To spend my morning watching the funeral of Maggie Thatcher (on BBC) ?

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

She was our first woman prime-minister - a significant personal achievement, especially for the daughter of a grocer from Grantham, born in 1925

Also I agree with those that say these ceremonial occasions are something we do really well in Britain.

So AIBU to be watching this morning - in spite of disagreeing with many of her policies ? Will you be watching ?
And what do you make of both her personal achievement and her legacy ?

It was good. I have always been a big Thatcher supporter. We need more like she was. It was perfectly appropriate given how she saved this nation and the good she did, was first female prime minster and the longest serving PM for 100 years+.

I thought her granddaughter read very well despite only being 19 years old.

Even had a contact which shut down their company today in her honour. I framed my signed photo from her yesterday which she sent wishing me luck in my university exams all those years ago. Many of us owe her a lot.

£650k to have your (private?) apartment refurbished on the taxpayer's money.

I really think that all of this spending of public money on things like funerals, apartment refurbishments, posh parliament canteens etc etc needs to be looked at. It all seems a bit hypocritical. If you want nice wall paper/funeral etc then politician's, Lords etc should pay for it themselves.

I don't want to justify Irvine's expenditure. I'd just say that the apartment is in the Palace of Westminster and that the Lord Chancellor is taxed on his use of it as a benefit-in-kind.

Yanbu russell brand wrote a good piece about compassion even if you didn't agree with her policies in the guardian the other day....

While she was off strutting the world stage later in her career, she completely took her eye off the ball in relation to home affairs and domestic policy. This was not helped by the fact that she was surrounded by yes-men that owed her their positions as a result of her patronage. This is where the damage started to happen.

As a consequence we have large pockets of social exclusion and deprivation that continue to haunt us two decades later. It is both embarrassing for the country, and extremely harmful to national wellbeing and prosperity.

The rampant post-1997 polarisation of health and wealth in the UK needs to be addressed once and for all.

The Palace of Westminster is Grade I listed. So no nipping down to Homebase for a few rolls of wallpaper on special offer.

Oh yeah, the Brand article - like I am going to take anything that man says seriously after the answer phone message he left

Boffin. there have always been these pocket sin our country.

If you compare the Manchester or Newcastle docks or inner City Leeds now to how they were after the demise of the ship building industries in the 50s and 60s they are much much better. Yes there remain some areas which are poor but the huge awful desolation of vast areas of the North in the 1960s and 70s has gone. Those cities are transformed. They are nothing like as bad as they were before Thatcher.

Actually, I think both the pro-and anti-Thatcher factions give too much credit to her and her governments and take far too little account of macro-economic factors affecting the world as a whole. We like to think it is in our governments' power to change things (or not) but very often, things change for reasons entirely outside their control.

Look at our current economic difficulties. Some stem from domestic policy decisions and issues, some from events in other countries or globally that no UK politician, however committed/talented/strong, could possibly have affected.

Do we live in the same country Xenia?

Much of the devastation of the 1950s was caused by WW2 bombing. It took until the early 1960s for that to be repaired. I lived in Yorkshire for the middle part of the seventies. Nothing like as bad as they were before Thatcher? Don't make me laugh!

Maybe more people have realised how nice it is to live or work by a canal or river Xenia - I feel that's what's happened with the regeneration of the docklands in London ? Anyway, my point is it might have happened without Thatcher anyway ?

cjel, you are right. Think Cornish tin mines or the textile industries. Their respective demises also heralded generations of hardship for communities. Thatcher did create the equivalents of Enterprise zones in affected areas but the market moves too slowly to prevent short/mid term problems. Look at Nissan in the North East - they were encouraged into the country/locality by government incentives but the benefits took years to accrue.

Bet that young Navy lad's Mum is so proud of him today.

young Navy lad works in my building, I'm going to print off these comments and show him when he gets back on Monday

Ooh, is he the one I fancied admired so much slatternly ?

I watched a small bit then got bored.

I dident agree with all her policies but admired her courage of conviction.

On the andrew marr show sunday they replayed frost interveiw with her in1995 so after she was pm and she had wicked sense of humour.

No leader pm has been as strong since.

loved shirley wiliams on this week she dident promote women as there were none good enough name dropping edwina curry no shortlists like labour soem female mps ok others annoy me greatly they so whiney.

I think lots of what she said like hating femenists or no such thing as society taken out of context at end of day we all have to tke resposability for ourselves and our families we dont live in nanny state.

One things is baffling me dont deny lady proper send off.

why 10mil I thourght be 1mil max.

are they paying guests?
do church charge for funerals?

galloway said on daily ploitics that mps were paid to fly back from holiday erly then fly back last week was that true or just a mad lie?

Just watched it on sky plus. It was a lovely service. Very dignified. As I've said before she more than deserves her place in history.

Awslatternly you tell him from me that he did a grand job, and if I was his Mum I would be very proud of him.

I know this is a really random question but why did Thatcher's granddaughter have an American accent? Did one (or both) of her children move to the US? (Whose daughter was the young woman reading?).

MPs were given a three thousand pound allowance to fly back from their holidays.
Yes Churches do charge for funerals.

I've managed to avoid the TV all day today, I wore red.

I will continue to avoid TV all night.

The grandchildren have an American mother and have lived with her in the US for some years now (they left South Africa after she divorced Mark).

Not a lie mam29.
Mps were called back to 'an emergency session' in Parliament so they could sing her praises.
As parliament was in recess half of them were on holiday, so they got their expenses, whether they were down the road or in the South of France.
And they got paid to fly back to their holiday destinations too.
Considering parliament was back on Monday, I've no idea why they were recalled, but I heard of expenses of up to £3000 mentioned.