Let us begin with the only regular feature of the three: Jeremy Kyle. As the son of a onetime private secretary to the Queen Mother, Kyle has some connection to Royal ceremonial himself, and as a social science graduate to some intellectual understanding of the forces at work in wider society. When prime minister, Mrs Thatcher famously declared that: "There is no such thing as society"; although there was some attempt at her funeral to re-interpret this earlier pronouncement. For her, it was the family which held the key to a fulfilling life, and other social relationships, including those of the workplace and politics, flowed from this. The idea of a more collective set of affiliations, indeed of the "Solidarity" which would help to liberate Eastern Europe from Communism around the same time, were paradoxically anathema to a prime minister who supported democratic freedom but mistrusted trade unionism above all else. One consequence of the erosion of social solidarity which arguably began during the Thatcher governments, has been the creation of what is now starting to be called the "Precariat", a growing group of people whose lives are punctuated by both precarious employment and domestic relationships. This group typically provides the narratives played out before Jeremy Kyle. Although it can also be argued that the dysfunctional social discourse to which he give voices now extends far beyond the Precariat, and even manifests itself amongst the Elite.
Within this modern socially dysfunctional context, it is therefore possible that the spirit of Baroness Thatcher might have been relieved to see - perhaps even rejoiced at - the outbreak of more traditional social protest to coincide with her funeral. For the popular uprising which took place in the one-time mining community of Goldthorpe in the North of England seemed to summon up an earlier period and place - but somehow still more real than reality television - before communities needed a government department to carry their name and propagandise on their behalf. And so it was that on a day when state ceremony held sway in London, the frontier of the state was rolled back in South Yorkshire with an unceremonial funeral.
