Margaret Thatcher dies at 87

[Franzl]

I see that the thread title has been changed

Hopefully - once things have calmed down properly in all senses - her death will be cathartic in some way. It's not a question of moving on as such, but in properly coming to terms with what happened during her destructive/transformative/etc (delete according to taste) premiership.

So what type of alcohol have you chosen for this day?

[ingemann]

I'm pretty confident both Chavez and Thatcher would hate to be compared to the other.

Yes likely they would, one more reason to do so

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Really? They was two democratic elected politician, who both favoured their vote segment over the good of the country and both lacked any respect for informal check and balances and was willing to change the election structures to weaken their opponents. Chavec was nothing but a left wing version of Thatcher, no matter how much his supporters would hate to hear it.

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Mourning... no one here knew her, that like not talking bad about Britney Spears because of "Leave Britney Alone" girl.

[seanNJ9]

Perhaps she'll find in the the next world the compassion she could not feel in this one.  RIP

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, I would be the first person to acknowledge that my initial reaction - like those (I'm sure) of literally millions of others - was in poor taste and, yes, was perhaps a little on the ugly side. Though I don't (and won't) regret it.

I posted this at the end of last year and stand by it:

Thatcher defined large sections of British society as her personal enemies and shaped government policy accordingly. Worse, she didn't even bother to disguise that fact. This is not something that normally happens in democracies. Normal rules of behavior don't exactly apply. Again, I don't deny that it's ugly, but British politics in the 1980s was ugly, and its legacy is ugly. There's no point in pretending otherwise; it never comes across as anything other than false.

Feel free to feel as disgusted as you feel, just don't pretend that this is a 'normal' situation.

[Silent Hunter]

You can't deny that she was a Titan of global politics for good or ill. My condolences to her friends and family.

[Vosem]

I'm pretty confident both Chavez and Thatcher would hate to be compared to the other.

Yes likely they would, one more reason to do so

Thatcher abhorred all that Chavez stood for, and vice versa. Why would they enjoy being compared?

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Really? They was two democratic elected politician, who both favoured their vote segment over the good of the country and both lacked any respect for informal check and balances and was willing to change the election structures to weaken their opponents. Chavec was nothing but a left wing version of Thatcher, no matter how much his supporters would hate to hear it.

Chavez used control of the government to bring the media under his control; Chavez reformed the old democratic structure to reinforce his own control. Neither of those are things that Thatcher did; it's the difference between dictatorship and democracy. One crossed the line, the other did not.

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Mourning... no one here knew her, that like not talking bad about Britney Spears because of "Leave Britney Alone" girl.

You can still mourn someone you never knew for the positive effects they had on the world around them. I don't know what you mean about Britney Spears

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You may have missed another recent obituary, that of Alastair Milne. He was the Director General of the BBC and was effectively fired by the Thatcher government for political reasons. Try again...

[Badger]

First thing I thought when I heard the news this morning: 'Wonder what Al's going to post'.

You know you've been on the Forum too long when.....

[Supersonic]

Also of relevance:

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."
-Saint Margaret Thatcher

fixed

Glad you have seen the light.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Also of relevance:

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."
-Saint Margaret Thatcher

fixed

Glad you have seen the light.

Unless the Church of England has started canonizing saints, Blair is the only possible candidate for sainthood amongst recent PMs.

[Brittain33]

Vosem, I'm guessing you're not familiar with the London County Council or its successor.

[Sopranos Republican]

I heard about this this morning RIP Iron Lady

[Supersonic]

Also of relevance:

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."
-Saint Margaret Thatcher

fixed

Glad you have seen the light.

Unless the Church of England has started canonizing saints, Blair is the only possible candidate for sainthood amongst recent PMs.

What a travesty.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Vosem, I'm guessing you're not familiar with the London County Council or its successor.

Or the Metropolitan Counties. Or what Thatcher did to the rest of local government in the UK: Britain used to have some of the most powerful local authorities in Europe, this was certainly not the case by 1990.

[Lief 🗽]

Tweed already posted the Greenwald piece which is very important. It is very damaging for supporters of a deceased politician to write hagiographies, rewrite history by propagandizing him/her, and exploit his/her death to push their own ideologies, while at the same time denying opponents the opportunity to critique under the guise of "respect for the dead."

But I'm glad that the "terrorist" Mandela outlived her at least.

