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| Margaret Thatcher's funeral: 'Lying here, she is one of us' | Margaret Thatcher's funeral: 'Lying here, she is one of us' |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| For all the grandeur, they claimed a simple purpose. They had come, they said, not to bury a political figure or an "-ism", but a woman of flesh and blood, a mortal who was "one of us". And yet there were moments when it seemed they had come to bury an entire era, to conclude at last that dizzying, turbulent decade where she reigned supreme. The ceremony that hushed central London on Wednesday morning was a farewell to Margaret Thatcher – but also to the 1980s. | For all the grandeur, they claimed a simple purpose. They had come, they said, not to bury a political figure or an "-ism", but a woman of flesh and blood, a mortal who was "one of us". And yet there were moments when it seemed they had come to bury an entire era, to conclude at last that dizzying, turbulent decade where she reigned supreme. The ceremony that hushed central London on Wednesday morning was a farewell to Margaret Thatcher – but also to the 1980s. |
| The faces were those of that turbo-charged, go-go decade: older and greyer now, some with backs stooping as if weary of past battles, but still familiar to those who lived through them. Maurice Saatchi, he of the adman specs and the Labour Isn't Working poster. Michael Heseltine, onetime Tory superstar and eventual nemesis. The two Davids, Owen and Steel, entering St Paul's together and sitting side by side, conjoined as tightly as they were in their Spitting Image caricature, back when they were the twin faces of the SDP/Liberal Alliance. | |
| All around were the men who were never off the TV news in the 1980s – and men it was, thanks to the Lady's reluctance to promote those she didn't call her sisters. | All around were the men who were never off the TV news in the 1980s – and men it was, thanks to the Lady's reluctance to promote those she didn't call her sisters. |
| In one cluster: Norman Tebbit, Douglas Hurd and Tom King. Even the US contingent evoked memories of the Back to the Future era: George Schultz and James Baker joining Henry Kissinger and the relative new boy Dick Cheney. "We all bump into each other from time to time but perhaps not the whole gang," said Kissinger. The arts were represented by faces that would have not been out of place 30 years ago: Tim Rice and Shirley Bassey. | |
| And crawling along the bottom of the screen, a device that would have seemed new-fangled back then but bearing a message that would nevertheless have been utterly familiar – the BBC News ticker announcing depressing job figures, confirming that 900,000 people have been without work for more than a year. | And crawling along the bottom of the screen, a device that would have seemed new-fangled back then but bearing a message that would nevertheless have been utterly familiar – the BBC News ticker announcing depressing job figures, confirming that 900,000 people have been without work for more than a year. |
| Burying the 1980s is not a straight- forward business, not in Britain where that decade occupies a similar space to that of the 1960s in the US: the period when our "culture wars" were at their most intense, the divisions raw and open. At the centre, governing every day of that decade – elected just before it and deposed just after it – was Margaret Thatcher. So what more fitting moment to draw a line under that vexed period and call a truce than at her funeral? | |
| Except Thatcher was never in the truce business and, for all its elegance and piety, the ceremony in St Paul's was not either. It was rather an event which sought, however subtly, to declare victory in the titanic struggles of that era. Its message, tacit but unmistakable: "That time is over – and Thatcher won." | Except Thatcher was never in the truce business and, for all its elegance and piety, the ceremony in St Paul's was not either. It was rather an event which sought, however subtly, to declare victory in the titanic struggles of that era. Its message, tacit but unmistakable: "That time is over – and Thatcher won." |
| Of course, that message was not delivered in anything so crude as a political speech. This, avowedly, was not a memorial service that might have included politicians' eulogies. It was billed instead as a simple "Christian funeral," filled by hymns and readings, with only a bishop's sermon to speak of the dead. | Of course, that message was not delivered in anything so crude as a political speech. This, avowedly, was not a memorial service that might have included politicians' eulogies. It was billed instead as a simple "Christian funeral," filled by hymns and readings, with only a bishop's sermon to speak of the dead. |
| But that is to ignore the wider spectacle of which the religious ceremony was just a part. Imagine, for example, what future generations will make of the archive footage they will see: the coffin draped in the union flag, borne slowly by gun carriage through a (mainly) hushed London; servicemen serving as pallbearers; the Queen standing in silent respect as a mourner; the cathedral flooding with sunlight as the doors opened for the coffin's exit; the crowds outside raising three cheers as they caught sight of it. | But that is to ignore the wider spectacle of which the religious ceremony was just a part. Imagine, for example, what future generations will make of the archive footage they will see: the coffin draped in the union flag, borne slowly by gun carriage through a (mainly) hushed London; servicemen serving as pallbearers; the Queen standing in silent respect as a mourner; the cathedral flooding with sunlight as the doors opened for the coffin's exit; the crowds outside raising three cheers as they caught sight of it. |
