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beepee2
Funny how you English have those strong women in your history, from Bodica, to the Queen Mother, the Suffragettes, and Thatcher.

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ChrisM
I found this quote from Billy Bragg, which he posted yesterday. Something to think about...

"This is not a time for celebration. The death of Margaret Thatcher is nothing more than a salient reminder of how Britain got into the mess that we are in today. Of why ordinary working people are no longer able to earn enough from one job to support a family; of why there is a shortage of decent affordable housing; of why domestic growth is driven by credit, not by real incomes; of why tax-payers are forced to top up wages; of why a spiteful government seeks to penalise the poor for having an extra bedroom; of why Rupert Murdoch became so powerful; of why cynicism and greed became the hallmarks of our society.

Raising a glass to the death of an infirm old lady changes none of this. The only real antidote to cynicism is activism. Don't celebrate - organise!" - Billy Bragg 9th April, 2013

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sweetcharmedlife
To be clear Thatcher is dead. Not Cher. As some people on Twiter thought when they saw the hashtag #thatcherisdead.

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GravityBoy

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sweetcharmedlife
To be clear Thatcher is dead. Not Cher. As some people on Twiter thought when they saw the hashtag #thatcherisdead.

Now I'm laughing.

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sweetcharmedlife
To be clear Thatcher is dead. Not Cher. As some people on Twiter thought when they saw the hashtag #thatcherisdead.

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emotionalbarbecue
This thread shows how big cultural differences are among countries...

In my country Spain we obviously have major political debates but it is not precisely usual to express publicly a feeling of happiness inspired by someone's death.

I have read this kind of messages not only here but in "normal" papers or watched videos of people celebrating her death on the streets and football supporters singing chants wishing her death .

In here if someone is happy about someone's death that person usually keeps his dark feeling for his own or at most in his immediate circle (in private).

May be the protestant culture vs catholic...who knows....

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EddieByword
I don't think anyone's really celebrating the demise of a probably, frightened, but definitely frail, old lady who in the end didn't know what day it was, (besides anything there would be no point in that - like laughing at an empty shell once the snail had left)....
No.....it's actually a lot deeper than that, Thatcher and her henchmen traumatised a significant percentage of the British population, and they and their environs have never recovered.
She was no rose gardener, the word prune was not in her dictionary, just chop it off at the base. I remember at the time, telling my mother, "these people are mentally, the types who chop down all the trees because the leaves make a mess in the autumn".
Large communities that grew up because there was coal to be dug were suddenly told "No more digging - no more money". The concept of "weaning off" was not in the vocabulary either.......
In parts of Britain it was getting like the US in the 30's depression. Some posters have mentioned people starving, it's true. Friends of mine were forced go up on the mountains to rustle some sheep, they were scraping through the coal slag heaps to find a few bits of coal whereas they'd been churning it out by the ton weeks before.........
No, she et al were very vicious, cruel and crude people ............and it's that memory that people are rejoicing at the demise of...........
If any of the denegrators of the victims of Thatcher really had seen the levels that really honest hard working people were pushed down to they perhaps might not be so swift to condemn.
The idea that Britain would have gone like Greece is a load of bollocks.......there's always a medium path if the will is there to find it. imo, as the Government did have the power, I suggest it was their responsibilty to find it.
But no, and what's the legacy, she "opened up the markets" and the net result? Rip-off Britain, that's what, with no heart to speak of (for now at least)

King Arthur (of course of legend) was reputed to have said, "the greatness of a nation lies in the welfare of it's humblest peasant". On that basis who ever says she made Britain great again is in my opinion a moron. She pushed the poor down then and it's happening again today. (including really sick people being told to find work or live on £70 per week.)
After 150 years of struggle by the workers for better standards all you hear about here now is how standards are sliding fast back to where the old and sick are literally going without food and heat en masse, courtesy of her protoge David Cameron.

PS....these threads usually die as fast as their subjects......so...

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24FPS
She's all over the news here in the States today. But there's nothing about her being despised in Britain by large parts of the population to this day. She's being portrayed as the savior of Britain. That Britain was still suffering from World War II when she took over. They mention power outages, three day workweeks, crippling strikes, and an entrenched class system.

Someone did say something about Tony Blair, saying he ruined his image by following Bush like a poodle, when "After all," the announcer said, "Bush was not an intelligent man." There was no comment from the other announcers when they came back to them.

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Goldsmith
Conservatives are praising Thatcher because she stood up to communism and socialism both at home and abroad.

Liberals are denouncing Thatcher because she stood up to communism and socialism both at home and abroad.

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Bärs

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Goldsmith
Conservatives are praising Thatcher because she stood up to communism and socialism both at home and abroad.

Liberals are denouncing Thatcher because she stood up to communism and socialism both at home and abroad.

It's as simple as that.