Mrs Thatcher and the love-to-hate hole

There has been so much talk of Maggie Thatcher in the last few weeks. that it is hard to believe there is anything more to say.  
In England, until the bombings in Boston, there has been no other news.  
A few more Afghanis dead, so what! 
Problems growing in Syria- that's not us.
But Mrs Thatcher's funeral- now that is news! 10 million pounds worth of news apparently.

It's hard though, not to get caught up in the memories. 
The truth is, any child growing up in the Thatcher era, remembers her. She changed the whole education system, she destroyed whole communities in the North, she de-socialised council houses, she didn't seem to care about the poor and she loved the rich.  But before all of that, before she even became Prime minister:

SHE SNATCHED OUR MILK!

I remember those bottles of luke warm milk at school. Every morning we would have to drink them.  Pushing a straw through the silver top and through the layer of coagulated fat that had formed while they stood in the playground. We had to sip the grey, watery milk until it was all gone.  We were jealous of the lucky kids whose parents had written notes saying they didn't have to drink it. We would plan ways of tipping it down the drain without being caught.  
We hated the stuff.  
But the day that Maggie Thatcher, Minister for Education,  took it away from us, we hated her more!
And that was the thing about Maggie Thatcher:

We all loved to hate her. 

There are few things that can unite a classroom.  From the moment you walk through the door you become part of a group: the trendy group, the boring group, the annoying group, the-not-sure-where- I-belong-but-there-must-be-more-to-life-than-this group. 
But where Mrs Thatcher was concerned, there was no division.  
We all hated her.
We stood together on the place in the playground where the milk crates used to stand and chanted in unison:
 " Mrs Thatcher, Mrs Thatcher milk snatcher."
And we knew we were right.
Because that's what Maggie Thatcher did: she made it easy to know what was right and what was wrong.  
Obviously, Mrs Thatcher was evil. Everything she did was evil. 
Therefore everything everyone else did was good and right.
Life was black and white.
And it was such a relief. 

In the grey wishy-washiness of politics today, it is hard to know what to believe.  There is little to differentiate between the policies of the different political parties.
 A vote for one could just as easily be a vote for another.  
So why bother!

I remember the day when Mrs Thatcher resigned. 
November 22nd 1990. 
I was living in Providence, Rhode Island and was woken by a phone call from some American friends living in a tiny town called Tiverton, a little bit further down the coast.
"Becky," said my friend, " your Thanksgiving has come early. Mrs Thatcher has resigned.   Do you want to come over to celebrate?"
And we did celebrate, in true American style with donuts and coffee. And later with Tequila shots.
 But I can't help wondering what would happen if I was living so far from home today.
If David Cameron resigned, would anyone actually notice? Would people living in Tiverton, Rhode Island even know who he was?
And that is Thatcher's legacy.
She has left us with a big " love-to-hate," hole.
There is no one left in politics who we care about enough to hate.
Mrs Thatcher did terrible, terrible things but she had a vision. 
And if her vision was opposed to yours, she forced you to act, to do something about it, to stand up and fight.
Today it is hard to trust our politicians, hard to believe anything they have to say. They are so busy pleasing the media, worrying about their image, being popular, not offending anyone, that it is hard to know what they really have to say.
They themselves don't seem to believe there is anything worth fighting for.
So how are we, the voters meant to care?
When Mrs Thatcher resigned, she seemed to have lost all grasp on reality. She seemed to believe that she was a god, that she alone could change the world, ignoring all advice, uncaring about the misery she was causing.
It was time for her to leave.
But when she stepped down, she took our hatred and our motivation and our passion with her.
And I am still waiting.
Waiting to find someone I truly love to hate.
Waiting to find someone who will re-snatch our milk!