Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Before I embark on this (undoubtedly ill-advised) blog I feel I should provide a disclaimer: this is my opinion, nothing more. It was formed as a result of what I have read in the papers and on social media in the days following Margaret Thatcher’s death and has come off the back of no research whatsoever. None. It has no bearing on my political opinion either, which changes all the time anyway and which is none of your business.  So, you know, chase me with your pitchforks, I don’t care. I didn’t do anything to any miners.

 

I was 3 years old when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister (all right, I may have researched prominent dates). I was 15 when she was ousted and clearly remember being in my school form room at lunchtime when a girl from the year below burst in, regaled us with the news and declared herself “delighted”. I was confused. As a 15 year old I didn’t give a stuff who ran the country, or the Conservative Party or even the Monster Raving Loony Party (though if I’d had the vote I would have voted for them, they sounded fun). My eldest son is now 15, he also doesn’t give a stuff who runs the country, although he does agree with me that Ed Miliband has an annoying lisp and looks like a bit of a weirdo. And that the video of his “putting aside the rhetoric” interview is hilarious. Well, it is.

 

So my young life was never really touched by her politics, not directly. Sure, you could argue that she changed the shape of the country but did I care about that? Of course not. That was already over and done with and I was far more concerned with my face full of zits, a curly hair helmet Anita Dobson would have been jealous of, a pair of glasses larger than my face and the overwhelming sense that I would never, ever get a boyfriend. Ever. I am too young and too soft and southern to really recall the miners’ strike beyond thinking that Arthur Scargill was kinda funny lookin’ and as a result don’t feel it is my place, even now, to comment on something I can’t fully claim to understand (because I haven’t researched it).

 

I hadn’t expected Mrs T’s death to have brought about a spontaneous national outpouring of grief like that of, say, Kim Jong Il, but I found myself surprised and confused again by the vitriol in some of the words expressed about someone that hadn’t been in a position of power for over 2 decades. Perhaps my relative youth means I am enough removed from her premiership to say…hang on a minute! I hope so because I’m going to anyway: hang on a minute! Was she a ruthless despot that seized power in a military coup that brought about the death of thousands? Well, no. Did she act completely alone and without the support of her party? Er…don’t think so. Did she ramp up her country’s nuclear campaign while ignoring the fact that millions of people were starving and start making threats to the US? Definitely not. Oh. What’s this? She was democratically elected not once but three times? Once AFTER the miners’ strike? Have I read that right?

 

OK, I know full well that I’m not suitably informed to pass any sort of comment and so I’m trying not to. I don’t have an opinion on the policies of 30 plus years ago and I don’t feel that I’m entitled to. When I learned of her death I didn’t cheer or organize a party but I did make the mistake of watching the news and looking at twitter.  First up in the inevitable vox pop on the news was an aging gentleman who said (and I’m paraphrasing, of course) he may not have agreed with her hardline politics but that it was a sad day, first woman Prime Minister, iconic figure blah blah blah. He was respectful, that was what I took away from his words. The next man, however, couldn’t have been much more than 40 and he couldn’t have been less respectful: (paraphrasing again) “Well, I come from Finchley so I am allowed to say I’m glad she’s dead.” What? Actually GLAD? Why? If nothing else you were a CHILD when she was in power! Did she nick your sweets? Push you over on purpose? What possible improvement to your life would come about as a direct result of the death of an old woman?

 

Now, I’ve come across some total bastards in my life who’ve done some pretty shitty things to me but would I ever say I was glad any of them were dead? Probably not.  Margaret Thatcher is clearly a figure of hate for a lot of people even after so many years but to celebrate her death seems inhuman to me somehow, not the actions of those from a civilised society. But worse than that, so many of the vitriolic comments I witnessed on twitter were by people around my age and younger than me. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, but how much of that is informed? Be honest, before you stood on national TV and declared you were glad an old woman had died were you fully apprised of all that occurred during the longest stint as Prime Minister in modern times? I’m not defending anything she did, I’m really not, but I would just question how much of what is said by those celebrating her death was based on informed opinion and how much is just recycled opinion inherited from parents.  My parents have never been particularly outspoken when it came to politics, so perhaps that is why I didn’t feel compelled to download “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” and throw a street party. But even if they had been Thatcher-haters or Thatcher-lovers I would like to think I would be sensible enough and intelligent enough to make up my own mind rather than blithely follow the family line.

