Primal Scream lead singer says Thatcher is dead but her policies live on in Cameron government

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher may be dead but her conservative policies have never been in better health, Primal Scream lead singer Bobby Gillespie has said.

Left-wing Gillespie, 51, the Scottish son of a union official and a bitter opponent of "Thatcherism", also said he had been happy to hear of the death of the "Iron Lady".

"Really, she's not dead, she's just gone," he told AFP in an interview in Paris.

"Because the policies she put into practice -- privatisations, attacks on the welfare state, attacks on (the) health (service), attacks on the educational system, basically her war against the working class -- these policies have been living (on) through John Major's government, Tony Blair's government and the current administration."

As a result, he said, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government with the Liberal Democrats was now "doing things (Thatcher) could only have dreamt to do, but back then the working class and the trade unions were so large and powerful".

Gillespie also attacked the new generation of musicians as apathetic and bland, saying "deindustrialisation led to depoliticisation".

During the late 1970s and 1980s bands like Cabaret Voltaire and Joy Division, were "making art that felt like Britain", he said.

"It was a grey, paranoid, violent place and they were making music that reflected that, so to me it's true art.

"They were important because they were questioning authority, 'think for yourself' that was the message of that stuff.

"(Now) we live in a very violent and extreme time but the music I hear doesn't reflect that. Young bands are so conservative, so bland, no one says anything that's controversial or confrontational," he said.

He added that he had welcomed news of Thatcher's death.

"I was very happy when I heard the news. My friends were texting me and everybody thought it was great."

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