Petition for Thatcher's state funeral to be privatised

[Norfolk Born]

45,678,994 now
(Sorry - just checked - it's now 65,776,412)

[Anna]

I don't see. A State Funeral for Churchill? Yes, of course, but only because of WW2, but for anyone else? No, because, basically, they ain't done much to unite the UK, mainly in it for the glory and the money (aka Blair) Actually, a pretty sad and sorry lot only looking out for themselves.

[Pilchardman]

45,678,994 now
(Sorry - just checked - it's now 65,776,412)

You prankster! It's standing at 14, 888.

[Pilchardman]

I don't see.

What don't you see? To whom was that addressed?

[Norfolk Born]

You prankster! It's standing at 14, 888.

With respect: my figures are probably more up-to-date than yours, unless you're further East of the Greenwich Meridian than I am. (We always get the news first here on the East Coast. Thus I can reveal that the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is...a bloke. )

[Pilchardman]

With respect: my figures are probably more up-to-date than yours, unless you're further East of the Greenwich Meridian than I am. (We always get the news first here on the East Coast. Thus I can reveal that the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is...a bloke. )

No, I'm West of the Greenwich Meridian. In fact, were I to travel due east, I couldn't cross the Meridian without getting wet.

[Anna]

Thus I can reveal that the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is...a bloke. )

Thus it would be Blokes! Love 'em. Not.

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks, ff. I think I meant "valid" as in valid for initial publication, ie not ruled out under the criteria. I made an assumption there that petitions could be removed if it was shown after publication that the criteria weren't satisfied. I don't know whether that assumption is correct or not. I am going to be lynched for the following comments. One of the good things about these forum discussions is that they do lead to subtle shifts in outlook. Strong opinions become stronger or develop with new detail and nuances. Sometimes they encourage new views to emerge which perhaps reflect what is happening more broadly. I find I also research more. I am now of the view that the state must recognise Margaret Thatcher by way of a state funeral because she was the first woman Prime Minister. Equally, I shall feel jolly annoyed if the emphasis is overtly political although no doubt it will be. I suppose another point here would be her grammar school background. It was hardly put to good effect but in this new era of Eton I feel it is important that a state occasion puts the elites back in their box a bit.

It is also always necessary to challenge stereotyping. By 1981, I had decided that she was the worst news for Britain in my then short lifetime to date although by that I mean her administration - the unemployment, the riots, the militarism, especially in the Falklands, and support for apartheid. Initially, it was Keith Joseph and people of his kind who I hated - I can recall the then uncharacteristic loathing - and those providing inputs from outside, particularly the economist Friedman. By 1984, her Government was to me a complete abomination, particularly with reference to the mining families, and she seemed to be the epitome of all that was wrong. In 1987, we ran out of answers to it because of Owen and Steel although Labour seemed to be getting its act together slightly. And by 1990, it was all just beyond the pale what with the privatization, increasing inequality in a supposedly stronger economy, the yuppies, the poll tax and so on. I will never change my mind that it was the most dismal regime from start to finish and very much the slippery slope away from earlier values. In the brief references to policy I have mentioned, I think we have the gist of it. There couldn't ever be a justifiable whitewashing of that policy but to go back into the detail is simply retread.

And what I could never have possibly believed was that I would get to 2011 and feel that every Government since had been even worse. Regrettably that is the case. The corrupt lameness of the Major administration must be recalled because it was in that atmosphere that the monetarists really dug in. With Blair and Brown the corruption and ineptitude continued. Worse, they pursued similar policies to a point of no return and worst of all they were traitors to those who voted for them. Prime Ministers can't get any lower. With these things in mind, one is almost duty bound - and someone picked up on this earlier - to see whether there were any notable points that were once too readily dismissed. To do this tonight, I decided to look at her Parliamentary record in the round. What follows includes points with which I agree and disagree but all are surprising and help to paint a rounded picture. I have left out the sale of council houses, which some would see as a plus and others the very opposite; the fall of Communism where opinions would vary about her role; views on immigration which were more closely aligned to race issues then and are therefore difficult to treat with any sympathy; and Northern Ireland which was always a special sort of case.

