Responding to Margaret Thatcher’s Death DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0001 Also by Louisa Hadley THE FICTION OF A. S. BYATT (2008) NEO-VICTORIAN FICTION AND HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: The Victorians and Us (2010) THATCHER & AFTER: Margaret Thatcher and Her Afterlife in Contemporary Culture (Edited with Elizabeth Ho, 2010) DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0001 Responding to Margaret Thatcher’s Death Louisa Hadley Dawson College, Canada DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0001 © Louisa Hadley 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-42824-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. 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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. www.palgrave.com/pivot DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257 Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 Anticipating Thatcher’s Death 20 2 Political Responses to Thatcher’s Death 35 3 Social Media Responses to Thatcher’s Death 50 4 Obituaries of Margaret Thatcher 62 5 Picturing Thatcher 73 6 “A Proper Send-off” for Thatcher 83 Conclusion 95 Bibliography 99 Index 109 DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0001 v Acknowledgements On 8 April 2013, I woke up to find my inbox and Facebook feed filled with the news that Margaret Thatcher had died. In the evening, I appeared on a CTV News Special on Thatcher’s life and legacy. My invitation to appear was a direct result of the volume that I co-edited with Elizabeth Ho, Thatcher & After: Margaret Thatcher and her afterlife in contemporary culture (2010). I remain grateful to Elizabeth Ho for her collaboration on that project and the further possibilities it has opened up. In particular, the arguments that we forwarded in the introduction to that volume have informed my thinking on Thatcher since. The topical nature of this project required a particular form of publication, and I was happy to discover that Palgrave Macmillan had developed just such a forum in the Palgrave Pivot. In particular, I would like to thank Felicity Plester and Chris Penfold at Palgrave Macmillan for supporting this project. The demands of this project have meant that it has been prepared in a relatively short amount of time. This would not have been possible without the help and support of various people, some of whom deserve special mention. I would like to thank Dawson College for supporting research, and particu- larly the English Department for providing the space for feedback and commentary in the research colloquiums. I have benefited from the resources in several libraries, particularly Concordia University, access to which has been made available by the CREPUQ scheme. I would also like to thank my family, who collected material relating to Thatcher in the weeks after her death and posted it to vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0002 Acknowledgements vii me in Canada. Special thanks is owed to Sara Breitkreutz for providing structure and support through regular writing sessions. Sections of this volume have been read and commented on by Conner Morgan and David Hadley, and I am grateful for their keen attention to detail. Any mistakes that remain are my own. DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0002 Introduction Abstract: The introduction traces the key moments of Margaret Thatcher’s political career, connecting her policies to the various personae that she adopted or was given. It then examines the shift to a more personal and sympathetic approach to Thatcher after her resignation. The introduction establishes the theoretical framework for the volume; it considers the relationship between private and public in relation to Carole Pateman’s theory of the sexual contract and connects this to issues of gender through Heather Nunn’s reading of Thatcher’s performance of femininity. Hadley, Louisa. Responding to Margaret Thatcher’s Death. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. doi: 10.1057/9781137428257.0003. DOI: 10.1057/9781137428257.0003 