Thatcher dies
 

Didn't think this would ever happened.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...ter-to-MP.html

Re: Thatcher dies
 

I knew a bloke who kept a bottle of champagne for this moment!

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Eh? Mind you, it would explain a lot if she wasn't from this Earth.

Re: Thatcher dies
 

RIP Maggie aka the Iron Lady.
Some will be celebrating and others mourning I guess its all a matter of who you are and how she affected you.
As an ex member of HM Forces and the Police the vast majority of this type of person will say she did a good job on their behalf.

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You can say anything you like about her she will never turn in her grave as the ladies not for turning..

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This was the face I made when I heard the good, nay GREAT, news.

http://i1175.photobucket.com/albums/...ing/smugqq.png

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Also Saville and now Thatcher?

What a fantastic twelve months for minors.

http://i1175.photobucket.com/albums/...ing/greggy.png

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Gosh Twitter has gone very vile to her at the moment.

I guess my take on this is that although I do not celebrate the death of any human, I will not watch the eulogies or mourn the death of Margaret Thatcher. in my opinion she strove to tear apart the very fabric of this country through taxation and social exclusion. She was a staunch supporter of Pinochet speaking on his behalf when he was arrested for crimes against humanity and she was an integral part of the Hillsborough cover up. She destroyed the unions and introduced section 28. Few people outside of the southeast will be sad to see her go.

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Unfortunately I passed mine on when I loved to Canada and never replaced it.

Oh well, shame about going peacefully but at least she's gone.

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The Witch is dead.................

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From the guardian football blogs:

The Lady's not for breathing.

The lady's not returning....

Tramp the dirt down.

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Its sad to see so many people celebrate the death of another..i dont remember such jubilation when Bin Laden copped a wrong un:confused:

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RIP Lady T; the greatest peacetime Prime Minister we ever had.

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It goes to show what a great leader she was to the country. Few PMs would ever be remembered this way.

She did what she believed to be right and stood by her principles. I wonder if many of those belittling her, would have the same conviction and courage!

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Was it only those in the south east that voted for her then?

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Presumably this post is an attempt at humour?

You do realise that being hated by large swathes of society, to the point where people are actually pleased that you've died, is absolutely not the sign of a great leader?

Re: Thatcher dies
 

So apart from Winston Churchill name me a great British leader after him?
BTW do you still live in the UK?

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Not in the least. As I said, I wonder how many ridiculing her now would have the courage of their convictions, as she did. I would hadrly call a few posts on here and Twitter representative of large swathes of society.

Quite the contrary, she secured several terms in office, large swathes of society supported her.

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I don't particularly think any of them can be classed as "great leaders". What's your point?

For another month or so, yes I do. How is that relevant?

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Nope but I would suggest that many people reflect on things in a different way now. What she did to the North East. I am not going to get into a huge political debate now!

As I said I did not like Thatcher, but at least unlike Blair, she had a backbone. You could really hate her


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1jY5fYjV-U - Spitting Image "My Way"

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Really? Have to say I don't have much of an opinion on Maggie, as I was too young to have a view on her politics at the time, but I've yet to come across anybody that is 'pleased' about her dying on FB/Twitter etc.

The general view seems to be whether you loved her or loathed her, she was a great politician and deserved respect.

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She was a great leader, she was a great politician, but ultimately I would say that there isn't a single PM who has damaged the UK than Thatcher.

I admire her character, I don't admire her politics.

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<pops cork>

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I seem to recall that her popularity rating reached an all time low for a PM shortly before the Falklands war.

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Riiiight. Presumably never been to Scotland, Wales or any other traditionally industrial part of the UK? You'll have to trust me on this one - she's largely disliked.

Whilst having the courage of your convictions is an admirable quality, it does help somewhat for these convictions to be reasonable.

