http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1995296,00.html

This article, claiming as it does that British society continues on the downward spiral that it has been set on since time immemorial, is sadly typical of ‘lazy journalism’. This is really no more than a written version of the BBC’s hit ‘Grumpy Old Men’.

However, what really grates is not criticism of the modern order of things. As long as there has been change, it has been the prerogative of the older generation to claim it is for the worse. What I find truly irksome is the defence of Margaret Thatcher with which the article finishes.

Our society can today be described as many things: rude, selfish, expensive, vulgar. But Thatcher, far from being in the front line of the defence, helped to create this. When the governing party, the intelligentsia, and the overwhelming public mood begins to glorify greed and acquisitiveness over everything else, what good could Thatcher’s perversion of ‘Victorian values’ do? Victorian values were not all laissez-faire and skirts on table legs; Victorian Britain had a thriving culture of civic pride and philanthropy. How a politician that did more than any other to destroy local government in Britain can be upheld as a defender of public morals is beyond me. She certainly did not consider the broader social consequences of freedom from state interference, but these consequences may have been tempered by a government that professed any values other than selfishness. Crime and anti-social behaviour has risen since the end of Thatcher’s government, as ‘Thatcher’s children’ come to maturity. Having grown up told that ‘there is no such thing as society’, how can we expect the children of the 1980s to behave responsibly towards it? The free market works (and it does work; do not mistake this for an anti-capitalist rant) because of selfishness, but it should not work towards selfishness.

Thatcher is an easy target for vitriol from the left- one only has to briefly discuss mining communities- but those who happily lay the blame for the ‘breakdown of society’ at Blair’s door seem to continue blissfully unaware of how long a generation takes to reach adulthood. A 17 year old in 1997 would have spent their entire lifetime under a Tory government, encouraging nothing but self-interest. Decoupling pensions from average earnings was after all far more ruthless and damaging than all of the distraction burglaries and muggings we have heard about since. I am not for a moment suggesting that anti-social behaviour was an attempt to copy the government (nothing could be less cool) but if the dominant social values were based around greed, it cannot be expected to have formed responsible young people with a great deal of civic pride or social responsibility.

Filed under: conservatives, society, ukpolitics on January 21st, 2007