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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Lady Thatcher and State Funerals
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
Well, I guess she did more to polarise opinion than any other PM in the period you mention...
Than any other in British history.
She was widely hated in a way that no other recent British politician has been.
If she had a State Funeral I could imagine violence breaking out in some places.
quote:
Originally posted by Fradgan:
Give her a State funeral, if for no other reason than that she showed more courage and foresight than any other British pol in my memory.
I think we have pills to fix that problem nowadays.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Ken, can you explain the seeming serenity anti-Thatcher Brits have about Argentina freakin' invading British territory? I really don't understand it.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Especially when the entire population of the island wanted to be British and wanted the Argentinians out.
The sinking of Belgrano is no reason either; that was a ship of war flying the Argentine flag, manned by the Argentine Navy which was sunk during a period of declared war by a submarine of the Royal Navy. That was uniformed combat with both sides following all the niceties. If that isn't Proper Naval War, I don't know what is.
It may have been tragic but it wasn't an atrocity.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
Well, I guess she did more to polarise opinion than any other PM in the period you mention...
Than any other in British history.
She was widely hated in a way that no other recent British politician has been.
She was widely adored as well. If you're actually going to change things, then you are going to polarise. Mostly, things aren't the way they are because nobody wants it that way. Rather, they're that way because some people have an avid interest in the status quo. The British system badly needed fixing. Fix some of it she indeed did. Of course, she caused new problems in the process and, IMO, clearly overshot what should have been her goal. But like any steam locomotive having run over several red signals, the Iron Lady wasn't just going to stop when she finally hit the buffers.
IMO she got some important work done, and I think the US is need of someone of her stature to break out of its current fine-tuned political gridlock. Pity nobody is in sight.
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... The Respectable
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Ken, can you explain the seeming serenity anti-Thatcher Brits have about Argentina freakin' invading British territory? I really don't understand it.
Zach, that is looking at our polity from outside. In the same way, we can't understand the extreme antipathy of many of your citizens towards Barak Obama, so extreme that they would rather have virtually anyone, even Sarah Palin, than him as their president. From over here, he looks quite a good president.
The Falkland Isles is not the reason why she arouses such extremely conflicting views.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Especially when the entire population of the island wanted to be British and wanted the Argentinians out.
The sinking of Belgrano is no reason either; that was a ship of war flying the Argentine flag, manned by the Argentine Navy which was sunk during a period of declared war by a submarine of the Royal Navy. That was uniformed combat with both sides following all the niceties. If that isn't Proper Naval War, I don't know what is.
It may have been tragic but it wasn't an atrocity.
Dead right. She (Belgrano not Thatch) could have been tied up at the quayside in Punto Arenas, and we'd still have been entitled to sink her.
Two things that left a lasting impression on me from the Falklands unpleasantness:
(i) The willingness of large sections of the British left to support, in effect, a piece of opportunistic aggression by an appalling right-wing military regime, simply because it was launched against British territory. I count myself as a man of the left but I have not forgotten the lesson that I learned, at the age of 15, to the effect that people on the left can be just as dishonest as those on the right can.
(ii) The nauseating sight of Thatch wrapping herself in the Union Jack for having ejected invaders who, I believed and still believe, were only emboldened to invade because their thought they could get away with it against her government (withdrawal of HMS Endeavour; negotiations about some kind of lease-back or shared sovereignty in about 1980-81; perhaps both governments seeing themsleves as essentially on the same side in global politics).
Stoker Jim Callaghan, on the other hand- who really was a patriot and a staunch naval man- quietly saw off an projected invasion in 1977 without a shot being fired. Indeed, in 1982 on the eve of invasion he set up an opportunity for Thatch to say- falsely- that she had despatched submarines to the Falklands, in the hope that she would deter the Argentinians from moving any further: but she didn't take the opportunity.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Ken, can you explain the seeming serenity anti-Thatcher Brits have about Argentina freakin' invading British territory? I really don't understand it.
