When two tribes go to war...

As a young man, I opposed the Thatcher governments and Thatcherism wholeheartedly. As an older man, that mixture of rugged individualism, lack of societal sensibility and free market fetishism is still anathema to me. Like almost everyone, I didn’t know her personally, but everything I did and do know about her as a person does not warm me to her. Misunderstood she was not.

And yet, also as an older man, swathes of people exulting in her death makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I see faces bursting with hate and spitting venom as the accused are dragged to the guillotine or the noose. And I see the divisiveness for which she became synonymous in this country played out in the tribalism on my Facebook or television rolling newsfeeds. The demonisation or the hagiography. With ‘conviction politicians’ perhaps there is no other way. They are magnetic; they attract and repel in equal measure.

Which makes it difficult if you are not tribal. To see the damage wreaked by that woman’s policies, but also to be repelled by the bloodthirsty carryings-on. To be dreading the upcoming blanket media coverage (how many different ways can there be to present her humble beginnings, her history-making achievements, her game-changing policies, her bloody-mindedness, her fall, her legacy?). To endure the soon-to-be 'State Funeral – Yes or No?', 'Should there be another statue?', 'More important than Churchill?' debates. I may find myself watching The Voice UK or Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on a constant loop to escape the din from both sides.

And this is not a ‘cop out’ position. It’s difficult and it’s inconvenient not to belong to a side when it comes to such things. There is no lofty pillar. There is simply recognition of complexity, ambiguity, grey.