Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject: Margaret Thatcher - The Making of Margaret
Margaret Thatcher is Britain's longest serving Prime Minister of recent times and the first female leader in the western world. During her 11 years in office, she sought to change Britain's way of life and it's position on the international stage.
Revered and reviled in almost equal measure, she bestrode the political scene, both at home and abroad, with a passion and in a manner not seen before or since. But who was she and where did she come from? Also, how did she come to power, first as leader of her party and then as Prime Minister.
She's not really revered in equal amounts to those who hate her - she crushed the lives of many more millions of people than those she helped. The milk-snatching, poll-tax enforcing, union destroying cunt.
I can only imagine that you were lucky enough not to be at the receiving end of her cuntish policies.
I was. But I think the country as a whole is suffering more under the cuntish policies of Tony Blair than they ever were at the hands of Thatcher. Rather a few disgruntled trouble making unionists, mothers who have to buy their children's own milk, than a disgruntled entire nation because of, well, what Blair has done would be too numerous to mention here. Suffice to say: The education system, Transport, Immigration, Taxes, Dodgy deals for passports, dodgy peerages etc etc etc ad infinitum.
Poll tax? That was a breeze compared with the tax Blair has imposed on practically everything bar the air we breathe. I'm sure that's coming though.
A few disgruntled trades unionists? I'm not even going to get into it because it sounds like you need to go and study a whole course in modern british history.
I think Blair is a bastard too - just nowhere near as damaging to normal people as that old witch was. Her own party even chased her out, that's how much she was despised.
His party chased him out too. Well, them and the rest of the nation. I know British history. I was there during Thatcher and there during Blair. What I do recognize is that Thatcher did things perhaps not to everyone's taste, but she did them for the good of the country as a whole, exactly what a Prime Ministers job should be. Blair on the other hand appeased everyone else before his people. Referendum on Europe? Fuck you taxpayers!
If you know British history then maybe you could explain how getting rid of industrial jobs and replacing them with service industry positions with no job-security is good for the people?
Also, what value is there in a country which relies so much on external production? The whole system is designed by the rich to benefit the rich. Anyone else who benefits is purely by coincidence and usually only after they have been dragged into a cycle of existence which makes it almost impossible for them to break out of.
Thatcher to be honoured with State funeral, but Palace fears there might not be enough troops to line streets of London By Katie Nicholl and Simon Walters, Chief Tory Arselickers,
Daily Mail
Margaret Thatcher is to be given the ultimate accolade of a State funeral when she reaches the end of her days – the first British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to be afforded such an honour. But the possibility of a formal procession could be jeopardised by fears that there are insufficient troops available to line the route because the Armed Forces are so overstretched in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Although Lady Thatcher is currently in good health – she was with the Queen at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday – The Mail on Sunday has learned that plans are under way for her funeral, when the time eventually comes, to take place at St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Queen and Gordon Brown are both in discussions with Lady Thatcher’s private office concerning the arrangements. This does not reflect any concern over Lady Thatcher’s health, but simply the prudent long-term planning necessary for any event involving the Queen. It has not yet been decided whether the 82-year-old former Conservative leader will lie in state in Westminster Hall. To date the only Prime Minister in the 20th and 21st centuries to be given this honour was Churchill. There were four non-Royal State funerals in the 19th century – Nelson, Wellington, Palmerston and Gladstone.
St Paul’s was chosen at Lady Thatcher’s request. The Queen is expected to be among the many world leaders, Royals and other dignitaries who would be in attendance. Overall arrangements for the funeral are being led by Sir Malcolm Ross, the Queen’s former Master of the Royal Household, who has managed every Royal funeral since 1997, including those of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother.
A source said: ‘Sir Malcolm has been brought in because he has an excellent track record and is considered the best man for the job.’ Sir Malcolm is renowned for his discretion and kept the plans for the Queen Mother’s funeral in his briefcase for 17 years. It is hoped that those for Lady Thatcher will also not be needed for many years.
A state funeral for Margaret Thatcher is all wrong Kevin Maguire
The Mirror
16/07/2008
Nationalising Maggie Thatcher in death will split the country. Rather predictable of her, considering that she divided it while in power.
There's an irony in granting a state funeral to a Tory leader who championed rolling back the state. But all that pomp and ceremony in her honour, plus a day off for school kids, will be very, very wrong. Why Thatcher and not Clement Attlee, creator of the welfare state and a greater Prime Minister?
Gordon Brown's willingness to send off Britain's first female Premier on a gun carriage will cause mayhem - not least because Labour people have long memories. I heard on Monday night of one of his MPs who keeps a bottle of champagne permanently chilled, ready to be uncorked the minute he hears the BBC announce her end.
Nor would a day of official mourning for Maggie, with flags at half-mast, be universally welcomed in Conservative ranks. The whisper going round Westminster is that even Winston Churchill's grandson, Horsham MP Nicholas Soames, considers it a ghastly idea. Churchill was the last politico to enjoy state veneration, and presumably his heir, the former Tory minister, feels that Maggie is unworthy of the same. For once, I wouldn't disagree with Soames.
Both were wartime leaders, but Churchill stood against Nazi Hitler while the Rusty Lady fought a civil war against communities across Britain. There'll be no crocodile tears shed in this column, day off or no day off.
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I wish I could afford to have a bottle of champagne on standby! (a little bit of satire there)
Comics should lay off Baroness Thatcher Dominic Cavendish
Nov 23, 2008
telegraph.co.uk
As Charles Spencer complains in his four-star review, Eddie Izzard almost poisons the atmosphere of his otherwise excellent new West End show by launching into an objectionable mini-rant about Margaret Thatcher near the start.
Why a comic of Izzard's class, and moreover one who has always absented himself from the nit, grit and workaday dullness of politics in his childishly whimsical shtick, should try to squeeze vitriolic laughter from the prospect of Baroness Thatcher's death is pretty baffling. Griping at the prospect of a state funeral for a singular politician whose lasting achievements and legacy hardly need to be recounted here, he likens her to a vampire: 'She's dead, but she's still walking the earth'. He wonders, tastelessly, whether someone could stick a stake through her heart. His justification for this bile? 'She was divisive and evil. I will p*ss on that state funeral.' What wit, what insight.
He's not the only comic getting in a last-ditch verbal assault on an 83-year-old widow, who's been out of power for almost 20 years and who now suffers from dementia. Frankie Boyle's latest touring show - as recorded for DVD - features a typically callous one-liner about the 'national debate on Margaret Thatcher's state funeral. The only debate,' the 'joke' runs, 'is whether she needs to be dead - before we bury her.'
I guess old habits die hard. Whereas even veteran political opponents of 'Thatch' like Ken Livingstone long ago called it a day on personal attacks, acknowledging that what's done is done, lefty comedians - mysteriously short of home-grown satirical targets during the flagrantly rotten Blair/Brown years - still require a tried and tested hate figure.
While making fun of 'Maggie' was all the rage during the confrontational 80s, when just saying 'Thatch' with the right kind of sardonic intonation could get you a round of sycophantic laughter, nowadays it's an activity so past its sell-by date it stinks. Any comic worth their salt should lay off Thatcher. And any comedian doing so well for themselves they could be classified as 'rich' - a category that must include Izzard - might also want to ponder whether they'd be doing half so well if it hadn't been for the enterprise culture that Thatcherism gave rise to.
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what a load of bollocks - but then, it is the Torygraph...
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