FWIW, I don't like Thatcher but I'd give her qualified support over the Falklands. Qualified because:
a. There is something unpleasantly hypocritical about Thatcher making a great fuss about defending white British citizens from eviction in the Falklands, while doing absolutely nothing to prevent or reverse the expulsion of black British citizens from Diego Garcia to make way for an American military base. Most of the latter ended up in pauperism in Mauritius.
b. War should be the last resort. I am under the impression (perhaps wrongly, but Albertus' post seems to confirm it) that other options were available but not used. Very probably the other options wouldn't have worked, but they weren't even tried.
c. The General Belgrano was a legitimate target under all the principles of Just War theory, but the Government lied about where it had been sunk.
Having said that, I agree there is something deeply hypocritical about Left-wingers who are in favour of national self-determination in Kosovo and Tibet and Scotland and Catalunya suddenly suspending this principle in favour of a right-wing military dictatorship, simply because they don't like Thatcher.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
I feel disturbed regarding the amount of venom engendered by discussion of an elderly lady who was once a Prime Minister. I thought at first the comments had been made under the privilege of Hell posting, but no, they are part of what is supposed to be serious, balanced debate. I realise that I am not part of the British political scene, but would have thought that someone who served their country, even if not approved of universally, was deserving of more respect.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Once a party is in a position to form a government, it's a lot healthier if we take the line that their duty is to govern in the interests of the country as a whole.
They do. All parties would describe themselves as doing exactly that.
The problem is that people honestly disagree about what the interests of the country as a whole are, and even when they agree about the desired end they disagree about the best way to achieve it.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
As for Thatcher, no of course she shouldn't get a state funeral. She's a great former PM, but she's not royalty.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
b. War should be the last resort. I am under the impression (perhaps wrongly, but Albertus' post seems to confirm it) that other options were available but not used. Very probably the other options wouldn't have worked, but they weren't even tried.
I don't know if other options would have worked, but the proposed withdrawal of HMS Endurance under John Nott's Defence Review must have given the Argentinian military junta the impression that Britain wasn't committed to safeguarding the Falkland Islands.
If the Falklands War did any good it was to remove Galtieri and his cronies, but that wasn't Thatcher's intention - it was too good an opportunity for sabre-rattling, although I doubt she ever understood how close-run the war was; had we lost a carrier, we would have been in serious trouble.
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Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Plus at the same time as she was fighting Galtieri she was cosying up to an equally, or more, obnoxious dictator in the shape of Chile's Pinochet.
Evil cow!
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Foxymoron
Shipmate
# 10343
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Posted
I'm all for a state funeral for Mrs T, mainly because it will be a day off work and I know she wouldn't like that. I foresee a pleasant day at home with friends, watching the funeral while wearing party hats and blowing kazoos.
I will also definitely be taking the opportunity of dancing on her grave, which should be constructed large enough to accommodate a good crowd and a bar and have flashing lights under the floor. The powers-that-be may try to forestall this by choosing an isolated, inaccessible spot, like Princess Diana's island in a lake, but enough people (and I'm sure there will be) could link arms and encircle it and perform a decent okey-cokey.
Failing that I'm sure there'll be a market for "Thatcher's Grave Dance Mats", compatible with PS3, Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360.
Posts: 72 | From: Surrey | Registered: Sep 2005
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
I'm sure there'll be a market for "Thatcher's Grave Dance Mats", compatible with PS3, Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360.
I'm going to run off and trademark that before ayone else does!
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
You could bet your buttons I could support even George Bush if he had to eject invaders from North Dakota. I cannot imagine the Tea Party pitching a tantrum about Obama driving out aggressors from Idaho.
Really, this Falkland business just indicates to me that many anti-Thatcherites (whathever they're called) have no perspective on the matters whatsoever. I can't raise the venom for a president from 3 years ago that I have seen on this thread for a woman that ran things 20 years ago. For pete's sake!
Zach
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
Well Thatcher certainly seems more popular overseas than here so I propose we sell her corpse to the highest bidder.
