I'll go with my Dad's description of Thatcher: Un-Christian, Uncaring, Undemocratic. Mrs H-F loved her, I am glad she's gone. Politics are not discussed in our house! Not partying in the streets, though once upon a time I swore I would. But I would have my own peaceful protest if I was that way inclined... I'd turn my back on the cortege - ignoring her. So far as I'm concerned she cheated my family out of their hardearned gains and the right to financial help when it was most required... bought and paid for by my family year in years out from the 40's right through. I saw what it did to my Dad after I lost my Mum at 15 and he became ill and unable to work... they stripped us of everything my parents worked so damned hard to build up and protect, I had to go to work to keep the roof over or head and it wasn't until I was in my mid 40's before I finished my education. She took on the miners out of pure spite. Let them build up stocks then took on an intellectually inferior opponent in Scargill. Agreed, the Unions at the time were too powerful but this was pure spite. An island nation sitting on coal, surrounded by oil, a proud industrial heritage and she decimated it all and gave the oil away. She destroyed communities and divided a nation. Got us into an unnecessary war with Argentina because she withdrew a boat and left two dozen hapless soldiers on their own to be invaded by a military junta needing to divert attention from their own troubles. She knew what would happen and she knew our forces would win. All totally unnecessary. That she was a powerful political figure and her determination, strength and diplomacy particularly her part in bringing to an end the Cold War is undeniable. She deserves a well attended funeral out of respect for her position as a longserving PM of this country. That said we shouldn't believe all the nonsense spouted out by the Daily Mail making her into some kind of saint and saviour (any more than we should believe Martin Samuels comments on Watford FC in the same rag) because she was neither a saviour or saint. She divided this nation, it remains divided. Fragmented now, I'd say, lurching from one crisis to another... I'll say this much for her: she'd know how to deal with scum like Qatada and bugger what the judges say - and rightly so. Expect protests at her funeral. Sad to say though they are sad they are totally understandable. I just want to forget the bitch.
A good post Fez - heartfelt and you clearly feel you have good cause to hate MT and yet you retain a dignified approach which gives credit where you believe it is due. I disagree with your economic and historical analysis but that is what debate and opinions are about. I like the idea of turning your back on the cortege whilst allowing those who liked her to have their say too. Repped you on this - for what its worth
I agree Fez, a good, honest heartfelt post which shall receive rep from me later, when I'm able! I feel she did give our Country a reputation for not taking any sh**e, but she destroyed many peoples' lives in the process. I don't think she will be able to rest in peace, I think too many people will have her spinning in her grave!
Don't you believe it Dave - as someone pointed out last night she thrived on people hating her - she is probably laughing all the way to the furnace - except as others have pointed out she will have closed them down
I do like Frankie Boyle's quip regarding the cost of her funeral - "..for that money, they could give everyone in Scotland a shovel and they could dig a hole so deep that they could deliver her to the devil in person."
Apart from they would struggle to know who to use it - a bit big to get the lid off of a bottle of Buckie..
Having just got back from abroad without any news connections - I've only just found out and for me this is a long time coming. Like many I deplore her and all she did and stood for. I feel she is responsible for beginning the unfeeling uncaring i'm-all-right jack society we have now. I blame her a great deal for us not being able to recover quick enough from todays economic crisis because she sold off so much to foreign countries (unlike Germany and France for instance) so any profits made now go abroad. She had one aim in my view to break the unions at a cost for everything else. She was warned by people even in her own party but wouldn't listen and she too had her own un-necessary war in the Falklands which had she reacted 6 - 12 months sooner would never have happened. She created a dlvide between the haves in the South East (not the South incidentally) and the rest of us and a Britain that sees people as a commodity and celebrates house prices going up whilst at the same time bemoans the fact that our children cant get a property due to cost. To paraphrase Elton John "The bitch is dead" hooray!
Others on here have talked about evil - now if you want to see a real example of Evil - it is whoever placed the bomb at the marathon in Boston
If there are degrees of evil, this is the very acme of evil! I hope they rot in hell, the evil, cowardly bastards!
This bombing has reminded me hate is word that is used far to easily. Agreed Leo with your comments, but I would say that hate leads to evil when it takes over your ability to think rationally. To say you hate another football club or it's fans goes too far for me. Dislike them yes, but be driven to hatred is going too far.
Agree with you OFH - hate harms the person hating - I have always tried to avoid hating things and people as I am sure it does me no good. I do not even like using words like "scum" to refer to other clubs - isn't rivalry supposed to be friendly? was it Dante who talked about seven circles of hell - or some such? If so these people ought to be headed for the hottest spot - one little 8 year old boy died trying to watch his father raise money for charity.
Careful there, Leo - you're at risk of viewing capital punishment in a new light. Don't suppose I need to reiterate my thoughts on what should happen to the Phillpotts, Dorans and Evans of this world....
Ha ha - not in my lifetime. I would have life imprisonment mean imprisonment for the rest of a person's life - in a prison without luxuries and leave any god that exists to worry about what happens thereafter - but would be more than happy to know it was not a comfortable afterlife. Maybe re-incarnation as a swamp bug
You've got to laugh - just seen Osborne smirking his silly way across the News - the economy grew at 0.3% in the first quarter so avoiding the triple dip recession. On the breakfast news it was doom and gloom that that might happen. Yes 0.3% - that is fantastic eh - so if your company had £1,000,000 output last year this year it is £1,003,000. That is SO much better than £999,000 which would have been a triple dip. Truth is that 5 years on the economy is still flat-lining. Cannot believe Osborne has held onto his job for as long as he has
Spot on Lenny - but the worrying thing is, if there had been no growth and a triple dip recession, there would have been a run on the FTSE. How stupid is that? Also we are the only country in the world that produces these figures within 25 days of the end of the quarter, everyone else takes quite a bit longer. But we then revise these figures over the next 2 years - so what is the f'in point? It's like my boss who demands I produce a weekly "dashboard" every Monday morning and post it on our reporting server, but he never reads it - I suppose one day he will catch me out and notice I have not actually updated it for about 8 months and just change the date every week!
We are our own worst enemies producing fast but not necessarily accurate figures. As you say it takes a few months of revising them to get them right. You are right about the FTSE too - puts too much emphasis on short term fluctuations. I know there are a lot of people out there who think differently but I always thought it would take years to recover from this recession. Unfortunately the likes of Gordon Brown never learned the lessons that Tony Blair and other sensible Labour figures learned. You cannot spend on everything you would like - it has to be earned - Brown wasted the benefits of previous growth and racked up debt once the shackles of their 1997 promise to behave responsibly had ended. Yes the global economy yyah yah yah never the fault of the politicians themselves is it - blame international trade, market forces, bankers, greed of rich people etc but don't try to run an economy well. The fundamental problem is that people want what they have not earned.
I was reading a French article the other day about the difficulty of companies here selling their techi products. Mobile phones, tablets, and other devices are much more difficult to sell here because they believe that there is not the same desire to own the latest piece of gear compared with some other EU countries. The man at the garage I use said that cars are very difficult to sell now because the latest shape or different colour does not draw the buyers in. People seem quite happy to keep what they have going, but it is having a dramatic effect on the car makers. There has always been a preference to buy French cars here, so any foreign manufacturer will find it doubly hard to sell his goods. So the man in the street shows he doesn't need some of these things, but government seems frightened to tell people that they can actually live without.
