Is The Iron Lady's heart of gold quite right? | Film | guardian.co.uk

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Those of a leftist persuasion sometimes like to demonise their opponents. Famously, Aneurin Bevan considered all Tories "lower than vermin". Margaret Thatcher seems to rank even lower than that. On the Guardian site alone, discussion of the current biopic has seen her termed a "vile hateful witch", a "nasty spoilt bitch" and "an evil, evil woman". In less elevated forums, even blunter assessments have been offered. So it's understandable that Meryl Streep's interpretation has displeased the Baroness's critics as much as her admirers. Like many earlier screen treatments of the Thatcher saga, The Iron Lady is disobligingly reluctant to monster its subject. This time, she's presented not just as fully human but as really quite appealing. Naturally, the depiction of her current affliction inspires sympathy, yet it's the film's handling of her previous character that's impossible to square with the fiend envisioned by her detractors. We see a doting daughter, a besotted wife, a mother who loves her son too much and a prime minister who weeps for fallen servicemen. We're shown a woman who can be stubborn, rude and wrong-headed but who's nonetheless prepared to sacrifice much for (what she believes to be) the betterment of others. This isn't a picture you'll welcome if you think Thatcher must be branded an ogre, but it seems accurate enough. Those who knew her in office have testified to her common decency. She was, reportedly, "always incredibly kind to her friends and the girls who worked for her", making sure everyone at Downing Street and Chequers had a Christmas present. She was "empathetic and compassionate", offering comfort to visitors in need of it. She was "funny" and "playful", but distraught when Mark, her son, went missing in the Sahara, and (as in the film) devastated by the assassination of Airey Neave. Yet Thatcher isn't alone on the right in displaying a bit of humanity. Indeed it sometimes seems as if this quality is in shorter supply on the left. With whom would you rather go on holiday? Verminous Churchill or dear old Nye? Boris or Ken? Cameron might even have it over Ed Miliband, let alone Brown, Balls or Mandelson. Inconceivable as this may seem to some, those who are ideologically incorrect can actually be quite nice. Why shouldn't they be? Progressives like to equate their own cause with righteousness, but all rightwingers aren't out simply to protect privilege. Some are as eager as their rivals to benefit the disadvantaged, but have a different view of what this will entail. Thatcher wanted the downtrodden to be liberated; she had little time for the undeserving rich. It's quite hard to convince yourself that Iain Duncan Smith is out to grind the faces of the poor just for the fun of it. The relative modesty of the right's political project leaves scope for human feeling. If you're out to conserve rather than transform, you can take a more relaxed view of things. If you're already doing nicely, you'll be less prone to envy and resentment and may be softened by guilt or noblesse oblige. On the left, things are different. The justice of the cause brooks no sentimental aberration. Love of the human race may preclude love for actual human beings, as Dickens noted 150 years ago when he invented Mrs Jellyby. Even lefties need to beware lefties. The critic Philip Hope-Wallace was sagely advised by his dad: "Never work for a liberal employer, dear boy: they'll sack you on Christmas Eve." In 2010, two Canadian psychologists studying the behaviour of consumers found that those insisting on planet-friendly products were more likely to steal and lie and less likely to be kind to others. They put this down to "compensatory ethics". Apparently, "virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours". Whatever you may think of the milk snatcher herself, you couldn't accuse her of compensatory ethics. Ere long, those eager to dance on her grave will doubtless get their chance. More, however, will probably mourn. Not just those who think she saved the nation, but others who, like the makers of The Iron Lady, have noticed she can be quite a likable old stick.

It's a fair point - anyone campaigning for change is under a lot of pressure, from their own side as much as from the ones who want things to stay the same, because of course no one can agree on what change is right.

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And Hitler was nice to kids and liked vegetables.

Sure. So what? It's the actions that count, the rest is "sentimental aberration"... I have no doubt that 99.9% of the right-wingers think of themselves as paragons of virtue and nice guys/gals to boot. But, operationally, they're evil. And that's the only thing that really matters...

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Unlike that lovely Mr Stalin, for example.

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Did I say that 'the left' (interpreted widely) did not have its own monsters?

I brought in Hitler to make the point forcefully. I am not saying Thatcher = Hitler. But, as you yourself pointed out countless times before, no one sees him/herself as evil. Everybody's always quite convinced that they're doing things 'for the best'. Hitler, certainly. I might credit Stalin with slightly more self-knowledge and maybe he did know he was doing things to nakedly preserve its own power, without grander reasons. But maybe I am wrong on that.

Either way, neither Hitler nor Stalin are "right" or "left" in the classical sense we normally use.

Thatcher's reality is that she devastated the northern UK economy and brought about the conditions that made the past 30 years descent into our present-days situation possible... Whether she gave Christmas presents or not to her staff is frankly irrelevant. Just as it would be irrelevant if she actually pissed into their Christmas pudding. That's not the important stuff.