I will be another grave-dancer should she be buried over here.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Zach - some of us lived through her reign of terror, and have vivid memories of the suffering it caused. Some of us look around and see present suffering that is clearly a result of what she did. I know I should forgive her but, if I am honest, it is a struggle when I look at the lives of honest, hard working, people who were broken on the wheel of her ideology.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Really, this Falkland business just indicates to me that many anti-Thatcherites (whathever they're called) have no perspective on the matters whatsoever.
It doesn't seem to me that the "anti-Thatcherites" are the ones hung up on the "Falkland business." If anything, I think the responses you've gotten so far have indicated the Falklands War was one of the less controversial aspects of her premiership. I certainly haven't seen anyone advocating a free pass for Argentina. Although I certainly share the bemusement at the willingness of segments of my colleagues on the left to embrace seemingly any manner of repressive dictator just to piss off Uncle Sam.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
It doesn't seem to me that the "anti-Thatcherites" are the ones hung up on the "Falkland business." If anything, I think the responses you've gotten so far have indicated the Falklands War was one of the less controversial aspects of her premiership. I certainly haven't seen anyone advocating a free pass for Argentina. Although I certainly share the bemusement at the willingness of segments of my colleagues on the left to embrace seemingly any manner of repressive dictator just to piss off Uncle Sam.
I didn't bring up the Falklands, and more than one person seemed to take Argentina's side in it all, so how does that make me hung up about anything? Yet other people have talked about her "Reign of terror" and compared her to Kim Jong Il. Right. And George Bush orchestrated 9/11 so Dick Cheney could invade Iraq. We, in western democracies, have such tyrants. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
I’m not saying you gotta love the dame or say she wasn’t a terrible prime minister. You don’t have to support a state funeral for her, but it is about time to get over it and tone down the rhetoric. This sort of thing isn't healthy democratic discourse.
Zach
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
Let's not forget that Thatcher is buddy-buddy with Augusto Pinochet of Chile. For that alone, she should not receive a state funeral. There are mothers in Chile who still do not know what happened to their children who went missing during Pinochet's reign of terror. Her lack of sensitivity to that borders on the inhuman.
The only respect that she deserves is that I won't rejoice at her death. A state funeral would be disrespectful to all victims who suffered from both her policies and her indifference.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
Although I certainly share the bemusement at the willingness of segments of my colleagues on the left to embrace seemingly any manner of repressive dictator just to piss off Uncle Sam.
Judging by your link, a tiny segment indeed. Unless Marxist-Leninism is flourishing in Canada like nowhere else.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
I feel disturbed regarding the amount of venom engendered by discussion of an elderly lady who was once a Prime Minister. I thought at first the comments had been made under the privilege of Hell posting, but no, they are part of what is supposed to be serious, balanced debate. I realise that I am not part of the British political scene, but would have thought that someone who served their country, even if not approved of universally, was deserving of more respect.
As you can see the British have always had a rather robust attitude towards their politicians! Even on the night when the polls closed for the 1987 election! A nation that might bow the knee to its monarch doesn't necessarily feel the need to tug the forelock at its prime minister. Least of all in this day and age.
Personally, I didn't like her or her politics. She seemed humourless and without compassion and her impressive autobiography - an excellent read on many levels - demonstrated an indomitable ego and dangerously unquestioning self-belief. I feel it's significant that the most 'human' response she ever let slip was when she shed tears, when she herself was forced out of the job at No. 10.
However, I thought she did a great job with the Falklands and in that arena, and possibly, too, in Europe, I think she proved herself a remarkable leader. Despite my own dislike of her, I would say she was undoubtedly one of the greatest politicians the UK has had. But I still don't think she should get a state funeral!
In a peculiar way it's almost to her credit that she can be both loathed and loved with such extreme emotion. One doesn't give a damn for the bland, the ineffective politician, who just functions, inspiring no deep feelings. But Thatcher meant something powerful - whether to her admirers or opponents.