 

And what good do the words of hate do? Would she have cared that she wasn’t loved and revered by all? I very much doubt it. It’s all so unnecessary and all it does is hurt those she has left behind whose grief will be no different to yours or mine after the death of a loved one or than it would had she been a cuddly Granny figure. What did Carol Thatcher ever do to you “glad she’s dead” man? Perhaps she was the one that nicked your sweets.

 

There has also been a lot of talk of the cost of her funeral, how many nurses we could have paid for etc. In fact it was not dissimilar to my argument against the massive Diamond Jubilee celebrations (and the royal wedding). Whatever your views on Mrs Thatcher she will always have a place in history as the first female Prime Minister of a country where women haven’t even had the vote for 100 years. No, she didn’t come across as a particularly feminine person (I found her a bit scary) and I wonder if she didn’t over-compensate somewhat to make herself more acceptable to the British people and men in particular. She was a woman in a man’s world and would men find it more palatable to take orders from a slightly more androgynous version of a woman than a mumsy type with a high-pitched voice, warm tone and heaving breast? Who knows. And they’ll pay for the funeral and the diamond jubilee and the royal wedding and no doubt the next royal wedding and the royal christening partly out of the public purse anyway.  At least (unlike the royals) she was elected.  If nothing else Margaret Thatcher paved the way for more women to enter politics, although they are still seriously under-represented, and for more women to want to enter politics so we can thank her for the likes of Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper and the godawful Theresa May. Mrs Thatcher, how could you?

We won the Olympics!

We won the Olympics!

I really wasn’t looking forward to the Olympics. The build up seemed to go on for years and I couldn’t understand why, as a nation, we were spending billions of pounds on a sporting event we wouldn’t win anything at when we are floundering in a seemingly never-ending economic downturn. “We can’t afford this!” shouted I, to no-one in particular every time there was a news report about the re-generation of East London, the building of an Olympic stadium that was surely bound not to be ready on time and still cost twelve times as much as originally budgeted for. “And we’re rubbish at sport, anyway!”

I admit it, I was a nay-sayer. Apart from Formula 1 and tennis (but only men’s) I’m not interested in sport. After all, the only other sport ever broadcast is football, something I have come to despise thanks to the talentless knuckle dragging chavs that seem to dominate it. Oh, and rugby, which is OK but not for me, I’m not even that enamoured with rugby players’ legs. And maybe the odd bit of golf, which I really don’t get; I’ve always thought Mark Twain had it right when he said it was “a good walk spoiled.” I appear to be talking myself out of my own argument here but the point I was attempting to make was that, for the most part, televised sport is unutterably dull.

But it wasn’t just the sport thing, once an all-conquering empire, was Great Britain and Northern Ireland REALLY capable of putting together a successful Olympic Games now it seems to be a broken shadow of its former self? It was only a year ago that the very city they were trying to regenerate parts of in time for the Games was burning thanks to riots, not only  the “dregs” of society taking to the streets but those considered to be “normal” as well, caught up in the moment by the chance to bag a free TV from Argos.

My overwhelming sense was that this was something that would be talked about for years but for all the wrong reasons. It was all going to go horribly wrong, it was going to be a national embarrassment AND we were going to be paying for it for at least the next thirty years, especially after the Queen’s diamond jubilee events which irritated me greatly. Can you really tell me that the previous government, the existing government and Boris Johnson would be capable of organising even a piss up in a brewery? Really? Boris is a buffoon! And Lord Coe is a smug git. The hilarious “Twenty Twelve” was a depiction of exactly how I imagined the organisation of the Olympic Games to be, a bunch of hopeless bureaucrats flailing around, every decision made adding weight to their incompetence and the inevitability of impending disaster.