| The Britons of the future will contemplate all this the way we look at pictures from the 1965 funeral of Winston Churchill now. They will surely assume that this was an uncomplicated tribute to a woman who had served as little short of a national saviour. If anything, the absence of conventional, political speeches reinforced that message, suggesting a woman whose achievement was beyond such pettiness. That was why an all but state funeral was always bound to be controversial, why some opposed granting such a rare, once-a-century honour to a former prime minister. For they knew, and feared, the power of such a ceremony – how it can transform and elevate a onetime partisan politician into something larger, a figure that towers above politics, apparently uniting a nation. | The Britons of the future will contemplate all this the way we look at pictures from the 1965 funeral of Winston Churchill now. They will surely assume that this was an uncomplicated tribute to a woman who had served as little short of a national saviour. If anything, the absence of conventional, political speeches reinforced that message, suggesting a woman whose achievement was beyond such pettiness. That was why an all but state funeral was always bound to be controversial, why some opposed granting such a rare, once-a-century honour to a former prime minister. For they knew, and feared, the power of such a ceremony – how it can transform and elevate a onetime partisan politician into something larger, a figure that towers above politics, apparently uniting a nation. |
| Once today's images have aged and yellowed into archive, that's the story they will seem to tell too. The boos along the funeral route were mainly off screen. Few will ever see the photographs of big screens relaying coverage of the funeral to empty city squares in Leeds and Edinburgh. | |
| The funeral parties of former miners – a huge crowd in Goldthorpe burning a Thatcher effigy – will be consigned to a footnote. If they are remembered at all, they will be shown as the old "enemy within", to use Thatcher's own phrase, reduced to few in number and scattered to the four winds. The effect was a national pageant that declared those forces, who once seemed to represent half the country in a society split down the middle, utterly defeated. | The funeral parties of former miners – a huge crowd in Goldthorpe burning a Thatcher effigy – will be consigned to a footnote. If they are remembered at all, they will be shown as the old "enemy within", to use Thatcher's own phrase, reduced to few in number and scattered to the four winds. The effect was a national pageant that declared those forces, who once seemed to represent half the country in a society split down the middle, utterly defeated. |
| Several commentators said Thatcher earned the special ceremony because she had been a war leader. But the Falklands conflict of 1982 was a mere skirmish compared to the war that sealed Churchill's claim on a state farewell. Thatcher's real war was the one she fought at home, defeating that "enemy within". | Several commentators said Thatcher earned the special ceremony because she had been a war leader. But the Falklands conflict of 1982 was a mere skirmish compared to the war that sealed Churchill's claim on a state farewell. Thatcher's real war was the one she fought at home, defeating that "enemy within". |
| So complete was her victory in that struggle that three great institutions – occasionally at odds with each other during the Thatcher era – came together to stage a lavish spectacle. This was a production of the Church of England, the Conservative party and the BBC, executed with the precision and class we've come to expect. The hushed Dimbleby commentary, the soaring choral music, the gleaming military uniforms – it was as good as any royal occasion. The aim: to usher Thatcher into that tiny pantheon of figures deemed fit to stand alongside the monarchy in national esteem. | So complete was her victory in that struggle that three great institutions – occasionally at odds with each other during the Thatcher era – came together to stage a lavish spectacle. This was a production of the Church of England, the Conservative party and the BBC, executed with the precision and class we've come to expect. The hushed Dimbleby commentary, the soaring choral music, the gleaming military uniforms – it was as good as any royal occasion. The aim: to usher Thatcher into that tiny pantheon of figures deemed fit to stand alongside the monarchy in national esteem. |
| Except it was not just the Conservative party who masterminded this display, even if the period from Thatcher's death to her funeral has felt like an extended Tory campaign film. Credit – or blame – has to be shared with the Labour governments who laid the original plans. | Except it was not just the Conservative party who masterminded this display, even if the period from Thatcher's death to her funeral has felt like an extended Tory campaign film. Credit – or blame – has to be shared with the Labour governments who laid the original plans. |
