Yes This Too Comes From The Guardian
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.
See?! Amazing. Granted, this is on the film blog and not Front Page Breaking News (FLASH: Right Wing Kind, Experts Say), but still!
January 11th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Unless, of course, you were an Irish Catholic, which was slightly less welcome than scabies.
January 12th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
I will always be going on Holiday with Churchill. Always. He will paint the salt-marsh and talk. I will listen and goad and keep the whiskey handy. He will think I have forgot my place until I remind him I’m an American, and off he’ll go again.
:)
We design our own heaven. Of course with no whiskey would be hell.