Thatcher Dead

[Sydney]

People will never agree on the merits of Thatcher as PM. The reference to Billy Bragg was quite right. Young morons filmed dancing in the streets should be embarrassed and might look back one day and feel ashamed, but if they don't, it just goes to show how divisive opinions are.

When Hugo Chavez died a few weeks ago the press in the UK and USA were quite scathing and showed no respect for a world leader or his family, who unlike Thatcher, never set out to destroy whole communities in the name of making the rich richer. His biggest crime was protecting his country's interests from multi national companies. When Rupert Murdoch chose Britain to launch his own revolution and destroy fleet street he said he did so because it was the only western country where he could depend on the police to back his interests.

It's interesting that some of the older unionists interviewed on tv appear more mellow than the younger protesters we see on the news. Just goes to show how strong that legacy is, and how it's been passed on. Most older people were affected by the Thatcher government in one way or another hence the strong views. I don't think we should condemn each other for having different opinions.

[Guest51810]

Did she not say that she wanted a quiet funeral? I thought I'd read that somewhere

[Sydney]

 

Did she not say that she wanted a quiet funeral? I thought I'd read that somewhere

Glasgow perhaps !!

[Guest51810]

I've been reading up on it, it's quite interesting. One of the places that shut down - Ravenscraig steelworks was close by to me

[Sydney]

I've been reading up on it, it's quite interesting. One of the places that shut down - Ravenscraig steelworks was close by to me

Hiya Stacey. Interesting times and lots of opinions up here in Scotland. Can't imagine the good folks of Ravenscraig shedding a tear for Mrs Thatcher. I believe the area still suffers from the sudden closure of the steel mill. Also interesting to read the conflicting opinions on here. Hope all's well in your parts... Syd.

[Guest51810]

Hiya Stacey. Interesting times and lots of opinions up here in Scotland. Can't imagine the good folks of Ravenscraig shedding a tear for Mrs Thatcher. I believe the area still suffers from the sudden closure of the steel mill. Also interesting to read the conflicting opinions on here. Hope all's well in your parts... Syd.

 

No they probably wont be crying! Im finding the different opinions interesting aswell. Seems to be a real mix

[StevieF8]

Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr has described comments made by Baroness Thatcher as "unabashedly racist".

 

 

In a conversation with her "in her retirement", Mr Carr said the former UK prime minister had warned Australia against Asian immigration.

 

 

She said "if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants", he said.

 

 

Lady Thatcher, 87, died on Monday after suffering a series of strokes.

 

 

Mr Carr made his comments on the Australian broadcaster ABC's Lateline programme.

 

 

He said he had been "astonished" at the comments by Lady Thatcher, which were made while his Malaysian-born wife Helena was "standing not far away" but was "fortunately out of earshot".

 

 

But he said he retained respect for the "boldness of her political leadership".

 

 

Mr Carr prefaced his comments by saying Lady Thatcher had been "the most significant" leader since Winston Churchill, forcing social democratic parties to "think more deeply about the function of the state". She had been "right in joining [former US President Ronald] Reagan and denouncing the old Soviet Union as an evil dictatorship", he said.

 

 

"On 100 other things I would pick arguments with her and I recall one conversation I had with her in her retirement where she said something that was unabashedly racist, where she warned Australia - talking to me with Helena standing not far away - against Asian immigration, saying that if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants.

 

 

"I couldn't believe it. It reminded me that despite, yes, her greatness on those big questions, the role of the state, the evil nature of the Communist totalitarianism, there was an old-fashioned quality to her that was entirely out of touch and probably explained why her party removed her in the early 90s."

 

 

He went on to recall: "I remember one thing she said as part of that conversation, she said: 'You will end up like Fiji.' She said: 'I like Sydney but you can't allow the migrants' - and in context she meant Asian migration - 'to take over, otherwise you will end up like Fiji where the Indian migrants have taken over.'

 

 

"I was so astonished I don't think I could think of an appropriate reply."

 

 

Lady Thatcher will be buried with full military honours at London's St Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday 17 April.

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22087702

[Sydney]

What a stupid thing to say. You cant actually predict your going to have a stroke and phone up all your family to come round!

 

Don't think it's stupid at all.

Thatcher suffered multiple strokes since being discharged from hospital earlier this year. Her death was hardly a shock to the press/media who had pre recorded tv shows/stories all ready to go to air. I'm sure her immediate family would have been aware of her condition too. They were overseas when she passed away.

[StevieF8]

Media

blows everything out of proportion as you well know, she was a hated figure but as usual the paper need their story...it was a couple of isolated incidents that ain't really a big deal.