A huge fuss was made when the Olympic flame* made it to our shores in a specially painted BA plane. And I found myself questioning how much that paint job actually cost. Seriously, how much DID it cost? And once it was here the torch relay was interminable, every inch of its progress covered in the local news ahead of real news stories (I absolutely cannot stand my local news programme) while some gurning idiot held aloft a giant holey lighter to rapturous applause.  Look, I know I’m being really unfair here, a lot of truly inspirational people carried that torch but if they did it in the 10,000 square mile area covered by BBC Look East I didn’t notice because I was too busy shouting at the sycophantic presenters to “TELL ME SOME ACTUAL FUCKING NEWS!!!”…”THAT ISN”T IN FUCKING NORFOLK! I DON’T LIVE ANYWHERE FUCKING NEAR FUCKING NORFOLK!!!!” I was extremely grateful that I didn’t have to do my fortnightly massive school run on the week the torch was following exactly the same route that I take in the middle of rush hour. If I had had to I may have popped.

*given that it went out in the flame handover ceremony I’d be very much surprised if the “flame” didn’t just originate from someone’s Zippo by the time it got here.

In typical British style the press wrote various negative reports in the weeks leading up to the opening ceremony. So many people had tried to get tickets to events and failed, multiple times, and the ticketing system was coming across as a big fat joke. There were some ridiculous rules surrounding sponsorship thanks to the jobsworthiness of LOCOG. G4S had failed to take on enough people to deal with security and the military had to be brought in, at further cost to the tax payer. Opportunist unions planned to cause as much disruption as they could by organising strikes close to the games, no one was using the dedicated Olympic traffic lanes and everybody was questioning the capacity of Transport for London to deal with the increased volume of visitors. We were all doomed. As a nay-sayer, I was up there with the best of them I-told-you-so-ing. With the exception of the union thing. I’m not a fan of unions at the best of times and while I expected the worst from these games I thought it was unnecessary and , frankly, despicable to hold the country to ransom in that way.

As is often the case I was a great big ball of negativity and cynicism and nothing was going to change my mind. Was it? Well…. A couple of things happened in the week or two before the games officially opened. First the New York Times published an article about miserable Brits and how we all just wish the Olympics would bugger off. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that was the gist I took away. Rather than agreeing with the sentiment of the article (even though I could probably be accused of being one of these negative bastards) I found myself to be really quite angry about it. How dare they say such unpleasant things about my fellow countrymen? I wouldn’t call myself a patriot, exactly, but, despite appearances, I am proud to be British and I do love it here. The article had the same kind of effect on me as, say, a boyfriend making a nasty comment about a member of my family. I’m allowed to say what I like about them, but woe betide anyone else that does. Not that I would ever say anything other than lovely things about my family, of course.

And then Mitt Romney came to visit in an effort to show how great he is at foreign policy. Oh deary, deary me. He was nice to our faces, at least. Sort of. But is he not aware that anything he says on US television will probably make its way back to us? Really quickly? Not ready for the Olympics? I was incensed. Of course we’re bloody ready for the Olympics, HOW VERY DARE YOU? Indeed, the feeling of annoyance towards self-confessed Olympics organising genius Romney was so great that even David Cameron was able to deliver a zinger, in stating that it is probably quite easy to organise an Olympic event in the middle of nowhere, compared to one of the busiest cities in the world. Wind your neck in, Romney.

My attitude transformed pretty much immediately. I was still a little incredulous that the BBC thought it necessary to broadcast Olympics events continuously on BBC1 but I decided I would probably watch some of it. The tennis for example. And a bit of swimming. Even though I hate swimming myself it’s quite fun to watch. But probably not the track cycling, how can going around in a circle be fun to watch?And only a tiny bit of the opening ceremony, I was worried it was going to be rubbish and I didn’t know if I could bear to look.

Ha! If only I knew! The opening ceremony was everything I hadn’t expected, fun, enjoyable and well organised. Indeed it was only marred by the bladdy awful BBC commentary, especially by Trevor Nelson. Oh, and McCartney, but we’ll gloss over that. The Bond/Queen sketch was a work of genius, we were certain when she turned round it would be one of those lookeylikeys that doesn’t actually lookeylikey at all. It’s just a bit of a shame the poor woman was bored out of her tiny mind when the ceremony went on way past her bedtime. In fact as she sat there stony faced, picking her nails, I nearly spluttered my tea out as Huw Edwards said “and the queen looks proudly on”. Yep, picking out a bit of spinach from dinner and wishing she was tucked up in bed with a Horlicks. She’s 86, you know. I had very low expectations of the Danny Boyle extravaganza we had been promised but was surprised to find myself really enjoying it, with huge, impressive props appearing as Isambard Kingdom Brunel looked on. Although the NY Times (again) managed to mistake him for a “Dickens character”. Good work. It was all very “British”…although my dad pointed out that it showed that Britain was built on the broken backs of the workers. That made me laugh quite a lot.