I half doubt that it's possible to have lived through the Thatcher years, as some of us did at such crucial formative times of our lives, and not feel indelibly marked by her! Perhaps that's why some folks here find it hard to understand the depth of emotional response.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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SeraphimSarov
Shipmate
# 4335
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Posted
Zach, if you were from the midlands or North of England, you would completely understand the anger of a generation of people thrown on the scrap heap by that woman and her policies of division and of knowing the price of everything And the value of nothing
True, it was a major historical change but with many victims that didn't need to be created
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"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like"
Posts: 2247 | From: Sacramento, California | Registered: Apr 2003
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
As you can see the British have always had a rather robust attitude towards their politicians! Even on the night when the polls closed for the 1987 election! A nation that might bow the knee to its monarch doesn't necessarily feel the need to tug the forelock at its prime minister.
It is just because the roles of ceremonial head of state and political leader are separate, that the British are able to be far more cynical about their politicians.
She is above all responsible for the privatization of national services which should exist for the benefit of all the population,not primarily the shareholders. That alone means she divides, not unites.
To think the Queen had to put up with her in private for half an hour each week...
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
Much of Thatcher's Industrial Policy was an act of revenge aimed at destroying the miners who had forced the Heath Government out of power.
Suggest her corpse is displayed in a tour of mining towns laid waste as a result of her industrial relations policies while the rest of us stood by and did nothing.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Much of Thatcher's Industrial Policy was an act of revenge aimed at destroying the miners who had forced the Heath Government out of power.
And fair enough, really. I always thought it was voters who forced governments out of power, not Communist trade union leaders.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Bax
Shipmate
# 16572
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Posted
The comments on this topic are perhaps a good illustration of why state funerals should be restricted to Royalty.
I believe I am right in saying that Churchill was the first non-royal to have a state funeral. He was the leader of a government of national unity during WWII; all other prime minsters are prime minister by virtue of being leader of their party who have then won a majority (as indeed Churchill subsequently did in the 1950s).
Funerals should be about laying a person to rest, whether you agreed with them or not, not about "honouring" the dead. We do not worship our ancestors after all...
Posts: 108 | Registered: Aug 2011
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Pierre Trudeau in Canada got a State Funeral; in Canada that means lying in state in the Hall of Honour in the Centre Block of Parliament Hill, your casket is draped in the flag and you get a Guard of Honour from the military or the RCMP (the Mounties use military ceremonial and have the status of a regiment of Dragoons).
Trudeau was divisive but he was Prime Minister for 16 years, including the 1980 Quebec Referendum and the 1982 Patriation of the Constitution.
Jack Layton, the recently deceased Leader of HM Loyal Opposition also got a State Funeral. I'm a member of his party but aside from the RCMP escort and lying in state in Parliament it really wasn't a State Funeral. It was fun but after some of the eulogists I think they are going to tighten up on the State Funeral rules.
My cubicle was once located down the hall from the State Ceremonial folks at Heritage, which is how I got to work a couple of state funerals (MWs passim). The families of current and former Governors General and Prime Ministers are as a rule offered a state funeral. In two cases, to my knowledge, the family had to be persuaded to agree.
The rules allow the offer to a family other prominent Canadians for whom a state funeral would be appropriate, in the opinion of the Government of Canada (I quote from memory).
In the Layton case, the offer to the family was made at the Prime Minister's initiative-- I might hear something about this in the next few weeks from some of those involved in the discussions. The funeral services themselves are determined by the family with the assistance of Canadian Heritage officials-- to deal with practical and protocol issues-- and a slew of folk from the PMO putting their oar in, as well as the RCMP who do the security stuff.
As far as Lady Thatcher goes, UKians seem to have a far more restrictive selection than the Canadians. But she's not dead yet, and may well outlive many of those discussing the topic.
[ 23. December 2011, 17:34: Message edited by: Augustine the Aleut ]
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Much of Thatcher's Industrial Policy was an act of revenge aimed at destroying the miners who had forced the Heath Government out of power.
And fair enough, really. I always thought it was voters who forced governments out of power, not Communist trade union leaders.
They weren't communists and it was the voters who, in the end, kicked the Tories out in 1974.
The reason for the order of the boot was the ineptitude of the Govt in dealing with the miners and power workers.
