Margaret Thatcher to be given state funeral.

[S1ur]

Is this true? because the Daily Mail reported it so obviously I need something more reliable than that

Last year Guardian reported 'there were no plans' for a state funeral.

Anyone heard this from anywhere other than the DM?

What a huge assumption to make kewcumber, how do you know our backgrounds and how we were affected by Thatcher's policies?!

And it wasn't just the miners in SW who were affected - what about the steel workers, the nurses, the teachers (in fact most public sector workers whom she had nothing but contempt for), those who died in the Falklands, those affected by the Poll Tax (great idea that was!), those who have been affected by the total decimation of the social housing stock in this country (and boy are we paying for that now), etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc

Her legacy is still being felt across the whole of society - if only it was as simple as she left power 18 years ago and that was it.

And no, of course, she didn't think she was being wicked. But she believed that money was all that mattered and that people who couldn't make money were utterly useless and should be despised, and people who could make money (no matter how they did it and who they destroyed in the process) should be lauded. Whether you think that is wicked is a matter of opinion . . .

I didn;t say I was the only person affected! Many on this site arent old enough to have been directly affected, and weren;t, however strongly they feel about the Conservative policies of the time.

I was explaining that I agreed with UQD (about the glee over her death) despite being personally affected.

there have been more UK servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afganistan than were killed in the Falklands (and lets not get into civilian casualty comparisons) at least the Falklands was a reaction to an invasion of british territory.

spongebrain, I think that's a hugely simplistic summary of Thatcherism.

she hasn't

WONDERFUL piece in the Mail today by Quentin Letts:

"Why is the Left so full of hate for Lard Thatcher?"

The whole piece made me ROFL but esp Lard Thatcher - obv done by a Left-leaning full-of-hate sub editor

Actually, i could never see the problem with poll tax but maybe I'm naive ...

lots of problme with the poll tax but most of the real problmes weren't what the riots were about. It was basically unworkable and the local councils, once they worked out that whatever they charged, the increase was going to get blamed on central govt used it to raise revenue (which is where central govt capping local councils came from) so lots of big increases hitting people who hadn;t previously been paying anything.

Of course it is unquietdad, simplistic but largely correct. It's a little tricky to go into a whole essay on the wrongs of Thatcherism here - and I'm guessing people aren't going to want to read a 10,000 word dissertation on the damage Thatcher did to this country but I could be wrong.

fiofio, sadly she hasn't - but there is a ridiculous and obscene suggestion that she should get a state funeral, hence the discussion cos most people are dead against it, although of course this government doesn't seem to give a crap about that!

Mumsnut, wow! I didn't know there was anyone left in this country who could defend the poll tax. Won't bother explaining the inequities then - they're rather obvious.

I'm not asking for an essay on the wrongs of Thatcherism. I just don't see why people still feel compelled to react with childish glee at the prospect of an octogenarian carking it some time in the near future Surely the time for schadenfreude was November 1990, and then again maybe in May 1997 which was the final nail in the coffin. Her death isn't going to change anything.

This thread is revolting. The level of hate and gleeful spite being spewed out is chilling.

And I honestly think it says far more about the poster(s) than anyone else.

Hello Quentin

Mr Letts, if you don't mind, please.

Because she was evil, vindictive and spiteful and the world will be a much better place without her, UQD. She chose, knowingly, to provoke strong feelings.

Thousands of deaths - count up the people who were killed in the Falklands (on both sides - the Argentinians were conscripts under a dictatorship AND the foreign office had given the regime a nod and a wink about handing the islands over so she had a bloody cheek sounding off about it and forcing young men to die for her grandstanding).

Add in the people she threw out of work who committed suicide or died early as a result of poverty, include the people killed in traffic accidents that would not have happened if she had not vindictively abolished South Yorkshire and its excellent public transport in order to get Ken Livingstone... how about starving the NHS of funds, must have been many extra deaths caused by that, too.

That's what I mean, she merrily destroyed valuable, important public services, goods and benefits just in order to settle her private scores. And didn't give a toss who got hurt in the process.

All political leaders "choose, knowingly, to provoke strong feelings." If everyone agreed with them then there would be no point in having democratically elected leaders.

And a lot of the damage done to the People's Republic of South Yorkshire can be put at the door of the city council, which has almost always been Labour (destruction of the city's sixth-forms and grammar schools, for example).

I just wonder what the point is of harping on about it seventeen years after she left power. You've won, for goodness' sake. She has gone. It's not like the death of Robert Mugabe, which if it happened would actually change something in terms of the balance of power.

Just one word.

Blunkett.

Is he getting a state funeral too?

We aren't harping on about it, the powers that be have started planning a state funeral for her and we are entitled to object to our money being spent glorifying the old bat. And you did ask! Don't have a go because people dare to counter your arguments, you curmudgeonly old Tory-phile, you.

(This has changed my mental image of you - am now imagining a Jeffrey Archer or possibly Alan Clarke type. My knowledge of Tory writers of the Thatcher era is limited to those two...)

yes, it is her fault. She abolished S Yorks Metropolitan borough in order to get Red Ken in London. S Yorks had a brilliant public transport system that independent data analysis shows saved thousands of lives by getting people off the roads and into buses/onto trains therefore reducing the rate of traffic accidents dramatically.

Her nasty, careless attitude to anyone who was anywhere near anyone who stood in her way killed people. Simple as.

Object all you like to the state funeral. It's a democracy. You may do so.

If you'd noticed I was not objecting to anybody "countering" my arguments, but simply to the use of emotive and personal language which reduces politics to the level of the playground.

I am not in the least like either of those gentlemen. Sadly I fear smallwhitecat is right...

Still alive? Ah, well - shall check back daily.

She has one last chance to at least make part amends - forward forecast is sunny. Now could be a good time.

Frau Thatcher's legacy for me is this:

Played race card to gain political advantage (especially in 1979 when she proclaimed that Britain was in danger of being swamped by immigrants.)

Refusing to support sanctions in South Africa in order to end apartheid because of her husband's personal business interests there plus his unwavering support for that evil regime (he called the land "God's own country").

Her salacious and undignified revelling in the waste that was the Falkland's Conflict

Personal visit to Pinochet when he came to Britain for medical treatment.

More misogynist than most male chauvinist pigs.

Starved the NHS of funds

Created a divided and broken society that rewarded greed, selfishness as well as profligacy - the fruits of which we have been feeling for the past decade (children conceived during Thatcherites reign - just look at many of them now who know nothing about familiy life, community or a society that truly cares for those who are improverished, marginalised, voiceless and neglected).