{"id":23390,"date":"2013-12-19T09:07:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T14:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=23390"},"modified":"2013-12-19T09:07:26","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T14:07:26","slug":"patrick-west-on-the-mourning-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/12\/19\/patrick-west-on-the-mourning-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick West on “the mourning wars”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In sp!ked<\/em>, Patrick West<\/a> notes the difference in tone for two recently deceased world leaders:<\/p>\n

Remember when Margaret Thatcher died in April? \u2018Ding dong, the witch is dead!\u2019 they rejoiced on the streets and on social media, the recalcitrant losers of the old left uniting with today\u2019s self-styled radicals, for whom Thatcher was a semi-mythical creature from the past who had wronged their ancestors. The Iron Lady was a mean old bitch, they cried, her creed of individualism being responsible for today\u2019s troubled times.<\/p>\n

A few months later, the hero of the left dies. Where was the comparable vitriol from the right, as was expected, about \u2018Nelson Mandela the terrorist\u2019? Sure, there was the odd, fringe UKIP fruitcake (isn\u2019t there always?), but for the most part there was warmth and praise. Some, like former UK prime minister John Major, even said that the Conservatives were wrong on South Africa in the 1980s. Even the right-wing press has been quiet on Mandela\u2019s real legacy and South Africa’s future. Curiously, only the Guardian<\/em> — in articles by Simon Jenkins and Slavoj \u017di\u017eek — has really questioned the saintly status accorded to Madiba (though not nearly as well as spiked<\/em> has done, of course).<\/p>\n

Indeed, the only tangible vitriol to emerge has come from old lefties themselves, complaining on social media when David Cameron paid homage. How dare the Tories try to appropriate a foreign leader to make themselves appear virtuous? We bagsied him first!<\/p>\n

Politics isn\u2019t meant to be this way. Right-wing people are meant to be horrid and selfish and left-wingers caring and nice. Yet, episodes such as this seem to suggest, once again, the opposite. It\u2019s one of the paradoxes today that the liberal-left is often far nastier, more vitriolic, censorious and egotistical than the \u2018selfish\u2019 Tories they profess to loath.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In sp!ked, Patrick West notes the difference in tone for two recently deceased world leaders: Remember when Margaret Thatcher died in April? \u2018Ding dong, the witch is dead!\u2019 they rejoiced on the streets and on social media, the recalcitrant losers of the old left uniting with today\u2019s self-styled radicals, for whom Thatcher was a semi-mythical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,28,53],"tags":[390,593,252],"class_list":["post-23390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-history","category-media","category-politics","tag-margaretthatcher","tag-socialmedia","tag-southafrica"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-65g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23391,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23390\/revisions\/23391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}