Ding dong the bitch is dead

I'm from an era where expressing glee over the demise of an adversary was considered poor form.

An era when "poor form" still meant something.

Apparently it doesn't mean anything anymore.

BBC seem to have a conundrum on their hands; are they going to play the number one hit of the week on their weekly hits show? The number one hit this week is that number from the Wizard of Oz.

Ding dong the witch is dead.

Far more shocking than the bile of her detractors is the unmitigated adulation of her supporters.

PM Cameron speaks for a substantial minority when he says Thatcher saved Britain. The disaster that David Cameron is presiding over today is 100% the product of Mrs. Thatcher.

And it is a disaster. If Britain keeps her current course, she will be the Greece of next year or the year after.

The thesis that the de-industrialization of Britain was an inevitability is bullshit from stem to stern. Given a different set of lights to guide the ship of state by, Britain could have saved her coal mines, her ship-building industry, her steel industry, and the entire industrial working class.

But once you drink the neo-liberal free-trade kool-aid nothing is doable if somebody somewhere can do it cheaper.

So Maggie set out to make Britain the place where finance hi-jinx was cheapest, and yes, the financial sector blossomed. The Rumpelstiltskin economy of the City eclipsed everything else.

Until it drove what was left of the rest of the economy into the ground.

Thatcher did not save Britain. Thatcher presided over the destruction of Britain. I can well see why so many want to celebrate instead of mourn.