Give Thatcher the same kind of paupers funeral she gave to so many working class people.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Ken, can you explain the seeming serenity anti-Thatcher Brits have about Argentina freakin' invading British territory? I really don't understand it.
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Especially when the entire population of the island wanted to be British and wanted the Argentinians out.
First, if you find some lefties giving a free pass to the Argentinian dictatorship, feel free to ask them to explain themselves. No-one here is doing that
Second, as others have said its not about the Falklands. That had the side-effect of getting the Tories re-elected so its peripherally relevant, but its nothing to do with why the early 1980s governments were so divisive in Britain.
Third, maybe this is one of those things that if you don't get it you never are going to get it.
I think its mainly because of the divisivness, the deliberate setting of some people against others. And the unfairness. I think that once upon a time most British people really used to think that you were very likely to end up with a good job and a nice house and all those things if you studied hard and worked hard - obviously it was never totally true but it was kind of, on the whole, sort of, true. And then along comes 1979-1984 and its as if a magic wand was waved and one whole load of folk made poorer just so that others could be made richer. It was nothing to do with hard work or skills any more so much as which side of a series of arbitrary lines drawn in space and time you happened to find yourself.
Time maybe more important than space. The experience of starting out on adult life looking for work was very different for those who did it in the 1980s than it had been in the 1960s and 70s. In the 1960s and 70s lots of people felt guilty if they were unemployed. As if it was their fault that they hadn't shaped up in some way. In the 1980s we were more likely to feel angry. It wasn't something we did, or failed to do, it was something that was done to us.
And it was all quite deliberate. Anyone who cared could have read their intentions in Keith Joseph's writings way before they got into power. Other governments have blamed the world situation for unemployment, or the previous government. Thatcher's government deliberately and selectively used it as a tool of government power. They thought that wages were too high relative to profits, and so they wanted real wages to fall. The easy way to do that was to close down industries or companies they didn't like and to deliberately increase unemployment to generate incentives to work for lower wages.
In London that may well have worked - though it had terrible effects on local government, education, housing, and policing that we are still paying for now.
In some other parts of the country there was a time lag of something like four or five years so the age cohort looking for work between 1979 and about 1984 were artificially and deliberately kept unemployed. And of course those people never made up those wages. Over their lives they are always going to be that little bit poorer than those a few years older or younger than them are, on the whole.
Actually its worse than that because they also then got caught at the wrong side of the housing boom/bust cycle - if you bought your first house in the early 80s you were a lot better off on average than if you did in the late 80s. And the fiddled privatisations also worked to transfer real money from the poor and unemployed and those with low wages to the higher-paid.
In other parts, such as large sections of the north-east of England it never worked at all and the local economy didn't recover till the 1990s, after Thatcherism was gone. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, were deliberately put into hopeless economic situations as an example to others. The idea was that there had to be unemployment to scare the employed into accepting low wages, and into putting up with whatever shit the bosses wanted to give them at work.
It wasn't really about economics, it was about control, social engineering. It was like being in one of those psychological experiments where one load of subjects are arbitrarily labeled as prisoners and another set as guards and put in situations where they come into conflict.
[ 23. December 2011, 18:58: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
All those who feel strongly about this topic might want to sign this petition. I did, and it made me feel better.
[ 23. December 2011, 19:18: Message edited by: Robert Armin ]
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, were deliberately put into hopeless economic situations as an example to others. The idea was that there had to be unemployment to scare the employed into accepting low wages, and into putting up with whatever shit the bosses wanted to give them at work.
It wasn't really about economics, it was about control, social engineering.
So, are you saying that Britain's parlous economic state at the end of the 1970s (a massive budget deficit, IMF loans, being regarded as the 'sick man of Europe', etc.) didn't actually concern Thatcher's government, who were mainly concerned with some barmy ideas about social engineering?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
I'm with the grave dancers. I will postpone my celebration of her death long enough to chill or buy the champagne.
I realise that this may be seen as a very unchristian and uncharitable act but, like her, I don't care.
