Margaret - dead

[AyeYerMa]

LOL. I would imagine that Mark will be a very low profile character for the rest of his life.

In fact the length of the rest of his life could well be directly and inversely proportional to the height of his profile.

[big mervyn]

Mark Thatcher - despicable excuse for a human being. What's the betting that he inherits the Thatcher fortune whilst long suffering Carol is left with a few tatty momentoes?

Rather surprised to see Sir Bernard Ingham attending as Worzel Gummidge (worth watching just to get a glimpse of those extraordinary eyebrows), and who'd a thought that Gideon would have turned on the waterworks?

[BaggyTrousers]

Quality Stan.

[rocky]

I said that I would not comment on this distasteful thread again and I have stood by that until now.

What an incredibly dignified and fitting send off for the Lady. The warmth with which she was received by the crowds was testament to her stature as the leading peacetime Prime Minister of the 20th century.

I will not interrupt the "revelries" further.

It's not often that I disagree with your posts, LK, but in this we will never be on the same planet, let alone page. There can be no doubt but that she was seen as a hero by a big section of the country (by that, I mean England) and most of the Unionist population of Northern Ireland.
However it is also true that she was detested by huge numbers in the north of England as well as Scotland, Wales and the nationalist people here, for a variety of reasons.
It was always likely that the vast majority of people going to watch the funeral would be admirers rather than opponents, therefore the procession would be well received.
However, I firmly believe that it was entirely inappropriate to give her the same standing in death as was accorded to someone like Churchill or even royalty. To call her, as some have, the "Saviour of Britain" is simply nonsense. She did permanent harm to the whole fabric of our society, I believe, and she did not deserve the sort of send-off she received today.
I wonder what the reaction would be if such an expensive, elaborate state funeral was accorded to Ian Paisley or Gerry Adams in Northern Ireland - and I submit, public opinion here would be no more divided about them than it is in Britain today about Mrs Thatcher.
I would also submit that your assertion that she was the greatest peacetime PM of the entire 20th century doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. It took a war, hugely expensive in terms of life and wealth, to secure her a second term in office.
Finally, I take some exception to your description of this thread as "distasteful" Many of the posts here have been honest and considered and deserving or serious consideration.

[BaggyTrousers]

Rocky

It is sad that honest opinion is seen as distasteful, its certainly odd in terms of the said lady's absolute & utter love of not simply winning a fight, but driving her opponent face first into the dirt to an unspecified depth.

Frankly I have no doubt in my mind that she was not simply happy to wipe the floor with the NUM after a bitter year in which she unquestionably used the police as paramilitary bullyboys and in a few cases riot starters/provocateurs. Remember the £20 notes taped on the windows of police vans?

It is 100% accurate that she would never have had a 2nd term but for the Falklands War so unpopular was she and in her third term she so alienated her own party that they couldn't get rid of her quickly enough. Throw in the poll tax fiasco, on which she was warned but of course took no heed, and if she is the most successful PM, the others must have damn few laurels upon which to rest.

Frankly that contention is an outrage, the finest PM is of course Clement Atlee under who's administration the NHS was founded with a huge hand going to Aneurin Bevan the Minister for Health. The NHS, warts and all is an achievement dwarfing anything any other PM has achieved - just one man's unbiased opinion of course.

[rocky]

I agree with you about the NHS, Baggy and I have been utterly amazed that there has not been a single word from anyone in the last week or so about the fact that is was Mrs T who brought in Sainsbury to introduce the market economy concept to the NHS with it's tiers of administrators, PFi and other abominations that have, in my view, come close to destroying the whole institution (aided and abetted by subsequent governments, both blue and red (or light blue, as Blair was).

[bazzaj]

+1 for Atlee whose policies were good enough to oust Churchill after the Tories thought they could have an easy election victory on the back of Churchills immediate post war popularity.
Also helps when you dont compare the opposition to the gestapo in the wake of a near Nazi conquest.

Neil Kinnock recently summed up things best for me recently when he said the miners did not deserve Thatcher or Scargill but Thatcher and Scargill deserved each other.

[BaggyTrousers]

It's also a rather peculiar concept that Thatcher is being hailed as a great "peace time" leader when war was what made her as a leader, not only made her but saved her bacon as a politician. That of course before Sir Geoffrey Howe - a wolf in sheeps clothing - savaged her like a dog with a bone.

