the State, and as such give their power away. After all you ultimately choose the poison that kills you.

As my respects do go out to her family, as a mother they will no doubt miss her, as Prime Minster, I must raise a glass to you Mrs Thatcher, you did not create the broken society you had hoped for in Liverpool, instead you created a city of fighters who found strength and resilience in their darkest hour. This is our legacy we will hand down to our children – Truth & Justice in the face of adversity!