I spoke at a Yes (for Scottish Independence) meeting last night and found it really difficult to speak thinking of how that old woman was looked after in the Ritz hotel in her dying days because"it gave the best care," while generations of my family have died in ward beds, in pain, and worrying that they were a burden.
My family were looked after by wonderful NHS Doctors and nurses constantly pressurised and under fire from successive Tory and son of Tory Blairite/Thatcherite New Labour Governments. An NHS that has been privatised in England, the greedy profit draining consequences of which are coming to light as hospital after hospital closes. The consequences which will hit NHS Scotland soon as less and less of our hard earned taxes are given for care and more and more are given to boost profits of unscrupulous, greedy corporations.
I know she had family who loved her, and I am sure she was kind to them. I am sure they wanted for nothing. I am sure they miss her. And I am sorry for their loss, but I'm angry at this old woman and what she and the ideological creed she helped create has meant for the UK and Scotland - the 4th most unequal, divided and "poor baiting" society in the world. But I am angrier that her vicious profit sucking, downward spiral political hegemony is still in power.
I am angry knowing housing scheme after housing scheme here in Glasgow has new generations of people who can aspire to be used as slave workers for unscrupulous, subsidised corporations. I am angry that less and less working class clever young people will see education as "an affordable choice..." WHAT A DREADFUL LEGACY FROM SOMEONE FROM A LOWER MIDDLE CLASS BACKGROUND WHO WAS EDUCATED AND SUBSIDISED THROUGH THAT EDUCATION BY THE SOLIDARITY OF TAX PAYING WORKERS, TO LEAVE TO US!
And I'm angry that Tory policy has been meted out on Scotland for forty years even though we haven't voted for them.
Hope died when Thatcher, Major, Blair, Cameron and Clegg were voted in to power.
The only way for Thatcherism to truly die in Scotland, a return to hope, is to vote Yes in the Independence Referendum next year.
My immediate reaction to her death, The Best Legacy, is HERE