[BluegrassBlueVote]

Tweed already posted the Greenwald piece which is very important. It is very damaging for supporters of a deceased politician to write hagiographies, rewrite history by propagandizing him/her, and exploit his/her death to push their own ideologies, while at the same time denying opponents the opportunity to critique under the guise of "respect for the dead."

But I'm glad that the "terrorist" Mandela outlived her at least.

Completely agree with both this and the piece. When am I, as a critic of her, allowed to speak ill of her policies again? Is there an official waiting period I'm supposed to adhere to unless I open myself to calls of insensitivity? Is it tomorrow, a week from now, or even a month?

[Silent Hunter]

Tweed already posted the Greenwald piece which is very important. It is very damaging for supporters of a deceased politician to write hagiographies, rewrite history by propagandizing him/her, and exploit his/her death to push their own ideologies, while at the same time denying opponents the opportunity to critique under the guise of "respect for the dead."

But I'm glad that the "terrorist" Mandela outlived her at least.

Completely agree with both this and the piece. When am I, as a critic of her, allowed to speak ill of her policies again? Is there an official waiting period I'm supposed to adhere to unless I open myself to calls of insensitivity? Is it tomorrow, a week from now, or even a month?

Not official, but after the funeral would be polite, I'd say.

[Phony Moderate]

This thread has turned out well. Anyway, I note that this is serving as a decent opportunity for Cameron to grovel to the right of his party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One thing that you won't see mentioned on the news (well, probably) is what the Thatcher government did with that massive windfall from North Sea oil...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Posted this elsewhere, stuff about legacy etc:

Deregulation, privatisation and all the rest of it. Its obvious, but it is absolutely and utterly massive. This was particularly important with regards to financial services and to housing. Then there is also primary and secondary* deindustrialisation of a particularly rapid and savage nature. Perhaps the most important aspect of her legacy is the point at which those two things intersect, because that's our society now, like it or hate it: there were winners as well as losers, losers as well as winners. And they were not (are not) distributed in an even geographical manner. Centralisation of government and serious damage to all alternative sources of political power, including, of course, Trade Unions,** is something else to consider.

Thinking a little further, the destruction of the post-1945 social democratic state (which isn't the same as the destruction of all social democratic aspects of the state; far from it. I'm sure she would have loved to have pulled that off, but didn't), which, of course, covers much of the above. But also takes us to devolution and Britain's new existential issues: socialist unionism (which made a lot of sense before 1979) was certainly killed off by Thatcherism. No Thatcher, no Scottish Parliament (probably), no Welsh Assembly (certainly). And presumably no referendum on an Independent Scotland next year.

Plenty of other things, obviously. Changes to political language (don't ignore the importance of that). Changes to the BBC and to television (extremely damaging changes, I would argue), although that falls (to a point) under deregulation.

Then there is the misuse of the North Sea oil windfall.

And so on and so forth.

*Some of the places hit hardest by the collapse in manufacturing employment in the first few years of the 1980s were old mining areas that had already experienced initial deindustrialisation in the 1960s. People forget that, or never knew. Probably the latter.

**But that point can actually be exaggerated, surprisingly enough. Trade Unions in Britain are still stronger and more influential than in most other large industrialised countries.

[Gass3268]

"Manchester United announced that they would not be honouring the former PM with a minute's silence prior to their match against rivals Manchester City at Old Trafford"

http://sidespin.kinja.com/margaret-thatcher-and-her-attempts-to-destroy-english-f-471243555?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[afleitch]

All I can add is thank f-ck I don't have to rent a telephone from the General Post Office anymore.

[Lief 🗽]

"Manchester United announced that they would not be honouring the former PM with a minute's silence prior to their match against rivals Manchester City at Old Trafford"

http://sidespin.kinja.com/margaret-thatcher-and-her-attempts-to-destroy-english-f-471243555?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

It would have just been an invitation for the crowd to sing this for a minute...

Edit: This one is better.

[Keystone Phil]

"Manchester United announced that they would not be honouring the former PM with a minute's silence prior to their match against rivals Manchester City at Old Trafford"

http://sidespin.kinja.com/margaret-thatcher-and-her-attempts-to-destroy-english-f-471243555?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

I was looking forward to it.    Guess this isn't surprising though.

[Joe Republic]

I just won $45!  My friends and I have a celebrity death pool, and I had put her name in.  Close call too; one friend had Nelson Mandela!