 

 

Tell that to the owners of a charity shop who had their windows put in.

 

 

A charity shop FFS....scum!

[Sydney]

Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr has described comments made by Baroness Thatcher as "unabashedly racist".

 

 

In a conversation with her "in her retirement", Mr Carr said the former UK prime minister had warned Australia against Asian immigration.

 

 

She said "if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants", he said.

 

 

Lady Thatcher, 87, died on Monday after suffering a series of strokes.

 

 

Mr Carr made his comments on the Australian broadcaster ABC's Lateline programme.

 

 

He said he had been "astonished" at the comments by Lady Thatcher, which were made while his Malaysian-born wife Helena was "standing not far away" but was "fortunately out of earshot".

 

 

But he said he retained respect for the "boldness of her political leadership".

 

 

Mr Carr prefaced his comments by saying Lady Thatcher had been "the most significant" leader since Winston Churchill, forcing social democratic parties to "think more deeply about the function of the state". She had been "right in joining [former US President Ronald] Reagan and denouncing the old Soviet Union as an evil dictatorship", he said.

 

 

"On 100 other things I would pick arguments with her and I recall one conversation I had with her in her retirement where she said something that was unabashedly racist, where she warned Australia - talking to me with Helena standing not far away - against Asian immigration, saying that if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants.

 

 

"I couldn't believe it. It reminded me that despite, yes, her greatness on those big questions, the role of the state, the evil nature of the Communist totalitarianism, there was an old-fashioned quality to her that was entirely out of touch and probably explained why her party removed her in the early 90s."

 

 

He went on to recall: "I remember one thing she said as part of that conversation, she said: 'You will end up like Fiji.' She said: 'I like Sydney but you can't allow the migrants' - and in context she meant Asian migration - 'to take over, otherwise you will end up like Fiji where the Indian migrants have taken over.'

 

 

"I was so astonished I don't think I could think of an appropriate reply."

 

 

Lady Thatcher will be buried with full military honours at London's St Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday 17 April.

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22087702

 

Thanks for that Stevie. Sounds like a flashback to the white Australia policy of Arthur Calwell. There's irony though, in a UK politician advising an Australian politician on immigration policy.

[Peach]

I think Russell Brand's piece seemed balanced:

One Sunday recently while staying in London, I took a stroll in the gardens of Temple, the insular clod of quads and offices between the Strand and the Embankment. It's kind of a luxury rent-controlled ghetto for lawyers and barristers, and there is a beautiful tailors, a fine chapel, established by the Knights Templar (from which the compound takes its name), a twee cottage designed by Sir Christopher Wren and a rose garden; which I never promised you.

 

My mate John and I were wandering there together, he expertly proselytising on the architecture and the history of the place, me pretending to be Rumpole of the Bailey (quietly in my mind), when we spied in the distant garden a hunched and frail figure, in a raincoat, scarf about her head, watering the roses under the breezy supervision of a masticating copper. "What's going on there, mate?" John asked a nearby chippy loading his white van. "Maggie Thatcher," he said. "Comes here every week to water them flowers." The three of us watched as the gentle horticultural ritual was feebly enacted, then regarded the Iron Lady being helped into the back of a car and trundling off. In this moment she inspired only curiosity, a pale phantom, dumbly filling her day. None present eyed her meanly or spoke with vitriol and it wasn't until an hour later that I dreamt up an Ealing comedy-style caper in which two inept crooks kidnap Thatcher from the garden but are unable to cope with the demands of dealing with her, and finally give her back. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. In her diminished presence I stared like an amateur astronomer unable to describe my awe at this distant phenomenon.

 

When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring – I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. She remained in power till I was 15. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning?

I grew up in Essex with a single mum and a go-getter Dagenham dad. I don't know if they ever voted for her, I don't know if they liked her. My dad, I suspect, did. He had enough Del Boy about him to admire her coiffured virility – but in a way Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant.

 

As I scan the statements of my memory bank for early deposits (it'd be a kid's memory bank account at a neurological NatWest where you're encouraged to become a greedy little capitalist with an escalating family of porcelain pigs), I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. And the miners. And the single mums. The dockers. The poll-tax rioters. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually.

 

Margaret Thatcher visiting British troops on the Falkland Islands in 1983: the war was a turning point in her premiership. Photograph: taken from picture library

 

Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman.

Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society", that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness. Or perhaps it was just because I was a little kid and more interested in them Weetabix skinheads, Roland Rat and Knight Rider. Either way, I'm an adult now and none of those things are on telly any more so there's no excuse for apathy.