| It was Gordon Brown who floated the notion of a state funeral, in a pretty transparent attempt to curry favour with the Daily Mail and its allies. The result was a cross-party, state decision, by which Labour colluded with the secular beatification of the defining figure of modern Conservatism. | It was Gordon Brown who floated the notion of a state funeral, in a pretty transparent attempt to curry favour with the Daily Mail and its allies. The result was a cross-party, state decision, by which Labour colluded with the secular beatification of the defining figure of modern Conservatism. |
| Still, the Tory party provided much of the cast list, and the BBC served up the gorgeous pictures, with the most important words left to the Church. | Still, the Tory party provided much of the cast list, and the BBC served up the gorgeous pictures, with the most important words left to the Church. |
| The sermon from the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, was well written and eloquently delivered and did its bit for the larger project, sanding down the rougher edges of the Thatcher profile, rendering it smooth enough to sit alongside Churchill, Wellington and the like. | The sermon from the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, was well written and eloquently delivered and did its bit for the larger project, sanding down the rougher edges of the Thatcher profile, rendering it smooth enough to sit alongside Churchill, Wellington and the like. |
| He excused the view that still inflicts most damage on her reputation. "Her later remark about there being no such thing as 'society' has been misunderstood," he said. | He excused the view that still inflicts most damage on her reputation. "Her later remark about there being no such thing as 'society' has been misunderstood," he said. |
| And, in a neat play on one of her favourite catchphrases – one she deployed for divisive ends, separating friends from foes – he declared of Thatcher that "lying here, she is one of us", sharing the common destiny of all mortals. But no such normality was intended from this event. It aimed to make Thatcher anything but normal, to elevate her memory into a much higher category. | And, in a neat play on one of her favourite catchphrases – one she deployed for divisive ends, separating friends from foes – he declared of Thatcher that "lying here, she is one of us", sharing the common destiny of all mortals. But no such normality was intended from this event. It aimed to make Thatcher anything but normal, to elevate her memory into a much higher category. |
| "We are all Thatcherites now," David Cameron had said a few hours before the procession. It was the most explicit statement to date of what the day – and the last week – has been about, even if the Telegraph scolded him for politicising an event that was meant, the paper said, to be non-political. In other words, he had given the game away. The Lady's authorised biographer, Charles Moore, was even more candid, telling Radio 5 Live: "Thatcher is reviled in parts of the country that are less important." | "We are all Thatcherites now," David Cameron had said a few hours before the procession. It was the most explicit statement to date of what the day – and the last week – has been about, even if the Telegraph scolded him for politicising an event that was meant, the paper said, to be non-political. In other words, he had given the game away. The Lady's authorised biographer, Charles Moore, was even more candid, telling Radio 5 Live: "Thatcher is reviled in parts of the country that are less important." |
| There was a little Twitter storm about that, but not much. Like the Munchkins campaign, or the placards on the funeral route, it felt a little half-hearted. The glory days of such protests are long gone, the era when hundreds of thousands would chant, "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out!" a vanished part of our past. | There was a little Twitter storm about that, but not much. Like the Munchkins campaign, or the placards on the funeral route, it felt a little half-hearted. The glory days of such protests are long gone, the era when hundreds of thousands would chant, "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out!" a vanished part of our past. |
| There is no target so certain, so firm and Manichean to oppose any more, the politicians of today's age too middling, too consensual, too keen to be our friend for any of that. | There is no target so certain, so firm and Manichean to oppose any more, the politicians of today's age too middling, too consensual, too keen to be our friend for any of that. |
| Which means that Wednesday might not have been a day of mourning for the Tory tribe alone. Those who opposed her, those who came of age in the heat and clarity of that 1980s fight; perhaps they feel a strange loss too. Maggie is out for ever now, her era gone with her. | Which means that Wednesday might not have been a day of mourning for the Tory tribe alone. Those who opposed her, those who came of age in the heat and clarity of that 1980s fight; perhaps they feel a strange loss too. Maggie is out for ever now, her era gone with her. |