Beaten to the Punch.

[Gap Filler]

Barely an hour after the announcement, and hashtagging dingdingthewitchisdead on Twitter reveals I'm already late to the party. You know I'm torn. On the one hand, there's the usual respect for the newly deceased angle, but on the other hand...

As a child of the Major government, my entire life's been spent living in the long shadow cast by Maggie. Tacit support of war criminals, the devastation of entire communities, a culture of greed, a hiking of the general cost of living, the list goes on; its hard for me to imagine British society without having to consider all of that. I wonder if this is how Chileans felt about Pinochet in 2006.

What do you reckon?

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

It's hard for me to say as I am welsh.
But one good thing Maggy did was encourage the Welsh TV Channel S4C.

[Lyinginbedmon]

I've been avoiding commentary on Thatcher herself because I know precious little about the matters she is maligned for, but I did cover my distaste with how the whole affair is being treated by the public.

[Ptangmatik]

She made my parent's lives hell when me, my brother and my sister were very little, turned them both staunch Labour.

On the other hand, all the awful things she did to the working class inspired the likes of Alexi Sayle and Mark Thomas to become comedians, bolstering the early alternative comedy scene, though I think it's safe to write that off as an unintended consequence.

Her son recently tried to finance the overthrow of the government in Equatorial Guinea to grab their oil and gas.

Sod the lot of them

Edit: That being said, I'd never want to revel in the death of anyone. I do not see this as a cause for celebration.

[empath]

Well, let's just get this out of the way, with regards to the public figure:



That said, I am...mixed in my emotions at her dying. On one hand, regardless of what I thought of her politics I BY GOD respected her and her conviction in them, so I don't want to see her go. But on the other hand, she was 87, and she had been having health troubles, so this could be looked upon as an end to pain, suffering, decrepitude...

For all its strength and resilience, even iron rusts.

...but it also leaves its mark LONG after it is gone...

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I was never around to see the results of the Thatcher era, but have certainly not been short on information about it; raised lefty-liberal by mild Tory-haters, one of my uncles is a rabid Thatcherite right winger, I live in a Tory heartland and I keep up with my history.

I can certainly agree that she was a woman that, whatever one's politics, one can respect; she had absolute belief in her convictions and stuck to them no matter what. I have, in many ways, a similar relationship with David Cameron, who of the three party leaders is the man I feel is most capable of governing a country, and I was genuinely heartened to see how vehemently he defended the right to gay marriage. However, both of them I have very serious disagreements with in other areas; Thatcher, in my opinion, ruined the UK economy for the long-term and began the process of taking apart everything that's good about the public sector, a job Cameron appears dead set on finishing (and that's before we even get started on what Gove is doing to the education system).

On balance, I am rather guiltily glad to see her gone; not through any spite or such, but only in the hope that we can, as a nation, move the **** on.

[TheRocket]

I can certainly agree that she was a woman that, whatever one's politics, one can respect; she had absolute belief in her convictions and stuck to them no matter what..

Well, I mean... so did Hitler?

[Geoff_B]

Margaret Thatcher didn't try to conquer Europe, exterminate non-Aryan races and start a World War.

Slight difference.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Admittedly yes, but last time I checked Thatcher wasn't actively advocating mass murder.

Probably.

[Amake]

I don't have any first hand experience of Thatcher or her politics, and I assume her portrayal in the Hellblazer comics wasn't entirely seriously meant. But I do find it odd that her most fervent supporters/defenders/apologists today can only seem to say "Please don't speak ill of the dead".

[Geoff_B]

I think it's the point where freedom of speech is taken a bit too far.

[Keab42]

I've been steering clear of twitter today because of this. No matter your view on her politics you shouldn't celebrate the fact that somebody died. I fear that her grave will be endlessly vandalised until she passes from living memory.

I think the thing that saddens me the most is that it mostly seems to be people who were too young to know her or her policies. For me the first Prime Minister I was aware of was Major, so clearly grudges are family heirlooms passed from generation to generation.

[Elomin Sha]

Thatcher was quite mad at the height of her power. She was blinded by what she thought she could get away with that she wanted to take control of the investigation of the Yorkshire Ripper (Peter Sutcliffe) herself. Her cabinet had to fight to bring her back to her senses.

[Keab42]

Still doesn't mean you should celebrate her death.

[Elomin Sha]

Who said I am celebrating?

[AlexanderDitto]

Margaret Thatcher didn't try to conquer Europe, exterminate non-Aryan races and start a World War.

Slight difference.

The point being that absolute blind adherence to your personal convictions isn't something to be respected, because chances are good you're wrong about at least one thing....

I think it's really important to be able to constantly collect new evidence, whether it supports your theory or not, and be able to admit it and change course when you are wrong. (It's the underpinning of the scientific method, which of course I value highly.)

[Elomin Sha]

Margaret Thatcher didn't try to conquer Europe, exterminate non-Aryan races and start a World War.

Slight difference.

The point being that absolute blind adherence to your personal convictions isn't something to be respected, because chances are good you're wrong about at least one thing....

I think it's really important to be able to constantly collect new evidence, whether it supports your theory or not, and be able to admit it and change course when you are wrong. (It's the underpinning of the scientific method, which of course I value highly.)

