RIGHT ROYAL SEND OFF?

What's the difference between a military and state funeral? A couple of million or two? I couldn't help but watch the event on TV today. Mainly, to see the demonstrations against Maggie but also to witness how a military funeral could cost £10million. Despite very strong anti-Thatcher feelings, I personally couldn't have danced on her grave or demonstrate at the event. It just didn't feel right. It appears from BBC News that her supporters clapped out the sound of any opposition. Perhaps there were lots of other people who felt like me. So I wore something red, went for a walk, had a minute's reflection on the consequences of her policies to the South Wales Valleys.
      I was working in Rhondda from 1983-1988 with Rhondda Community Arts and Spectacle Theatre in Education and Community Theatre. Later, with Mencap I had an All Wales remit, so I got to visit the Valleys quite a bit.
      Of course the Unions at the time needed to be brought under control and some of their restrictive practices curbed, but what Maggie's policies did was to emasculate them and the working class communities of South Wales and the north of England.
      No thought was given to the consequences of closing the mines. The pit had been the centre of the working community.There was little if any other employment. Miners wages paid for the establishment of welfare institutes- centres of self improvement, leisure and education. Beautiful buildings fell into a state of disrepair-too expensive to maintain without their financial support. The Government first denied that there was a plan to close all existing mines in Wales. Then it was announced that they would be closed because it was no longer economic to mine coal. No large scale alternative sources of employment or re-training of the workforce were planned, or funded, or new businesses established, before the closure of the mines and long after. Communities felt abandoned. It was the start of generations of men who were never able to get local work, the rise in drink, drugs, social problems, poverty and deprivation.
       It would seem that those who support the assertion that Maggie was the greatest prime minster of the twentieth century, and was Britain's saviour, live mainly in the affluent areas of South-east England where the financial service industry has flourished and there was already an established culture of private enterprise. Speak to anyone round here and it's no wonder that people think and feel differently.
        Today, a friend reminded me of the 'Spirit of 45.' the recent Ken Loach film about the aspirations and policies of post-war Britain. It was a time of wanting the world to be a better and more equal place for all sections of society. A concept that Maggie said never existed. Thatcher's children and grandchildren have been brought up on the cult of the individual. Take what you can for yourself and bugger anyone else. Survival of the fittest. Maggie Thatcher may be dead and buried but Thatcherism is still alive and kicking.