Seconds out

Margaret Thatcher’s seemingly much anticipated death provoked all the expected nonsense from those on the left determined to offend, and those on the right determined to be offended. I was both puzzled and despairing and, as ever, determined to avoid conflict. Thus I have passed in the past on the temptation to question derogatory comments on the death of a disabled child - I mean, where do you start? And if I could do that I could resist providing an alternative view of the Iron Lady; besides, you really can’t argue with “fact” and “end of” in the same comment.

Events have overtaken me, yet I was stopped in my tracks some weeks before by a post comparing the Tory government’s supposed campaign of persecution with the “scapegoating of the Jews in the early years of the Third Reich”. Wow. I’ll credit their omission of the Liberal party as a deliberate insult to the junior coalition partners, and quite funny at that; I’ve noticed how uncomfortable my few acquaintances of that persuasion can get when joking “we’re all friends now”.

Silly comments from people with a far superior education; I’ll never get it. And I let it go because whilst I may decry the ease with which those in the middle ground (and I’d like to pretend I’m one) cede control to the more virulent of their side (and there’s always a side), if your friends of a different political hue are “off on one” it’s easier to let them get it out of their system. I’m wrong of course, I know that. In a gentle way, you can shake the world; cynicism or a general weariness, I’m not entirely sure I believe, but the occasional nudge won’t hurt.