In the early 90s someone drew a Hitler moustache on a picture of Thatcher in the Commons. We'll need to keep up the research.

[Drinnik]

I've been avoiding commentary on Thatcher herself because I know precious little about the matters she is maligned for, but I did cover my distaste with how the whole affair is being treated by the public.

A friend posted this on facebook. It sums up pretty much what she did to ruin the UK in the 80s:

Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and polarising politic leader of the last century. This is an incomplete list of why many of us fall on the side that does not regard her with anything other than odium…

1. She supported the retention of capital punishment
2. She destroyed the country's manufacturing industry
3. She voted against the relaxation of divorce laws
4. She abolished free milk for schoolchildren ("Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher")
5. She supported more freedom for business (and look how that turned out)
6. She gained support from the National Front in the 1979 election by pandering to the fears of immigration
7. She gerrymandered local authorities by forcing through council house sales, at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership)
8. She was responsible for 3.6 million unemployed - the highest figure and the highest proportion of the workforce in history and three times the previous government. Massaging of the figures means that the figure was closer to 5 million
9. She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands
10. The poll tax
11. She presided over the closure of 150 coal mines; we are now crippled by the cost of energy, having to import expensive coal from abroad
12. She compared her "fight" against the miners to the Falklands War
13. She privatised state monopolies and created the corporate greed culture that we've been railing against for the last 5 years
14. She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS
15. She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits
16. She pioneered the unfailing adoration and unquestioning support of the USA
17. She allowed the US to place nuclear missiles on UK soil, under US control
18. Section 28
19. She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist"
20. She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers
21. She allowed the US to bomb Libya in 1986, against the wishes of more than 2/3 of the population
22. She opposed the reunification of Germany
23. She invented Quangos
24. She increased VAT from 8% to 17.5%
25. She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister
26. Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech
27. The Al Yamamah contract
28. She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet
29. Social unrest under her leadership was higher than at any time since the General Strike
30. She presided over interest rates increasing to 15%
31. BSE
32. She presided over 2 million manufacturing job losses in the 79-81 recession
33. She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process
34. She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa
35. Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clark, David Mellor, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitkin
36. Crime rates doubled under Thatcher
37. Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion
38. Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage
39. She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.
40. She cut 75% of funding to museums, galleries and other sources of education
41. In the Thatcher years the top 10% of earners received almost 50% of the tax remissions
42. 21.9% inflation

Most people recognise the massive changes that evolved during the 1980s. However, to ascribe the positive changes to one person, as though they never would have happened in her absence, is laughable.

[empath]

...and despite that closing sentence, your friend "...ascribes a negative change (MAD COW DISEASE) to one person, as though it never would have happened in her absence..."

[Elomin Sha]

Well she was a mad cow.

[plummeting_sloth]

I suspect the old joke "As it is considered rude to speak ill of the dead, this segment will be brief" will be a popular refrain on many British comedy news roundups.

[Elomin Sha]

I can't wait to see what Have I Got News for You does on Friday. They like to take credit that the first 3 weeks they were on air was too much for her to take of their ribbing so she left. Example from the Missing Words Round.

Angus: (Reading from a newspaper) "I made Thatcher WHAT, boasts Nigel."
Paul: "Swallow."
Angus: (While the audience is dying) "No. It's not a reference to food."

[ArchieO]

I have been trying to avoid discussion of the issue, I believe the dead should rest in peace, I see no reason to celebrate the death of an old and frail woman

Saying that I am also very much looking forward to HIGNFY

[Drinnik]

...and despite that closing sentence, your friend "...ascribes a negative change (MAD COW DISEASE) to one person, as though it never would have happened in her absence..."

BSE was caused by lax inspections by DeFRA, a department of the government, the leader of which was...

Although it is not her fault, it is a fault of her government.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

As a sort of ideological counterpoint to yours Drinnik, this appeared on my facebook feed earlier today:

It really makes you wonder about the value of public service. A woman who took the UK from a situation where we couldn't even bury our dead to economic prosperity of a kind not seen since 1945; a woman who, rightly, had the foresight to keep us out of the disastrous ERM, now - in effect - the Euro; a woman who stood up to the unions and rightly believed it should be our democratically elected Parliament which makes decisions, not a group of chippy Northern communists; a woman who fought a war to protect a few hundred people and some sheep in the middle of the South Atlantic because she believed it was right; a woman who took people out of poverty by giving them a chance to buy their own homes... is remembered like this: http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/a ... on-glasgow Disgusting. Like all PMs, she got some things right and others wrong (notably the Poll Tax, which was a disaster). But today's politicians don't stand for ANYTHING other than feathering their own nests and doing whatever will win them another vote. Having principles and taking a stand inevitably means you will be liked or hated, and nothing in between. But to celebrate the death of an elderly woman with dementia like this: would these people do this to anyone else's grandmother. Today, I am ashamed to be British. And will find the task of my cull of Facebook friends significantly easier after some of the views expressed today.

My only real thought with regards to this is to say that there are far more justified things to be ashamed for than some people really, really hating another person who you happened to like. I don't like politics.