Surprising levels of restraint at the demise of Maggie

Monday lunchtime was fairly usual: Eat tiny salad out of plastic box (pining for the days when it was cake instead), look out of window, surf the web. Then twitter told me Margaret Thatcher had died.

Twitter is truly fascinating when major news stories break. My timeline was first filled with brief ‘Thatcher dead’ messages, then more descriptive (as far as you can be in 140 characters) ones from news sources, followed by a flurry of something unexpected: People warning other twitter users against being unkind or cruel, pointing out that, whatever your political persuasion, this was someone’s relative, a fellow human being, and urging others to show respect.

I don’t follow everyone on twitter (I imagine all those cat pictures would overload my 5 year old laptop somewhat) but, judging from some of the vitriolic and overtly political tweets I’ve seen, the folks whose timelines I do view represent a spectacularly broad spectrum when it comes to party allegiances (not to mention what constitutes funny). And yet, they were largely saying the same thing, usually prefacing it with a “Whatever your political bent...” message.

I was genuinely surprised. After all, this was Margaret Thatcher we’re talking about. She was able to divide people’s opinions more effectively than Marmite. You may have been a fervent supporter, or a deeply angered opponent, but it was very unlikely that you just didn’t care. By comparison, Dave Cameron and that bloke from Wallace and Grommit (and the Lib Dem chappie) are alarmingly bland and anonymous.

After more controversy than all the Soap plotlines from a year rolled into one, Maggie has finally gone. Sure as eggs are ovoid or round objects laid by a female bird, reptile, fish, or invertebrate, the tidal wave of people thinking a couple of hours is plenty long enough to leave it before launching into a frothing tirade of angry words about how much they hated her and rejoice at her death, will now have washed over us in a dark torrent.

But, for a brief moment, I saw something amazing, through the portal of a little blue bird, and it’s tightly limited character count. I saw people urging other people to be reasoned, kind and caring. To show restraint, respect, and understanding that this was a life extinguished.

I’d assumed this sort of thing was gone: killed off by our 24/7 lifestyles, falling standards, a lack of compassion and, yes, social media. It turns out I was mistaken, and I’m heartened that I was.

There are still people out there who hold some rare values, and, devoid of politics or religion, wanted to warn others against hastily venting their anger. It’s sad that they felt they had to, of course. What they were calling for is something we should all strive for.

Of all the potential legacies of The Iron Lady, her restoring some of my faith in humankind via social media was about as likely as me winning the Lottery.

I’m just going to check my numbers again.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 12th April, 2013. The paper retitled it 'Sweet tweets on Margaret Thatcher's death', which made me wince a little, as it could have been interpreted as my approval of nasty twitter sentiments. Then again, it clearly also has the implication that the tweets were indeed 'sweet', so fair play - clever use of words. You can view the version they used here With the exception of three words, the paper printed it all this week.

I'd rather expected to get some comments from people reading more into my column than is actually there, such is the emotive nature of the subject. However, at the time of typing this, there are none. Having said that, several other columnists have come down heavily for or against Maggie, so I suspect they've pulled in the equally polarised responses.

I did agonise somewhat as to whether to write this column. I'm fairly apolitical, and don't handle confrontation comfortably, so could happily have taken the easy route and avoided the subject matter altogether. Then I remembered that this was my 50th column, and at least some of the idea of the format is to offer an opinion or provoke a response, so I went for it. I really don't know if it worked - I'm more comfortable with my more usual strange and grumpy view on something trivial, but I guess I do need to come out of my comfort zone now and again - even if it's only to realise that it's a rather scary place, and I'm better off sheltering in the warm fluffiness of extreme pedantry.

Next week's column is one I wrote a couple of months ago... unless of course something else distracts me before Wednesday's submission time.

(Strange electronic dance/disco oddities are coming forth from the stereo tonight, in the form of the Sparks album "Balls".)