The catalogue goes on. The Falklands War; even if defending the islands was inevitable, she made political capital of it and I don't believe that sinking the Belgrano was necessary. Selling off Britain's social housing; gerrymandering on a national scale by turning renters into owners. The Poll Tax; removal of property taxes was part of the ideology. Sale of national natural monopolies; they sold off the TSB (bank) which didn't even belong to them. Creating unnatural markets where none existed, such as in the NHS. Supporting right-wing dictators and regimes all over the world; trading with apartheid South Africa was a major moral failing.
Australia has different criteria for state funerals, which are themselves more low key in any case. But Thatcher does not merit a British state funeral.
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I've started blogging. I don't promise you'll find anything to interest you at uncleconrad
Posts: 946 | From: Mount Fairy, NSW | Registered: Jun 2007
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
And fair enough, really. I always thought it was voters who forced governments out of power, not Communist trade union leaders.
They weren't communists and it was the voters who, in the end, kicked the Tories out in 1974.
And (slightly off-topic, apologies) it is often said that trade-unionism and the labour movement in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marxism.
Posts: 313 | From: Near the Tidal Thames | Registered: Aug 2011
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
I'm in the dancing-on-grave category as well. What worries me is how the film 'The Iron Lady' might change the perception of Snatcher Thatcher for those who never suffered under her. It is somewhat hagiographic, I have heard.
Posts: 313 | From: Near the Tidal Thames | Registered: Aug 2011
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
Although I certainly share the bemusement at the willingness of segments of my colleagues on the left to embrace seemingly any manner of repressive dictator just to piss off Uncle Sam.
Judging by your link, a tiny segment indeed. Unless Marxist-Leninism is flourishing in Canada like nowhere else.
Well, I don't claim representative value for my sample: the circles I travel in are largely under 30 and/or Anglican so "my friends on the right" would be those who vote Liberal or Bloc.
As to the Layton example, it occurred to me at the time that the current political climate is really more of a diarchy: Layton might be thought of as more akin to Martin McGuinness than Ed Miliband (deo gratias) or John Boehner.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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pete173
Shipmate
# 4622
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Posted
What Ken said. It was everything about her - the ideology, the inability to listen, the odious value system, the deification of ultra liberal capitalism, the complete lack of understanding of our cities.
Churchill rightly got a state funeral - he was a great leader. She was nothing like that - someone who shouted down anyone who expressed a contrary opinion, and whose banal ideology nearly destroyed the fabric of our society.
It's typical that Peter Lilley and his ilk are promoting this. Peter Oborne rightly recognised the divisiveness of this proposal.
If the Tories are unwise enough to pursue this, it will make a mockery of what should be a solemn occasion when a person is commended to God in the rites of the Church. Politicising such an event would be crassness.
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Pete
Posts: 1653 | From: Kilburn, London NW6 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LQ:
Layton might be thought of as more akin to Martin McGuinness than Ed Miliband ...
Bit of a tangent, but of course Layton never murdered anyone. But then neither did McGuinness. No no definitely not. Never. Any murdering was done by an entirely separate entity to himself. Entirely.
(This does not mean of course, that we should hold McGuinness's status as a former absolutely not murderer against him. I actually rather respect him now. But if he had been a murderer it would make his current status as a serious democratic politician all the more impressive. But then he was never a murderer. Oh no.)
[ 23. December 2011, 20:40: Message edited by: Albertus ]
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Third, maybe this is one of those things that if you don't get it you never are going to get it.
I did come of age in George Bush's America you know- the first cohort in American history to see a decline in its quality of life compared to its parents. So I assure you the dislike of the policies and the person are entirely understandable, even if I continue to suspect more than a little exaggeration in the accounts. If only when the plots seem to sound like diabolical social warfare. The chronic rage over a government 20 years gone is what I can't really understand. In the very least people should be able to have a conversation about her without comparing her to Kim Jong Il and talking about dancing on her grave.
Let’s see how I feel about Bush in 20 years, I guess.
Zach
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun
What worries me is how the film 'The Iron Lady' might change the perception of Snatcher Thatcher for those who never suffered under her. It is somewhat hagiographic, I have heard.
