Thatcherism or Scargilism? No choice there as, frankly, I found them both mad, and both very divisive leaders. So I joined the Liberals in alliance with the newly formed SDP, two parties working together.
During the miners strike I provoked Barnsley folk to write to me, passed their letters round the pub and we had a little vote. Six one to the miners. And that from people living in Hertfordshire, well away from coal mines. But there again you had Scargill speeding up the motorway back to Barnsley to park in his driveway to try to outwit the police for speeding. That, and stirring up moderate thinking miners with his Trotskyite rants.
Produced a Focus leaflet back in those days, running an article on mad cow disease. Surprising how many people told me that they had read the headline and thought it was going to be an item about Maggie Thatcher.
For all that, people somehow wanted to believe in her and show their appreciation of her stand on the Falkland Islands, so when the Dacorum Borough Council elections came along, and I was defending my seat with a bad back, some people pathetically told me they were voting for Mrs Thatcher. I told them she wasn't standing for DBC, and even though I increased my vote that year, the nearest Tory winning candidate just pipped me.
Of course, we now know that the Argentine's General Belgrano was sailing away from the Islands, and Maggie ordered it to be sunk against better advisers, causing the loss of over 300 lives. Had people known she was responsible for the loss of so many before that election, my political life might have been very different.
She's died today. I'm neither happy or sad.
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