Meeting "Red Ken" in person was a very early demonstration to me of how most mainstream media is full of shit. That was 1983, and nothing - nothing - that has happened since then has happened to make me change my mind.
It was particularly around the "Irish problem" where he was being portrayed as the devil incarnate because he had pointed out that it really was this simple:
- keep fighting
- talk to the people on the other side to try to find a peace.
And if you reject one, you can only pursue the other. Which made the British governments position deeply immoral as they were pursing (1) whilst pretending to the country there was somehow a (3).
Now that needs a lot of nuance, and the motivation of not wanting to be blowing up in an IRA bomb (I grew up in London in the 70s and 80s) to open your ears.
Admittedly things weren't helped because it was all mixed up with a load of socialist claptrap.
P.J. O'Rourke visited Ireland in the 80s (not that you'd know as that chapter has been removed from reprints of "Holidays in Hell" - yet another reason to prefer old media to digital). He was struck by the fact that both sides said "This is an acceptable level of violence". Meaning the British government had a number of innocent civilians they'd see dead before there was a problem.
Critics of Thatcher can note that her views on Ireland were completely and utterly wrong and if you take it would have been possible to come to a treaty earlier, then indirectly responsible for the continuation of the troubles.
Yo'd probably never get them to admit it (although I could see it happening) but it's hard to fight the feeling that there is part of the nostalgia that appears to drive Reform that includes dealing with the IRA.