It sounds a bit like 'The Strike' alias, Scargill, the Movie, although I think in that the pseudo-Meryl played Anne Scargill.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
Came across this and had completely forgotten about it! Even at 13 with no real knowledge of politics then, I remember thinking what a load of cobblers for a politician to come up with!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
I won't be dancing on Thatcher's grave.
But only - and I do mean only - because I wouldn't dance on anyone's grave. Ask not for whom the bell tolls...
The reason why her grave deserves to be danced on is because the concept so eloquently expressed in John Donne's words are completely alien to her. The truth of her pathetic (correctly used here) decline in her dotage is not an excuse for her past acts for which she has no remorse. People don't hate an elderly lady... many don't hate her personally (although of course many do). They hate what she did and what she stood for - and still stands for. Much as Lenin was still lauded after his death, so will Thatcher be. What she has become cannot possibly detract from what she was and did.
Ken described very well why she is so polarising and the fact that she left office over 20 years ago is a very little relevance because the effects of what she did are still seen and felt - and real - today. Interestingly, the Falklands' conflict is probably her least controversial act in office. Although, as others have pointed out the hypocrisy should not be ignored. Nor should she get the credit for the successful prosecution of that conflict without the deserved blame for not preventing it.
However all of this is off the point. It is rare that prime ministers are granted a state funeral. Sir Winston Churchill was the only one in the 20th century. Duke of Wellington, Lord Henry Palmerston and William Gladstone in the 19th.
There were specific reasons why those PM's were granted this posthumous honour, and even those who love her are struggling to even begin to make a case for her reaching such heights.
Whilst her having a state funeral would be something I could tolerate... (I wouldn't watch, I'd find something useful to do) It would make a statement about modern Britain which would prove Cameron fundamentally wrong. Granting Thatcher a state funeral would be an implicit statement of endorsement of Thatcherite divisiveness and neo-liberal economics. Such a country is definitely not Christian.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Vulpior:
The catalogue goes on. The Falklands War; even if defending the islands was inevitable, she made political capital of it and I don't believe that sinking the Belgrano was necessary. Selling off Britain's social housing; gerrymandering on a national scale by turning renters into owners. The Poll Tax; removal of property taxes was part of the ideology. Sale of national natural monopolies; they sold off the TSB (bank) which didn't even belong to them. Creating unnatural markets where none existed, such as in the NHS. Supporting right-wing dictators and regimes all over the world; trading with apartheid South Africa was a major moral failing.
And yet ... and yet subsequent governments, including Labour, did nothing to backtrack the core of her policies. She must, popularly speaking, have been doing something right in order for her opposition to feel it had to reinvent itself under the New Labour movement.
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... The Respectable
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Third, maybe this is one of those things that if you don't get it you never are going to get it.
...
Let’s see how I feel about Bush in 20 years, I guess.
Zach
It's not quite the same I think Zach. I don't think George W had nearly as much effect on the US domestic scene as Mrs. Thatcher had in the UK.
The Falklands conflict was not particularly divisive. The real crunch issue (as ken says) was the decision to withdraw government support from previously nationalised industries (coal, steel, transport) and allow large-scale unemployment as a consequence. The miners' strike of 1984/5 is highly significant: it is the most obvious example of how this policy was implemented in the teeth of fierce opposition.
Her admirers - of whom there are many, especially in the South - see her as the saviour of Britain, sweeping away socialism, union power and inefficient industry and replacing it with a competitive, prosperous, service-based economy. They feel the 1970s were a disaster (Anglican't has briefly outlined a few reasons why) and see Maggie much as US Republicans seem to see Ronald Reagan.
Her detractors - of whom there are many, especially in the North - see her as having ripped out the heart and soul of British industry and society, turning self-respecting working communities into hopeless wastelands of long-term unemployment and deprivation. They feel the 1980s were a disaster from which Britain has never recovered and that Maggie was primarily responsible.
