I guess the reason nobody has mentioned it is that its such a polarising debate and everybody has a strong opinion on it, so its just going to become an argument between people who disliked her (like yourself) and people like me who quite liked and admired her, obviously, you are completely wrong and I am completely right, so unless you're prepared to accept that, its just going rumble on and we'll all fall out with each other which would be a bit of a shame.

I have plenty of very strong opinions on unions and communists and writing this without sharing them has been an excersise in restraint like I've never known before.

I didnt like what i did know about her

My brother laying flowers on her doorstep:


People at my brothers schools take



He was the representive from the conservative partys youth thing as hes the chairmAn for chichesters youth thing. Or whatever. Hes a twat either way

Makes you wonder if all this fuss about Mrs Thatcher would be going on if it was a man.

I bet there won't be distasteful parties held by the right when that bastard Scargill pops his clogs.

I know what you mean Dave, but I think we're probably in a slow news period (judging by what else is appearing in the recent press) and they've 'over-hyped' the whole affair to fill space. Her obituary in the times was 6 pages and 11,000 words long, for example.

politics is always a problem to talk about isnt it?and here we have a clssic argument.Those who liked her,and those that didnt.I never really talk politics as I beleive its a no win situation.She never did me or my family any harm,We are still here,slightly better off now than then,so I suppose you could say I liked her.But,one thing that makes my blood boil is unions.I wonder what people would say of her now if there were no unions back in the day.
People should show some respect,she was a woman,and now she is dead.Get on with your lives.

Part of the problem for me (I despised the woman, and always will) is the way history's being rewritten by - among others - the Conservative party. Although I was pleased to hear Glenda Jackson's comments in the House of Commons during the unprecedented recall of Parliament last week.
While I wouldn't necessarily attend one of the "death parties", I can understand why people in one of the many Yorkshire pit villages that she destroyed would. And I'd certainly protest at her state-funeral-in-all-but-name tomorrow, if I was in London. How dare they spend an as yet undisclosed sum on burying Thatcher in times when - largely thanks to Thatcherism in the first place - there are food banks in many of our major cities? I could understand it if she'd brought the nation together in the same way the last PM to get a state funeral did, but no matter what your opinion of her, there's no denying she didn't unite the nation.
Maybe it's a northern thing, but I'm strongly of the opinion that she should be thrown in the sea with Osama Bin Laden. I don't think the damage she did to society will ever be undone; while Thatcher may be dead, Thatcherism flourishes under this government (and to an extent, the last one) like never before. It's only a shame that shows no sign of dying any time soon.

Thatcher essentially re-established the authority of government at a time when union officials without a mandate to govern threatened to dominate decision-making... BUT she did it for the wrong reasons, and with the wrong outcomes. She simply dismantled the unions' power, trashed their strongholds and wrecked the industries. There were other ways to do this (eg Germany, which sought to establish a consensus with unions ie effectively bought them out and got them to buy in to the establishment). People recognised this at the time - this is not just some crappy re-writing of history.

Using the analogy of breaking eggs to make omelettes, Thatcher's big crime, in my opinion, was not necessarily breaking the eggs in the first place but absolutely neglecting to make the omelette afterwards. In other words, she smashed up the industries and the unions, but made no attempt to rebuild after the mess. Result: entire areas seriously knackered (mostly in the industrial Midlands and North) with entire populations and communities totally written off. Go and have a look at these areas - outside of the glitzy bits in the centres of the big regional cities - it's shocking! Trashing your own country is not the action of a head of state - it is the action of someone waging war on a population. Trickle-down prosperity only trickles down very close to the people with the cash, it does not result in a general uplift in living standards.

At least when America defeated Japan and Germany in WW2 it had the good grace to rebuild the defeated nations by enacting the Marshall Plan. Thatcher simply destroyed and made conditions good for her buddies rather than acting purely in the interests of the nation. No Marshall Plan! This was a big mistake for which the majority of this country are still suffering.

Also, she fought against the domination of Britain by Europe (fair enough, in my opinion)... by making Britain into an absolute doormat for the USA! Which ended up with Blair (her natural heir, don't be fooled by the bollocks about New Labour being in any way socialist) being an embarrassing gimp to Bush over Iraq.

And another irony: Thatcher's Britain ushered in another system/period that is providing an even greater challenge to the legitimacy of government: where government is dominated by the interests of international corporations. That's how a banking crisis got turned into a crisis of sovereign debt.

Beautifully put, and absolutely right. The thing I really can't forgive her for is that none of it, in her mind and the minds of her supporters, was a mistake.

my puppy doesn't like the wind

That's pretty much how I see it. Although how this hasn't descended into a neverending spiral of abuse yet is a mystery.