Unfashionable revolutionary celebrates 80 years of being misunderstood
(Joe Scarborough)
NO FUTURE NO FUTURE NO FUTURE FOR YOU!
NO FUTURE NO FUTURE NO FUTURE FOR ME!
NO FUTURE NO FUTURE NO FUTURE FOR YOU!
— "God Save the Queen," The Sex Pistols
LONDON — It wasn’t Shakespeare, but in 1976 Johnny Rotten’s supersonic punk screed might as well have been England’s national anthem.
The once great British Empire was rotting to its economic core while simultaneously celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee. Maybe that’s why punk’s pioneers made waves by screaming their new song while cruising on the Thames.
Three years later, Eurotrash from London to Leningrad had yet another British woman to loathe, as Margaret Thatcher exploded onto the world stage as the U.K.’s first female Prime Minister.
Maggie immediately privatized industries, crushed labor unions, and buried forever the legacy of Clement Attlee.
Within a few years, Great Britain went from a failing pseudo-socialist economy to Europe’s strongest economic force.
26 years later I watched throngs of reporters outside London’s Mandarin Hotel snap photos as queens, kings, presidents and prime ministers filed in to celebrate the 80th birthday of a woman who by herself reversed the fortunes of this great nation.
Did she get the respect deserved from punks and politicians across the continent?
No.
Did she give a damn?
Not in the least.
Thatcher, like no other leader in recent times, was guided by an inner voice that could drown out the harshest insults from academia, media elites, or leftist politicians. She spent her entire political career swimming upstream, like Reagan, knowing that her opponent’s miserable policies would one day leave Britain with no other option but to embrace her world view.
And when they did, English citizens changed their fortunes forever.
While the Thatcher event was dragging on, I went to The Berkeley to meet an investment banker who begrudgingly gave “the old lady her due.” I didn’t bother giving a history lesson to the twentysomething capitalist, who owes his seven-figure salary and Range Rover to a woman still unfashionable after all these years.
I assured my British guest that millions of Americans would pay higher taxes to import a leader like the Iron Lady. Of course, she would have none of it. After all, her belief in the individual over the state was, in large part, what made her so great.
But tonight in London, that worldview is what made her seem like a relic from an age long passed.
E-mail me at JScarborough@msnbc.com