 

When John Lennon was told of Elvis Presley's death, he famously responded: "Elvis died when he joined the army," meaning of course, that his combat clothing and clipped hair signalled the demise of the thrusting, Dionysian revolution of which he was the immaculate emblem.

When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. It'd be disingenuous to omit that there were a fair number of ding-dong-style celebratory messages amidst the pensive reflections on the end of an era. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. "I thought I'd be overjoyed, but really it's just … another one bites the dust …" This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.

 

Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. I was on my own. We are all on our own. Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. The spell of community.

Those strikes were confusing to me as a child. All of the Tory edicts that bludgeoned our nation, as my generation squirmed through ghoulish puberty, were confusing. When all the public amenities were flogged, the adverts made it seem to my childish eyes fun and positive, jaunty slogans and affable British stereotypes jostling about in villages, selling people companies that they'd already paid for through tax. I just now watched the British Gas one again. It's like a whimsical live-action episode of Postman Pat where his cat is craftily carved up and sold back to him.

The Orgreave miners' strike in 1984. Photograph: Alamy

 

"The News" was the pompous conduit through which we suckled at the barren baroness through newscaster wet-nurses, naturally; not direct from the steel teat. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart – delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. To use a less bizarre analogy: if Thatcher was the headmistress, they were junior teachers, authoritative but warm enough that you could call them "mum" by accident. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. For a national matriarch she is oddly unmaternal. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. "Thatcher as mother" seemed, to my tiddly mind, anathema. How could anyone who was so resolutely Margaret Thatcher be anything else? In the Meryl Streep film, The Iron Lady, it's the scenes of domesticity that appear most absurd. Knocking up a flan for Denis or helping Carol with her algebra or Mark with his gun-running, are jarring distractions from the main narrative; woman as warrior queen.

 

It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. I don't see that. She is an anomaly; a product of the freak-onomy of her time. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism.

I have few recollections of Thatcher after the slowly chauffeured, weepy Downing Street cortege. I'd become a delinquent, living on heroin and benefit fraud.

 

There were sporadic resurrections. She would appear in public to drape a hankie over a model BA plane tailfin because she disliked the unpatriotic logo with which they'd replaced the union flag (maybe don't privatise BA then), or to shuffle about some country pile arm in arm with a doddery Pinochet and tell us all what a fine fellow he was. It always irks when rightwing folk demonstrate in a familial or exclusive setting the values that they deny in a broader social context. They're happy to share big windfall bonuses with their cronies, they'll stick up for deposed dictator chums when they're down on their luck, they'll find opportunities in business for people they care about. I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others.

Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? Given the nature of her legacy "survival of the fittest" – a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn't surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton – from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness?

 

The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't. Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. It isn't sad for anyone else. There are pangs of nostalgia, yes, because for me she's all tied up with Hi-De-Hi and Speak and Spell and Blockbusters and "follow the bear". What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people's pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought to annihilate.

 

I can't articulate with the skill of either of "the Marks" – Steel or Thomas – why Thatcher and Thatcherism were so bad for Britain but I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship – it's just not British.

 

I do not yet know what effect Margaret Thatcher has had on me as an individual or on the character of our country as we continue to evolve. As a child she unnerved me but we are not children now and we are free to choose our own ethical codes and leaders that reflect them.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher/print

[Guest Ptp113]

Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr has described comments made by Baroness Thatcher as "unabashedly racist".

 

 

In a conversation with her "in her retirement", Mr Carr said the former UK prime minister had warned Australia against Asian immigration.

 

 

She said "if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants", he said.

 

 

Lady Thatcher, 87, died on Monday after suffering a series of strokes.

 

 

Mr Carr made his comments on the Australian broadcaster ABC's Lateline programme.

 

 

He said he had been "astonished" at the comments by Lady Thatcher, which were made while his Malaysian-born wife Helena was "standing not far away" but was "fortunately out of earshot".

 

 

But he said he retained respect for the "boldness of her political leadership".

 

 

Mr Carr prefaced his comments by saying Lady Thatcher had been "the most significant" leader since Winston Churchill, forcing social democratic parties to "think more deeply about the function of the state". She had been "right in joining [former US President Ronald] Reagan and denouncing the old Soviet Union as an evil dictatorship", he said.

 

 

"On 100 other things I would pick arguments with her and I recall one conversation I had with her in her retirement where she said something that was unabashedly racist, where she warned Australia - talking to me with Helena standing not far away - against Asian immigration, saying that if we allowed too much of it we'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants.