As the athletes started to emerge the inanity of the BBC commentary increased and as progress was slow there seemed to be less and less for them to say. But they said it anyway. My husband did the sensible thing and fell asleep but I persevered because I didn’t want to miss the end. Little did I know that would come courtesy of the worst version of Hey Jude I’ve ever heard, shamelessly murdered by the very man that penned it (I checked, Wikipedia says he wrote it so it must be true).

But enough about all that, the Olympics isn’t really about the quality of ceremonies, it’s all about the sports, athletes at the top of their game vying to be the best in the world. And the table tennis as well. I’m sorry, I just can’t take it seriously. As I’ve already said I’m not bothered about sport so although I decided to watch the road cycling on the first proper day, I didn’t expect to enjoy it, I’ve never watched cycling before but it was fascinating and OK, we didn’t get the expected medal but who cares? Apart from Mark Cavendish, of course. Thinking that would be the end of my sport watching time (it was a very long race) I didn’t then expect to get into the rowing, or the gymnastics, the swimming, or the track cycling. My god, the track cycling. “I’m not going to watch the track cycling,” I said, “it looks really boring.” What an idiot, it was one of the single most exciting things of the whole games for me, on my feet, screaming at the TV, willing the British team on to take the gold by the tiniest of margins. Which they did, 7 out of 10 times. How could anyone fail to be inspired by these people? Their strength, speed and determination is awesome in the true sense of the word.

Apart from the track cycling I was also bowled over by the athletics. I’ve seen athletics on TV before and been bored witless but this time something had changed. With the weight of a nation’s expectation on her shoulders somehow Jessica Ennis still managed to deliver, within minutes MK boy Greg Rutherford took long jump gold (not that Look fecking East give much of a shit) and then Mo Farah turned up. I love Mo. I’ve loved him since the Sport Relief sketch with Chris Hayward and Nat Saunders’ Misery Bear but even more since he became the first person to ever beat The Cube. I know that’s sad but I don’t care. He beat The Cube! With lives to spare! That 10,000m race had us on our feet, screaming at the TV again, jumping up and down. And when he won I wanted to cry. I didn’t because I don’t do crying, not where people can see but the emotion of the moment hit me, and it hit me hard. What was this feeling I was experiencing? A sort of warm sensation in the region of my chest? Could it be…..national pride??? Yep. For a brief couple of weeks I became a full on Team GB (and NI) supporter, watching random sports I’ve never seen before and loving every minute. I didn’t recognise myself, I was so….positive. I even cheered on Andy Murray. I HATE Andy Murray. I was so excited about every event, and so happy for the winners, whether they were GB or not. But especially when they were GB. Our ridiculously optimistic medal target seemed suddenly doable, for the first time ever we were actually winning things. Is that why I changed? I don’t think so, winning was only part of it. For me it was all about getting caught up in it, cheering for people I’d never heard of before, some of who I’ve already forgotten, to see the delight on their faces at the end and moments like Katherine Copeland shouting “We’ve won the Olympics!” to her sculls partner. Nothing in the world could beat the roar of the crowd in the Olympic stadium as every Brit competed but they seemed to save the loudest cheers for Mo Farah and I’m so glad I was there to see it, even if it was only on the telly. It was simply amazing. No wonder he won both his golds.

And now I’m sad it’s over. Of course if it was on all the time it wouldn’t be special but London 2012 was wonderful, they managed to do it in style. In your face, Mitt Romney. Sure, we’ve got the Paralympics to come and I hope Channel 4 do it justice because the BBC were on fire with their coverage (with the obvious exception of their ceremony commentary). But will it be the same? I don’t know, but I’m really hoping so. And I have just one thing left to ask. Who do I write to to stop them giving the Olympic Stadium to a football team? Seriously.