I think the centre of political gravity is rather further to the right in the US than in the UK (or, even more, the rest of Europe) and so it is difficult to appreciate how radical and divisive her changes were at the time. And part of her legacy was to shift the mainstream of British politics so that (as Molopata says) no-one has really tried to undo them. They're probably not undo-able anyway - you can't recreate a flooded coalmine or dead mill town by fiat.
In short - no state funeral. You might love her or hate her - or even ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) have a mixed view of her - but there's no way she could be called a unifying figure.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
Why not simply do what you normally do when a former PM passes away? If the past provides contrasting examples, then perhaps it is time for the government to establish an official norm.
[From this American's point of view, I see no problem with having an official service for any former head of government. I have no problem with any presidents from the past--even those with whom I strongly disagreed--having such a service.]
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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Antisocial Alto
Shipmate
# 13810
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
The chronic rage over a government 20 years gone is what I can't really understand. In the very least people should be able to have a conversation about her without comparing her to Kim Jong Il and talking about dancing on her grave.
Let’s see how I feel about Bush in 20 years, I guess.
Zach
Zach, I think some Americans of our parents' generation felt chronic rage about Nixon and other Vietnam-era politicians until pretty recently. Now that Sept. 11 and subsequent events are a more recent trauma, it doesn't seem that people talk about Vietnam as much, but I remember throughout the 1990s having history teachers, family friends, etc who were still furious about it.
About looking back on GWB, Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot fewer of us have been directly involved in it than our parents were in Vietnam. We would probably be a lot angrier if we'd been at any risk of getting drafted.
Posts: 601 | From: United States | Registered: Jun 2008
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin L:
Why not simply do what you normally do when a former PM passes away? If the past provides contrasting examples, then perhaps it is time for the government to establish an official norm.
[From this American's point of view, I see no problem with having an official service for any former head of government. I have no problem with any presidents from the past--even those with whom I strongly disagreed--having such a service.]
I agree. Is there some lower level of 'state funeral' in the UK which is not a State Funeral as applying to the Monarch and the other exceptional cases like Churchill?
In Australia the custom of offering a state funeral or state memorial service is very different, it's not something reserved only for the Head of State like in the UK. All former Premiers, Prime Ministers, Governors, Governors-General pretty well automatically apply even if aspects of their incumbency were controversial, for example Joh Bielke-Petersen in Queensland who made Thatcher look moderate. Other distinguished citizens may be offered a state funeral/memorial at the discretion of the state Governor, which would in practice usually be on a regularly-updated list also agreed to by the Premier and Leader of the Opposition.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
What Turquoise Tastic said. Besides, she was a party leader playing an ephemeral role on the stage at one point in political history; just as Tony Blair would do later. The case of Churchill was rather a one off, I think. This is not to say that Thatcher's leadership didn't produce enormous changes in British political structure and society. However, the entire body politic doesn't judge those changes, on the whole, to have been meritorious: some do, some don't. Honouring this former PM with a state funeral just is not appropriate.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
Churchill was a useless leader in peacetime, swapping parties twice to expedite political advancement.
He wasn't that bright a war time leader - rather becoming a figurehead following a desperate clutching at straws when the alternatives (Chamberlain - the appeaser; Halifax - the fascist aristocrat; Attlee - the Socialist) were all too wacky to contemplate.
Churchill was fortunate in having soem good military leaders around him and the extent to which he contributed to plans and policies is debateable. After the war he wanted reconstruction but back to the 1930's ways of living: he opposed the NHS and other social reforms.
In fact there's eveidence (suppressed) at the time that he was booed as he travelled around.
Therefore it's debateable IMHO whether Churchill should have had a state funeral. It's more a sign of the Queen's affection for him as he was the one who waited for her at Heathrow Airport in 1952 to the UK on her father's death.
Thatcher certainly shouldn't have one.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
and yet subsequent governments, including Labour, did nothing to backtrack the core of her policies. She must, popularly speaking, have been doing something right in order for her opposition to feel it had to reinvent itself under the New Labour movement.
Yes, she was doing the right thing. But it represented the (inevitable and necessary) end of the Socialist dream, and for that the Socialists hate her.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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