Margaret Thatcher dies

[french frank]

last night's half-hour news bulletin on BBC Radio 4, for example, made no reference to any other news item besides the death of Mrs Thatcher - not even an "in other news..." section.

I'm not sure why the death of an elderly person who has been out of public life for so long should be regarded as momentous. Though I do find it slightly troubling that the teen tweets seem currently to be focusing on 'Who was Margaret Thatcher?'

[MrGongGong]

Though I do find it slightly troubling that the teen tweets seem currently to be focusing on 'Who was Margaret Thatcher?'

I find it slightly encouraging that for many it's as "ancient" as the Romans, so much for the "great charismatic leader" who ended up a seemingly sad and lonely old woman in a luxury hotel.

[Beef Oven]

Give it a rest troll boy
I'm sure they can take it as they are supposedly "successful" people

Keep it up Pee, you're giving 'em a right spanking. If this was fight, the ref would have stopped it two rounds ago

[Julien Sorel]

I should have thought it is perfectly clear. To describe Lady Thatcher's cabinet colleagues as "rogues and psycopaths" ... is also quite possibly slanderous.

You mean it slanders (libels, surely?) ordinary decent non Thatcher cabinet rogues and psychopaths? Perhaps.

Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends") and Pinochet http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108383 ("I'm also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect. Elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down," she added, drawing a warm smile from the general) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999...inochet.chile2 were unequivocally rogues and psycopaths (General Pinochet scoffed at his human rights critics. Asked about the discovery of a mass grave of his government’s victims, he was quoted in the Chilean press as joking that it was an “efficient” way of burial http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/wo...anted=all&_r=0).

[Julien Sorel]

Though I do find it slightly troubling that the teen tweets seem currently to be focusing on 'Who was Margaret Thatcher?'

Do you not think they might be being ironic? (in the way teens have of being ironic).

[MrGongGong]

Keep it up Pee, you're giving 'em a right spanking.

aaah yes a good old Tory tradition methinks

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Mrs Thatcher was not alone in her intent and actions.

Yes let's not forget in all this the guilt of the British persons in the street. How did Mrs. Thatcher contrive to be elected three times with an unhealthy majority? Through the sheer greed and covetousness of a great many of the afore-mentioned British bourgeois, the nature of whom being the daughter of a shopkeeper she well knew. Money has no bottom but that worried neither her nor them!

[Beef Oven]

Yes let's not forget in all this the guilt of the British persons in the street. How did Mrs. Thatcher contrive to be elected three times with an unhealthy majority? Through the sheer greed and covetousness of a great many of the afore-mentioned British bourgeois, the nature of whom being the daughter of a shopkeeper she well knew. Money has no bottom but that worried neither her nor them!

Yes, all those evil people that voted for her - bloody democracy, gets in the way sometimes.

[ahinton]

Keep it up Pee, you're giving 'em a right spanking. If this was fight, the ref would have stopped it two rounds ago

But it isn't, so he/she wouldn't and you might not even know whether or not Mr Pee's an old Bullingdonian in any case...

[Flosshilde]

Thatcher's legacy -

[ahinton]

Yes, all those evil people that voted for her - bloody democracy, gets in the way sometimes.

Fair comment insofar as it goes, although my point (as distinct from Sydney Grew's) here was the extent to which her senior political sidekicks helped her to be able to continue to do what she did, not the extent to which the electorate voted for her (and their) party.

Incidentally, on this morning's edition of Today on BBC R4, Ken Clarke in interview made at least two references to the "rust-bucket industries" that prevailed at the time of MT's assumption of prime ministerial office; the potential if not actual significance of that term in the context of the "iron lady" was not lost on me...

[Richard Barrett]

Some people prefer to stay in the abstract, because reality (or personal anecdotes as you call it) contradicts the theoretical world they want to live in.

No, what I'm calling personal anecdotes are personal anecdotes (the clue is in the name), strongly coloured in your own case it seems by what the chip on your shoulder is whispering in your ear that you should or shouldn't regard as significant. It isn't "theoretical", for example, that the Thatcher years saw the highest unemployment in the UK since the 1920s, that public spending was drastically reduced or that poverty and inequality greatly increased, even though your or my situation during that period may have differed from those trends.

[ahinton]

No, what I'm calling personal anecdotes are personal anecdotes (the clue is in the name), strongly coloured in your own case it seems by what the chip on your shoulder is whispering in your ear that you should or shouldn't regard as significant. It isn't "theoretical", for example, that the Thatcher years saw the highest unemployment in the UK since the 1920s, that public spending was drastically reduced or that poverty and inequality greatly increased, even though your or my situation during that period may have differed from those trends.

That's right; even in today's parlous situation, unemployment figures (insofar as it is possible to trust them), bad as they undoubtedly are, are not as bad as was the case during the worst of the Thatcher years, although public spending reductions of near-Thatcherian proportions do look to be on the cards for the foreseeable future.

Also, I cannot imagine even MT endorsing some of the "reorganisations" and "restructuring" of certain state benefits as are now being implemented and proposed (but then the factor of national indebtedness was rather different in her day to what it is now, I guess).

[Anna]

I'm not sure why the death of an elderly person who has been out of public life for so long should be regarded as momentous. Though I do find it slightly troubling that the teen tweets seem currently to be focusing on 'Who was Margaret Thatcher?'

Just to inject a little levity, a Twitter was set up as #nowthatcherisdead, and there has been an outpouring of grief that Cher has died. (Well, I thought it was funny)
As you were, keep calm and carry on sniping.

[gurnemanz]

Keep it up Pee, you're giving 'em a right spanking. If this was fight, the ref would have stopped it two rounds ago

Either Mr Pee is heavily into self-parody or he's spoofing us.