A face for radio…

A face for radio…

Those of you that know me will know that I found myself in the enviable (or unenviable, it depends on your stance) position of appearing on Radio 4′s excellent Saturday Live programme last weekend to talk about things prisony. For the few days leading up to it I was horribly nervous about it all, not being certain if I actually would be on and absolutely terrified that I would either clam up or say completely the wrong thing. I was going to be on with Sir Alan Parker and a 93 year old former prisoner of war as well as one of their regular poets, all of whom have considerably more experience of being on the radio than me. I woke up on Saturday morning a full hour before the alarm was due to go off and decided to get up, faff about and collect my thoughts. For days, weeks even, I’d been holding conversations in my head where I would answer my own made up questions and quite frankly it was starting to drive me a little potty. Try as I might to stop thinking about what I would say if asked any number of more and more preposterous questions my annoying brain wouldn’t switch off and as a result in the days leading up to it I struggled to get to sleep a fair few times. Thankfully I was incredibly tired the night before and drifted off easily and although I woke up at 5 I felt suitably refreshed and satisfied that I wouldn’t end up struggling to find words like “chair”, “the” and “door”. Well, it does happen. More and more often if I’m honest, I really should read more to keep my vocabulary ticking over.

I was pretty surprised on the morning that in spite of waking up far too early I was relatively calm, not over-thinking what I would say too much and not desperately trying to think up an excuse to not go and do it. I was even more surprised that my taxi turned up on time (in fact he was early) and that I was relaxed and unrushed when I got to the station to catch my train into London. I even managed to concentrate on my book on the train, and of course my phone which was necessary to cover all social networking bases…I can’t possibly do anything without broadcasting it to anyone that will listen. The fact that most of the time no one at all is listening doesn’t stop me either. The Victoria line was suspended for the weekend (I hadn’t thought to check) so I decided to walk the 20 minutes to Broadcasting House rather than fanny about on the tube and I was glad I did, it was a cold, crisp morning and early enough to be devoid of shoppers. And muggers, thankfully. Even with the walking I was still horribly early, arriving a good half hour before everyone else and I sat waiting, deliberately avoiding the tea and coffee that had been provided for us (my bladder is pathetic), half listening to the Today Programme but unable to take any of it in and wondering to myself exactly what I’d let myself in for. Eventually the others arrived, we made polite conversation, met Rev Coles, former Communard, great wit, MK fan and indeed presenter of the show and filed through to the studio. Gulp. I told Sir Alan that no. 2 son had done Bugsy Malone as his last school play and it turns out it’s a very popular choice in schools. Given that he probably hears such things all the time he was incredibly polite and I must say I thought he was lovely. Unless you count the one in HMP Downview’s media house I’d never been in a radio studio before and I found it was a little scary, there were several microphones around a table, soundproofing on the walls the like of which I’d not seen before and, inexplicably, there was a cooker in the corner. Through a large window a number of people were sitting in front of a console containing many buttons just LOOKING at us. I fought the urge to wave. We could hear the end of the Today Programme and I couldn’t take my eyes off the clock, suddenly I really was terrified and there was no escape. We talked amongst ourselves while I assume they checked we could all be heard and I said little and probably looked quite sick. And then it began, not with me thank goodness and I listened carefully while Alan Parker was interviewed (did I mention that I love him?) and thinking how conversational it all was and how flipping interesting. Richard Coles never seemed to be looking at a script or list of questions and frankly I was a little awed by it all. Genuine awe, you understand, not modern “that’s awesome” rubbish. But with every second that ticked by, and every question and answer it was getting closer to my turn. Erk.