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I rather admire her, a woman in politics when it was not the norm. A bitch they say, if a man had done the same things he wouldn't be hald as demonized.

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"If you want something said ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman" Margaret Thatcher

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

Did I say that 'the left' (interpreted widely) did not have its own monsters? I brought in Hitler to make the point forcefully. I am not saying Thatcher = Hitler. But, as you yourself pointed out countless times before, no one sees him/herself as evil. Everybody's always quite convinced that they're doing things 'for the best'. Hitler, certainly. I might credit Stalin with slightly more self-knowledge and maybe he did know he was doing things to nakedly preserve its own power, without grander reasons. But maybe I am wrong on that. Either way, neither Hitler nor Stalin are "right" or "left" in the classical sense we normally use. Thatcher's reality is that she devastated the northern UK economy and brought about the conditions that made the past 30 years descent into our present-days situation possible... Whether she gave Christmas presents or not to her staff is frankly irrelevant. Just as it would be irrelevant if she actually pissed into their Christmas pudding. That's not the important stuff.

*shrug* And if the left had had it's way and the North had been preserved as a quaint little heritage museum for Southerners to visit and be all thankful that they don't have to live in such primitive conditions..? Personally, as a Northerner I'd rather be jobless than a zoo-bound ape. Don't try to convince me that the left of the 1980s would have used the oil money to pay future deficits either.

The difference is that no one's accusing the left of doing it all purely out of the evilness of their hearts. If you're the boss then you're going to have to do something now and then that pisses people off.

I guess my basic point is that if you're write a person off because you don't like their politics then you're a very childish and small-minded person. If that means that I have to give Hitler a fair hearing before condemning him, so be it.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

*shrug* And if the left had had it's way and the North had been preserved as a quaint little heritage museum for Southerners to visit and be all thankful that they don't have to live in such primitive conditions..?

Really? That's the impression you have of Alsace/Lorraine or the Rurh?

No one is saying that we should have kept coal mining and steel processing as main industries in the North regardless of the economic conditions. But they are ways to go about things. As someone said, "protect the worker, don't protect the job"... Here, Thatcher went after the workers with a double handed axe. Sorry but I disapprove.

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Don't try to convince me that the left of the 1980s would have used the oil money to pay future deficits either.

Well, one thing they wouldn't have likely done with them is offer tax breaks for the rich... I'd be mildly interested to see who established the sovereign funds in Norway and co anyhow. Even in the 80s, they would have known (theoretically) how to cure the Dutch Disease. Present day example of someone fucking it up: Australia and its mining riches...

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I guess my basic point is that if you're write a person off because you don't like their politics then you're a very childish and small-minded person. If that means that I have to give Hitler a fair hearing before condemning him, so be it.

And my point is that someone's character is irrelevant in the grand scheme of political activity. You can have people like me, not the most charming of people, on the left. I am not there out of the goodness of my heart but because the left reflects somewhat better what I think and what I know and what I think I know about economics in the real world...

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Originally Posted by Zichao

*shrug* And if the left had had it's way and the North had been preserved as a quaint little heritage museum for Southerners to visit and be all thankful that they don't have to live in such primitive conditions..?

Total straw man, a malicious fiction.

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Really? That's the impression you have of Alsace/Lorraine or the Rurh? No one is saying that we should have kept coal mining and steel processing as main industries in the North regardless of the economic conditions. But they are ways to go about things. As someone said, "protect the worker, don't protect the job"... Here, Thatcher went after the workers with a double handed axe. Sorry but I disapprove.

But the left wasn't proposing Alsace. It was promoting "protect heavy industry come what may".

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Well, one thing they wouldn't have likely done with them is offer tax breaks for the rich... I'd be mildly interested to see who established the sovereign funds in Norway and co anyhow. Even in the 80s, they would have known (theoretically) how to cure the Dutch Disease. Present day example of someone fucking it up: Australia and its mining riches...

So they'd have frittered it away in some other, far less fun way.

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And my point is that someone's character is irrelevant in the grand scheme of political activity. You can have people like me, not the most charming of people, on the left. I am not there out of the goodness of my heart but because the left reflects somewhat better what I think and what I know and what I think I know about economics in the real world...

My point is that politics is irrelevant in the grand scheme of someone's character.

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Total straw man, a malicious fiction.

Oh, they'd have called it "preserving key industries" or something, I dare say.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

But the left wasn't proposing Alsace. It was promoting "protect heavy industry come what may".

No it wasn't. It was saying that working pits should not be closed by fiat without some kind of replacement industry to absorb the laid off workers. Thatcher et al presumably assumed that new industries would spring up spontaneously through the magic of the market. You're merely reciting Conservative propaganda as if it were true.