In anticipation of the BBC drama about Thatcher, starring Lindsay Duncan, next Thursday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hy18h ), today's Independent on Sunday selects just a handful of figures who were prominent, or rose to prominence, in the 1980s & asks them for their views on the Tory leader who inflicted more damage on the UK's manufacturing base than the Luftwaffe (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/unforgiven-the-rehabilitation-of-mrs-t-1628951.html ).
Most of the obvious figures from the decade are quoted, including Tony Benn (with an odd Thatcher anecdote from Eric Heffer's memorial service in 1991), Bernard Ingham, Billy Bragg, Edwina Currie & Alexie Sayle. However, a qoute from Beryl Bainbridge says far more about her than Thatcher herself. It puts her recent & not so recent disparaging remarks about her home town in a sharper, more malign context:
"I never voted Conservative, but she was a strong and able woman, well-educated and she wasn't scared of men. I saw her a couple of years ago with Carol. I had had a drink and I just went up to Margaret and kissed her. I felt terribly ashamed afterwards. Carol asked me why I did it and I just said, 'She's nice'."
Even now, two decades on, nearly every other Liverpudlian, in contrast to Our Beryl, would, if given the chance, feel sorely tempted to administer something other than a kiss to the woman.
As Elvis Costello memorably expressed it on a BBC programme back in 1989, the loathing for Thatcher will persist long after her death:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Znn5a-88tY .
* "Tramp The Dirt Down", by Elvis Costello, 1989.
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