How Twitter and Facebook forced Thatcher's adoring fans and hysterical enemies to face each other
A few months ago, the journalist Martin Belam predicted what Twitter would look like on the day Lady Thatcher died (see above).
It turns out, he got it largely right. Anyone looking down their Facebook feed can see arguments breaking out between those who loved her and those who loathed her. Whereas some people have genuinely mourned her, leaving flower in sombre tribute at her home, we've also had revolting spectacles like the Brixton street party to celebrate her death.
In both cases, pictures of the event were shared almost immediately online. Grieving or hating, the attitude was the same. Grief or hatred alone was not enough – only public displays would do. So, we can see the strength of feeling is there. Of course, this raises the question: which is right? Monster or Messiah?
If you were a Thatcher fan, you probably think she was more or less single-handedly responsible for dragging Britain into the 21st century, modernising the country's industry, freeing the state from the crippling unions and defending British subjects overseas. She won the cold war along with Reagan and restored the UK's place among the foremost nations of the world – and all as a woman who entered parliament at a time when there were almost no women in politics at all.
If not, you probably think that her brutal premiership destroyed the working class and divided the country between North and South and rich and poor as never before, as well as building the culture of reckless greed which still infests the City.
But hang on. The great benefit of social media is that we are hauled out of our echo chamber where everyone agrees with us, and forced to confront the fact that there is another side to the debate. The truth is laid out for us in our timeline: here were great things Thatcher did, and here were terrible, foolish things she did. A friend of mine said it reminded him of how China sees Mao: the official Communist Party line is now that he was 70 per cent good and 30 per cent bad.
Surveying yesterday's social media hysteria, the conclusion I draw is this: anyone who loved Margaret Thatcher as the perfect PM and is unwilling to accept any criticism of her, or anyone who thinks she was pure evil, like a medieval peasant recalling a folk memory of a tyrant king, is either disingenuous, ill-informed or a bit thick.
And often all three.