Thatcher in Cartoon Form

I remember 1 year ago to this day. I was painting an alcove vivid red (quite appropriate in the circumstances which were about to unfold) and heard the news. Margaret Hilda Thatcher was dead. As a youth of the Thatcher years, I remember going to college in the centre of Manchester and witnessing the utter devastation of the inner city. Parts of Manchester looked like something from the Blitz, the heart completely torn out of it. I was forever poisoned by the chronic long term unemployment and dejection of the youth, and the failure of even basic social structures; the selling off of the people's capital institutions & utilities and the materialistic chimera of the housing stock; the ruination of manufacturing industry in the UK, and humiliating Americanisation of working culture. I was elated to hear she had died. And sad it had not come sooner. Thatcher isn't talked about enough in the media. Reagan and Thatcher softened up the markets by permitting gross speculation and corruption, deregulating the stock exchange and loosening ties with reality. The origins of the 2008 economic crisis belong to her and her monetarism. Of course, successive "labour" governments failed to undo or reign in the feeding frenzy. I just hope that for a mere moment, Thatcher became lucid enough after 2008 to realise the devastation she had caused.

By South Utsire