 

 

"I couldn't believe it. It reminded me that despite, yes, her greatness on those big questions, the role of the state, the evil nature of the Communist totalitarianism, there was an old-fashioned quality to her that was entirely out of touch and probably explained why her party removed her in the early 90s."

 

 

He went on to recall: "I remember one thing she said as part of that conversation, she said: 'You will end up like Fiji.' She said: 'I like Sydney but you can't allow the migrants' - and in context she meant Asian migration - 'to take over, otherwise you will end up like Fiji where the Indian migrants have taken over.'

 

 

"I was so astonished I don't think I could think of an appropriate reply."

 

 

Lady Thatcher will be buried with full military honours at London's St Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday 17 April.

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22087702

 

Those from the lower echelons of society never move beyond their natural place. She was a prime example.

[StevieF8]

Did she not say that she wanted a quiet funeral? I thought I'd read that somewhere

 

 

According to the paper, the one who organised the Glasgow street party is a 24 year old law graduate....he really suffered under Thatcher didn't he...

 

He was also photographed attacking a paramedic at the student demonstrations in 2010....when he would have been 21 and already graduated, so it had no impact on him

[flag of convenience]

Thanks for that Stevie. Sounds like a flashback to the white Australia policy of Arthur Calwell. There's irony though, in a UK politician advising an Australian politician on immigration policy.

 

She wasn't a politician at the time but should come as no surprise. Her views on foreigners, being no great secret. In certain respects she was a Little Englander,wary of Europe and the outside world but rather fond of USA. Some would say rather pro Apatheid South Africa as well.

[Guest51810]

According to the paper, the one who organised the Glasgow street party is a 24 year old law graduate....he really suffered under Thatcher didn't he...

 

He was also photographed attacking a paramedic at the student demonstrations in 2010....when he would have been 21 and already graduated, so it had no impact on him

 

I think you'll find that a large majority of scotland will be ashamed of him.

[HLSvictory]

I was going to post that Pfirsch! He articulates it well and probably writes for a lot of people who were young at the time and didn't quite know what was going on, but didn't think it was too good (i.e. me!!).

[HLSvictory]

She wasn't a politician at the time but should come as no surprise. Her views on foreigners, being no great secret. In certain respects she was a Little Englander,wary of Europe and the outside world but rather fond of USA. Some would say rather pro Apatheid South Africa as well.

 

And for that alone is disgusting. The more I read, the more I don't like. I'm like Stacey and don't know too much, as I was quite little at the time - but what I did know isn't that great. I'm going out of my way to research stuff and then I'll make up my mind.

[Guest51810]

I quite liked russell's article

[flag of convenience]

And for that alone is disgusting. The more I read, the more I don't like. I'm like Stacey and don't know too much, as I was quite little at the time - but what I did know isn't that great. I'm going out of my way to research stuff and then I'll make up my mind.

 

Good for you. A rather special time in British politics.Perhaps hard to appreciate the real divisions within society this woman caused.

Considering she gained power by default as a measure to keep Heath out, she cleanerly made the position her own.

I would have preferred Keith Josephs, a man of intellect,if he had taken the position I'm sure things would have improved without the class war and division within.

Too seem to think if it wasn't for Thatcher the country wouldn't have changed. I dispute that and think change would have come but in a better and more decent way than Thatcher's approach.

I wasn't a fan of the woman but it was interesting times to have been living in UK.

[Guest51810]

So why did her own party oust her?

[Sydney]

So why did her own party oust her?

At the end of the day I think they knew she couldn't win. According to reports she was acting "presidential" and even the Tories came to the conclusion she was out of touch. Amazing the different points of view on here. Goes to show politics isn't easy.

[StevieF8]

So why did her own party oust her?

 

 

Things had been building for some time and the Conservatives were well behind Labour in the polls. Geoffrey Howe, Thatcher’s Deputy Prime Minister, resigned because she refused to set a timetable for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the single currency (Euro).

 

Michael Heseltine then challenged her for leadership

 

Thatcher decided not to continue with the leadership ballot and resigned.

 

John Major then replaced her and thankfully Britain never did switch currency to the Euro

[Perthbum]

Tell that to the owners of a charity shop who had their windows put in.

 

 

A charity shop FFS....scum!

As I say...a couple of isolated incidents...no big deal.

[ali]

As I say...a couple of isolated incidents...no big deal.

 

Normally when people say it's no big deal, there's a suggestion that the behaviour was ok - is that what you're saying PB.

[Perthbum]

Normally when people say it's no big deal, there's a suggestion that the behaviour was ok - is that what you're saying PB.

No it was wrong and they are scum...what I am saying is that as usual the daily fail and the rest of the media are blowing it as usual way out of proportion.