You can't help but be affected by her policies. It didn't jsut stop when she elft office: The neo-liberal fantasies she put in place are still with us. The de-industrialsed regions and broken communities, the centralising of all growth on the city of London and the squandering of the north sea reserves to cover that growth. All these things occured on her watch, and were enabled by later governments. She helped define a social and economic epoch that we are still living through.

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I will be having a big drink tonight, but I admit that it is largely coincidental, as today is my 'going-home' day after 42 days up here!

I hated her when she was in power for her callous indifference to the suffering she brought about, but she left power in 1990... 23 years ago. I celebrated her resignation, and then she was history to me.

No tears, but no real celebrations either. That's distasteful, imo. If you still expend so much emotional energy on her after so long, she's won.

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My point is she was re-elected 3 times as PM so obviously large swathes of the voting public supported her or thought the opposition was worse.
One also has to ask since the 90s how many people have left the UK and one has to question why. Fast forward to today how many are leaving the UK and why. Lack of jobs, country allegedly going to the dogs. Is this Thatchers fault or down to the crap leaders the UK have had since?
Love her or hate her she was good for some and bad for others.
I didnt vote for her but agreed with a lot of what she did which had a lot to do with my job. Decent pay raises and contracts to name but a few.

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Interesting poll by the Guardian. Still living in the UK - I would say NO

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-state-funeral

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Presumably you're from the South-East? Because on my Facebook the general view is most definitely not a favourable one.

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I am, but my FB friends who have commented on her death are from all over the UK, and other countries too. Only a couple are Southerners.

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Hope this works. Great mistake on bbc website. It was the Union's that got to Thatcher !

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RIP Maggie.

People generally hated her or loved her but you can't deny she had balls and a bigger backbone than today's cabinet.

I did not agree with her politics but as a woman I admired her courage in adversity and the fact that she fought hard for what she believed in. Not a simpering leader afraid to say boo to a goose.

Love her or hate her the lady has just died and she and her family deserve some respect. Today is not the day to vent spleen.

J

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Industries that thought they could carry on forever losing fortunes for the country while the taxpayer propped them up?

Get a grip.

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Interesting. The poll posted above on the Guardian's website shows a 80/20 split against Thatcher receiving a state funeral which is an indication that she wasn't considered all that great a leader. You certainly wouldn't see a result like that in a poll on Churchill.

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Probably a feed full of similar "bitter and entitled" sorts?

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This is a good summary of her time -

"The woman who massively widened the already obscene gap between the rich and the poor, as her supporters in big business, the newly privatised utilities, and the arms and defence industries made billions. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the word 'underclass' entered the public vocabulary for the first time. For millions of people, Thatcherism represented nothing more than crippling unemployment, homelessness, poverty, crime, drug abuse and hopelessness. For the elite Thatcherism represented an opportunity for the rich to get even richer by asset-stripping the country, as the orgy of greed that was Deregulation, was spun to look like something that the nation should be proud of, rather than the obscene, carpet-bagging, feeding frenzy that it actually was."

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Swing and a miss on that one, champ.

http://www.hmfckickback.co.uk/public...fault/keys.png

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Not entirely accurate, some of the industries she broke apart are now costing the country a lot more money. The railways are a prime example, the Brits spend/spent more on Railtrack and Network rail than they ever did for British rail.

It's playing the numbers game 'these plants that had 1000's of workers all paying taxes are losing money, lets make them unemployed and pay them to sit on the dole and not reclaim any tax' add these costs together and was it truly losing the government money?

Even if it broke even what would you rather, produce for a negative return or not produce for negative return?

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As the left will continually tell you: It's all Thatcher's fault!

No matter what 'it' might be.

Back in the real world, Britain was socially and economically bankrupt at the end of the 70s, which is the only reason people were willing to turn their back on hard-left Labour and wet-left Tories and elect someone who was capable of turning the country around. If they hadn't, I'd have joined the brain drain as soon as I finished university.

Thatcher had plenty of faults, but she was the only post-WWII politician who was worth a damn.