If you were to ask me now what I was asked, how I answered, what I was thinking, how long it went on for, anything, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t listened it back and I don’t really want to but I’m pretty sure I didn’t make a giant tit of myself and that’s all that matters. I know I was careful about how I put things, was extremely careful about how I talked about the actions of my ex-partner and I know that in doing so I made myself look like a far worse person than I am. Or so it would appear from the initial response to my appearance. The Daily Mail readers were out in force and of course their knee jerk responses are always the first to be given. How dare the BBC give airtime to a woman that admits she committed a terrible crime? Well, yes she does, but did you notice how she didn’t really talk about the circumstances? She couldn’t because she doesn’t want to incur the wrath of her former partner, not when he holds all the power when it comes to seeing her children. Sad but true. It was all over so quickly that I feel I didn’t say enough to get my true message across: this could have happened to anyone. But at the same time it could have NOT happened to me. I felt threatened, I genuinely thought I was going to die and I overreacted. Does that mean I should spend the rest of my life languishing at Her Majesty’s pleasure? Well, I don’t think so. I don’t think I am a bad person, a stupid person, yes, but not bad. I admit that I drive over the speed limit on the motorway regularly and when I was under 18 I drank alcohol in pubs. I have never shoplifted, never used or sold illegal substances, never mugged anyone or burgled them, never imported drugs from abroad and never murdered anyone in cold blood (other crimes are available). I paid my debt to society, I lost my liberty, I lost forever my ability to be a normal mother to my sons. But I took it on the chin, accepted the things I could not change and bloody well made the most of them. I did whatever I could in prison to fill my time and to enrich my life. I got fit, I read books, did courses that interested me, I was respectful (but very cheeky) to the officers I encountered and I earned all the privileges a model prisoner could. I kept in touch with my children, my family and my friends, I didn’t let it ruin my life and hopefully it didn’t ruin any of theirs.

But this is only half of my message. The other half is about prison in general. Because of my experience I will always have an interest in prisons and how custodial sentences are used to punish and rehabilitate. At the moment I think the system is failing very badly in what it is meant to ultimately achieve. Yes, a prison sentence is designed to remove people from society for the protection of the public and at that it is of course very effective but not enough is done to rehabilitate offenders, to address their offending behaviour, to make peace with their victims with restorative justice where appropriate or to help them prepare for life back in society. Levels of illiteracy are high but basic education is not compulsory, and neither is there any incentive to pursue it. How can anyone, in particular a prisoner, have any hope of getting and keeping a job upon release if they haven’t learnt the basic skills a lot of us take for granted? How can they get a place to live if they don’t have a job? How can they avoid crime if they have no home or no job? And so it goes on. Re-offending rates are so high it defies belief that so little is being done about it. Or at least that’s the way it appears. In truth there are a number of organisations out there helping ex-offenders learn new skills, giving them a chance where other people wouldn’t. Job loyalty amongst ex-offenders is much higher than amongst the general population so for the most part return on such investment is good. So why aren’t they shouting about it? The problem is that the Daily Mail readers are so vocal with their ill-informed opinions that while all this good work is being done no one really wants to own up to it so it carries on under the radar. Let us not forget the National Offender Management Service who employed me after my release to write and edit an e-bulletin about the seven pathways to reduce re-offending (of which employment is one) and who, in a fit of fear, decided to pull the plug on the project leaving me very suddenly without a job. A job that I relied on to pay the rent on my home (another pathway), maintain ties with my family (another)…etc. Ironic, no? Being so risk averse is no help to anyone and it genuinely angers me that this is the norm when what should be happening is the education of the masses. Without the help of the masses we can’t reduce re-offending, we need schemes in the community to help ex-offenders turn away from crime and earn their place in society. This work starts in prison but it shouldn’t end there. Instead of condemning “criminals” we should be helping them choose another path. Don’t forget that a prison sentence is a far greater burden on the taxpayer than community based alternatives and the cost of putting re-offenders back inside is in the billions. I’m not saying that all prisoners can be rehabilitated but it’s not as black and white as many people think. Given that prisons are fit to burst and reoffending rates are at 67% it doesn’t look like the current system is working, and there has to be another way.

This afternoon I was listening to Julia Hartley-Brewer’s programme on LBC where they were discussing “what prison is for”. There were one or two fairly balanced calls from listeners and then a former police officer called in saying that prison is too easy and that if he had his way they’d bring back the birch. He was disgusted that prisoners had televisions. He wanted prison to be about punishment and nothing else. Is the loss of liberty not enough? It surely was for me. Another caller said he’d spent a week in Wandsworth and described it as being “like a five star hotel”. I beg to differ! I was so incensed I felt compelled to call in and put the record straight. Amazingly I got on and got the last word. Prison was NOT a holiday camp and neither is it the easy option. It is and should be about rehabilitation. I seem to have developed a bit of a taste for this radio lark, watch out Daily mail readers!

If you would like to hear the Saturday live interview you can find it here.