She will always be for me ‘that woman’. That is what my dad always called her.

She was, I believe, a devout Christian. Many will recall Margaret Thatcher quoting the Prayer of St Francis, as Margaret Thatcher  came into office before she went into No 10 for the first time as PM.

The archbishop of Canterbury  has released the following as part of Lambeth Palace’s official statement: “It is right that today we give thanks for a life devoted to public service, acknowledging also the faith that inspired and sustained her.”

I am afraid I am finding it difficult to give thanks, although I am doing my very best to imagine the pain of her children and grandchildren, as well as the many who will have been among her personal friends. Death is always jarring and never ever nothing at all

It is because my understanding and hers of the Christian faith are fundamentally different that I am struggling. It is not that I cannot respect her for the battles she would have fought to be selected as a candidate for the Tory Party. It would have been for any woman, and for any woman sadly in any party. Rather, I find the words used to describe her leadership sit, for me, uncomfortability with the Christian faith. ‘Iron Lady’, ‘unbending’, uncompromising’ and ‘always right’ are words that have slipped out from those who knew her best. There is a fundamental absence of vulnerability upon which Christ-like leadership is fashioned. The first woman PM had the opportunity to tear up the rule book as to what political leadership could be like, and the chance was not taken.  I have to say that her male successors have all kept to the rulebook, sadly.

On the other hand, she was a visionary; but what was that vision? All parts of the hagiography have made much of the opportunity to buy your own home. I lived on a street in sunny Sheffield, where that opportunity was taken. People did buy their homes. However, it made them different to those of who did not, or so it seemed to my child-like eyes. It was not the purchase per se, but the investment afterwards. The appearance of the home changed – there is nothing wrong with that. I understand as a homeowner the need to repair, replace and renew. What happened gradually was that the more people spent on their homes, the less inclined they were to give to the continued creation of community. I know this is a simplistic analysis, and take me to task for it; however I do recall what I saw.

This was not Mrs Thatcher’s fault. Each person is responsible for what they do. It would be as foolish for me to blame our former leader for the breakdown in community that has ensued over the last three decades as it would for me to blame welfare for the murder of children in a fire in Derby. However, together we did allow a situation to come into play where to be someone you had to own, you had to spend beyond your means to do it, where you were defined by your monetary value; rather than who you are. I am not sure that was the kind of leadership the country needed. Mrs Thatcher did not do this by herself, we allowed ourselves to be led in such a way.

Therefore, while I very much pray she rests in peace; I trust we will seize the moment to look at where we have come from and we were are, and together perhaps seize the opportunity to plan the future differently.