She is also being given credit for her role in the cold war, role which time after time saw her council Reagan to go slower on nuclear weapon reduction.

They do say history (of war) is written by the victors and in much of what Thatcher did see was a victor - that explains the frigging gloss being out on her every action these last 10 days.

Whitewashing history is fine for the masses, some of us have slightly longer memories, some positively elephantine where our enemies are involved.

[Shan]

I'll bet Mags is smiling up at you tonight.

Hopefully turning in her grave at the thought of such a waste of tax-payers' money...

Do you mean the waste of millions for a funeral or Baggy's Champagne Neil?

[shamalicious]

Osborne's tears (of acid no doubt) made me

[AyeYerMa]

She is also being given credit for her role in the cold war, role which time after time saw her council Reagan to go slower on nuclear weapon reduction.

I'd be interested in sources on that one Bagster.

[Shan]

Foreign Secretary William Hague said "The people of North Korea are in official mourning after the death of Kim Jong-Il. We understand this is a difficult time for them

Kim Jong Il's funeral was dignified, had millions of mourners and had nice gestures from "civilised" countries. It seems that some folk can't see any problem with ordinary folk celebrating reverently the lives of highly questionable individuals, criminals, terrorists and despotic leaders.

Ireland – "The Journal" reported that Ireland had said it had "no plans to issue a statement of any kind on the death of the North Korean leader."

That's better but still not quite there. At least though it does not display a fundamental affection based solely on an individual being a member of the establishment. Though it must be said I do believe Behan was pretty close to the mark and actually is a thing I look fondly on the Irish for(though not all clearly). What I really think is that we demand that a person has to earn the respect by deed, rather than position instead of just having a lack of respect.

“It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.”

Dev sent condolences to Germany after Hitler's demise. He was utterly wrong and was a despicable individual. He also dealt with despicable individuals on the other side of his war, like Churchill for example....a great war leader because that is what he was passionate about, well that and eating and drinking his way through the lean years while the real heroes of Great Britain survived on scraps. But even in that if I was British I'd possibly honour Churchill for his leadership in the war but would still know that sociopathy can be a useful tool in certain situations, and especially in a situation where you are dealing with others of that ilk with some different aims and objectives.

We sent a langer over to Thatcher's funeral today. I disagree with the move but I'm also aware there's a game which sometimes has to be played. It's not a game I like or have any respect for but many things in our society leaves me cold. If I was to get bogged down on every one I'm afraid I may not be able to function at all.


Anyway she is gone now but of course will be spoken about and studied in the future. There will be a point in the future where the emotion will be taken out of it and cold analysis will win the day. My expectation is that objective history will not look on her in any way favourably but in the history of humanity she won't quite manage to make it into a worst ever list either.

[BaggyTrousers]

She is also being given credit for her role in the cold war, role which time after time saw her council Reagan to go slower on nuclear weapon reduction.

I'd be interested in sources on that one Bagster.

Damn it Aye, thought someone would pull me on that one .................. only joking, as if I would twist the truth. Sadly I can't tell you exactly the source as I heard so much on R5live today, think it may have been Matthew Parris taking to thon boy who starts at two, but it could have been on Sheila's stint, sorry can't be more precise. Come to think of it Peter Allan may have been involved.

I can only say, it was said and accepted as a matter of public knowledge.

Edit, a little more, Reagan was known to be virulently anti-communist, especially as a doctrine rather than as it was applied in any particular bastion of it. It apparently was Thatcher who convinced him that Gorby was a very different Russian leader, "one I can do business with" as she said.

Furthermore Reagan was known to be in favour of complete nuclear disarmament should it prove a viable verifiable option. These were days before every fecker and their ma had a device.

My understanding from what I heard to day is that Thatcher was worried about Reagan being over-enthusiastic about the pace of disarmament once he had got teh taste for it via his meetings with Gorbachev.

[big mervyn]

Cameron reading the lesson: "In my Father's house there are many mansions". Maybe the oul bat did have a sense of humour.

[AyeYerMa]

Cameron reading the lesson: "In my Father's house there are many mansions". Maybe the oul bat did have a sense of humour.

I wonder pays tax on them?