(31) 'Good Points/Bad Points'

[Ken]

During the last Labour leadership campaign which was won by ,Ed Millaband, a political pundit I quite admire was asked this question, "If you were allowed to vote, who would you vote for?".  He replied, "Without doubt my vote would go to Dianne Abbott" and, as he paused mid sentence, I felt my respect for his judgement dip, but he then finished his sentence, "as the stupidest woman in British politics", and once again my admiration for the political pundit returned.  Now, I do not personally know Dianne Abbott, but whenever she speaks I feel that total insincerity emerges and, worse than that, in my opinion she is almost always wrong.  Politics is all about opinions and on the day of April 17th, 2013, the opinions of our Nation were completely divided.  For on that day the funeral of another female politician, Margaret Thatcher, took place. She had been Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 until 1990 and she was both admired and reviled.  Opinions on her vary enormously and so I felt the need to add some thoughts of my own!

The reason I am briefly touching on the world of politics is this.  Part of the 'Kens Cosy' project is about my childrens wish to know how I felt on a wide range of subjects and, although they are aware that during their growing up years I held many strong opinions, in time they may enjoy a reminder of what those opinions were based on.  Few people caused such strong emotions as Prime Minister Thatcher did and I can state, almost for certain, that my siblings, Len, Bob, and Glad, would never have given her their vote.  I am equally certain that Phyl and Violet would always have done so but remember, these are only my assumptions.  Sister Dot and Brother Gordon's vote would have varied, depending on the current events of the time and, I surprise myself by realising, I have no idea which way brother Wally would have voted, despite working beside him for five years.  I can tell you that I voted for Mrs Thatcher just once, in 1979, for I was adamant who I wanted to run Britain and it was not the Unions.  I do not know if Len can recall one Christmas, early in her premiership, when I presented him with a quite expensive gift.  He was quite the Labour firebrand back then and he opened his gift to find this beautiful Mug with a 'Maggie' picture on it's front.  He commented he would keep it under his bed and, "P*ss in it every night."  I do not know if he still has it or what condition it's in!

I have often made the argument that it's people like me who make democracy work.  It is the floating voter who makes change happen and it is the widespread and blind tribal loyalty of the old school who make change impossible.  The reason I only gave my vote to 'Maggie' once was, I concluded after much thought, she was beginning to believe her own image, and to me she was starting to come across as somewhat odd.  As she started to irritate me more, I confess to using whatever verbal skills I possessed to lower her stock and I was very successful in this objective.  On one occasion I told a highly intelligent future voter of Mrs Thatchers, of the PMs latest plan.  I informed her I had heard it was the Prime minister's intention to cancel that years Christmas!  No seven year old wants to hear that sort of thing during the first week of December, and my daughter was no exception.  However, her hero father was able to stop the dastardly plot and that Christmas day of the 1980's did take place to Kathryn's delight.

Returning to the real world this is the point where I'll put in my tuppence worth on Margaret Thatchers legacy.  It goes thus. All my adult life I have made a list in my head on peoples good and bad points.  In my business days I would actually write down comments on a new member of staff.  Using an A4  size piece of paper, I would draw a line down the centre of the page.  On the left hand side I'd write their bad and negative points and on the right hand side I would write what their plus points were.  I always Included their popularity with their new colleagues.  If the good points outweighed the bad points by a 60/40 ratio I worked on them to improve the ratio.  If I found I could find hardly any bad points then I concluded I was either very lucky, or a genius when it came to choosing staff.  If I found a long list of negative points  then I had cocked up when employing them and I would say a firm and speedy goodbye to the individual concerned. Happily, I didn't make many mistakes with judging people's character in my business or personal life.

I don't think my judgement has been often wrong with our politicians either but, in hindsight, I now think I was too hard on Mrs Thatcher. When, in my head, I thought of the good and bad points of of the Iron Lady I felt it would be a 40/60 type split against her, but it wasn't. So I took the trouble, just before her funeral, to indulge myself and I wrote out on paper her good and bad points.  By doing this I found it was a no contest exercise and Mrs T's good points won by a landslide.  I'd made sure I examined her time in office fairly and did not allow the way she irritated me to cloud my judgement.  My conclusion was that, despite the fact she seemed something of an oddball, her achievements outweighed her faults enormously. On my good point/bad point list she scored at least a 90/10 ratio. She may have been annoying to me but her decisions were invariably right.  However, she made the usual mistake of hanging on to power too long!

I mentioned earlier that all my adult life I have used, in my head, the good point/bad point list as a guide to decision making.  I like to think that others have done the same as regards to me and made allowances when my behaviour has been found lacking.  When an unexpected set of events changed the upward trajectory in which my life was heading, my Jenny may have have done that very thing.  If she did, she obviously found in favour of my good points.  What score would she have marked me?  I would estimate that when she added all the various points up the ratio would have been in the region of 99/1 in my favour.  One of these decades I'll ask if she and my children agree with their forever modest husband and father!                

[Ken]

This is a tale that begins in the year of Margaret Thatcher's death and ponders on various aspects of the lady.  It also questions the political leanings of the nine Tuffs siblings.