Some right-wings cranks are proposing a bank holiday for Thatcher. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-day-bank-holiday-2057853 How about a spring Bonfire Night on the 8th of April each year, with fireworks and effigies to commemorate her demise? Surely it would be good for business, especially corner shops selling fireworks to underage kids, and to be able to enjoy burgers and hot dogs at bonfires while it's still light. It'd be fantastic to see what 'Maggies' children could assemble and drag around the streets cadging money. I'd give them money.
Have a quick link to the epetition to oppose the proposal to honour the bitch... http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52411
didn't do anything for this country directly, just saying with what he has done for people all over the world, i wouldn't have an issue if they did want to honour him in some way.
Him and the likes of Martin Luther King jnr brought the plight of black people in this country into the spotlight, don't forget jb the 60s when Mandela was fighting apartheid in SA there were B&B's in Liverpool with "No Blacks" on their vacancy signs.
Can't compare the two. One was strictly non-violence the other .... wasn't! Just like MLK v Malcolm X - same aim, very different approach.
Don't think that matters jb, Britain used violence all over the globe to enslave people and rape countries of their wealth. Sometimes when words don't work there are only desperate measures left, just as the two men mentioned went about their aims differently their respective countries went about their racism on different scales by comparison.
I accept your view but disagree. You can compare Britain misdemeanours with Mandela but not MLK - he never killed anyone, that matters a great deal - he achieved his aim completely free of blood on his hands.
We're going well off topic jb but I'll finish with this. Did Mandela kill more people than were on the Belgrano, obviously not.
OT on an OT thread Actually he admitted to 156 acts of public violence which included bombs in public places so my guess - probably a lot more. We are all flawed individuals ....
Isn't this meant to be about Thatch? I've never made a secret of my undying hatred for the woman, her cronies and her ideology, so no prizes for guessing my reaction to this. However, I will add that regardless of your politics and what you think of Thatcherism, to have a public holiday in memory of someone who was so controversial and so thoroughly divisive of opinion, is perverse. National celebrations should be confined to figures for whom there is general admiration, this is just a bit of right-wing political provocation,imo. P.S. I realise that Guy Fawkes Night was similarly provocative, but that stems from a supposedly more brutal era, and nowadays its meaning has been mostly lost through the passage of time.
... and something we've never done in this country. We have no national holidays in remembrance of anybody. Guy Fawkes day, which isn't a holiday anyway, is the only 'named' day in our calendar. A Thatcher bank holiday would be setting a precedent. No thanks.