Margaret Thatcher's maiden speech was in support of her private member's bill requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public. In the mid 1960s she was one of the few Conservative MPs to support Leo Abse's Bill to decriminalise male homosexuality and voted in favour of David Steel's Bill to legalise abortion as well as a ban on hare coursing. As Secretary of State for Education, she claimed to be in favour of preserving grammar schools. However, she turned down only 326 of 3,612 proposals for schools to become comprehensives. The proportion of pupils attending comprehensives rose from 32% to 62%. As Prime Minister, her initial instinct was to increase taxes in the recession, despite concerns expressed in a statement signed by 364 leading economists in March 1981. Pensions were improved. There were better terms for Civil Servants. The NHS remained in public ownership. Students had grants. The BBC retained the licence fee. The Green Belt was protected throughout the 1980s. And in 1992, she called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Goražde and Sarajevo to end ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War. She compared the situation in Bosnia to "the worst excesses of the Nazis", and warned that there could be a "holocaust".

But there was that other list of the abysmal to which I have referred. Many will always rightly go back to the miners strike which was horrific - the destruction of communities, the pain to families, the oppression of protest, the curtailment of union rights. So let us put the Cameron-Clegg-Maude thing completely into context here. Put an end to the fluffy presentation once and for all. At this very moment, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility is projecting the numbers of public sector job losses to be a staggering 710,000. By contrast, and this is not to excuse it in any way, the National Coal Board proposed in 1984 with Government backing to close 20 of the 174 state-owned mines and cut 20,000 jobs. In relative terms, then, they were pussy cats. Next, Scargill - and I don't wholly condemn him for this by any means - had been hugely successful with other trade union leaders in raising the living standards of workers so that Governments had become fearful. There was no moral justification for well-off elites seeking to "deal" with those gains but one can see their attack on the unions as a counter position. By contrast, this current Government, like the one under Brown, has laid into the public sector ideologically in what can only be described as an unprovoked assault.

Thirdly, the Thatcher administrations had an effective alternative to coal. Nuclear power. I didn't agree with it, particularly knowing nothing of climate change, and I still don't. However, it was a coherent policy. The Coalition, again by contrast, have no answers to putting huge numbers on the scrap heap of unemployment other than the vain hope that the private sector will deliver in some distant future. Both regimes have been guilty of wanton destruction. There were no jobs for the miners and the closure of mines continued unabated. It was done at unnecessary speed if it needed to be done at all but I contend that when it comes to brutal right-wingism this current lot are in a completely different sphere. Margaret Thatcher wasn't ever going to be a wonderful social democrat. Her blood was often iron. But while she was always bloody-minded and often gloated, I rarely detected glee. Only since the 1990s, and particularly since the late 2000s, has there been a knowing viciousness the like of which we've never seen before.

[Sydney Grew]

It was Mrs. Thatcher who inspired me to leave the country (along with those spiky hair-styles) . . . but what is worrying is that I found myself agreeing with her about several things - on council rates and on one or two other issues which I cannot for the moment remember.

I've remembered now - of course it was her wariness of Germans in particular and Continentals in general.

[Flosshilde]

I don't understand this. She is a frail old women with Altzheimers.

But she wasn't when she was Education Secretary, nor when she was Prime Minister. It's presumably for her 'achievements' then that she and the government (past & present) think she's worthy of a state funeral, & not because she is frail or has Altzheimers (there are plenty of people who would qualify on those grounds). Given the differences of opinion about the value of her policies it would be an extremely divisive event, & it is typical of her arrogance ('they're all out of step but me') that she believes that she should be awarded one.

[Lateralthinking1]

I've remembered now - of course it was her wariness of Germans in particular and Continentals in general.

Continentalists.

[ahinton]

But she wasn't when she was Education Secretary, nor when she was Prime Minister. It's presumably for her 'achievements' then that she and the government (past & present) think she's worthy of a state funeral, & not because she is frail or has Altzheimers (there are plenty of people who would qualify on those grounds). Given the differences of opinion about the value of her policies it would be an extremely divisive event, & it is typical of her arrogance ('they're all out of step but me') that she believes that she should be awarded one.

So she believes that she should have a state funeral, does she? I'd not realised that. Anyway, as I've noted previously, she shouldn't, in my view.

[ahinton]

Continentalists.

Is that remark germane to the discussion?

[Lateralthinking1]

Is that remark germane to the discussion?

Forwarded to Greer Associates for reply.

[Flosshilde]

No, but at least he's being Frank.