Margaret Thatcher's in hospital,Is this the beginning of the end? How will you mark the day? Black arm band or party 7.

[Cowwomanmoo]

After looking at the news about Mr T I found my self on wikiquote.

Classic:

In an interview with George Negus for the Australian TV program 60 minutes, the following exchange occurred:
Negus: Why do people stop us in the street almost and tell us that Margaret Thatcher isn't just inflexible, she's not just single-minded, on occasions she't plain pig-headed and won't be told by anybody?
Thatcher: Would you tell me who has stopped you in the street and said that?
Negus: Ordinary Britons...
Thatcher: Where?
Negus: In conversation, in pubs...
Thatcher (interrupting): I thought you'd just come from Belize
Negus: Oh this is not the first time we've been here.
Thatcher: Will you well me who, and where and when.
Negus: Ordinary Britons in restaurants and cabs
Thatcher: How many?
Negus: ...in cabs
Thatcher: How many?
Negus:I would say at least one in two
Thatcher:Why won't you tell me their names and who they are?

Well, I don't spit at anyone or pull their hair. That's bad manners
I don't need to respect someone to help them up if they have a fall

lolololo...chill out

I agree SWC. I'm also bemused by the references to the destruction of British Industry - I thought the Unions had already pretty much done that by the time she came to power?

no, but i know people who are. actually for my family she attacked the civil service, stomped all over 'unspoken' agreements with it and relied on a sense of duty not to strike. my family are local trades unionists from way back, my folks could see what she was doing at the same time as they were losing their ability to do anything about it. hugely frustrating.

i remember my dad had to show geoffrey howe round his building, and he got into a big argument with him. howe effectively conceded that he was afraid of angering her in cabinet, that she was random in her affections. (i think that was the phrase).

but in terms of her policies, don't you see, i don't actually have to be affected by them personally to care about what horrors she's visiting on others. that's one of the little pieces of poison that she and her party put out there, that 'i'm alright jack, i own my own home don't you know' as a political strategy. that's why the south of england was happy to pocket the cash and keep voting for her.

It is a kind of respect mrsruffallo and there are plenty of people who wouldn't help the little old lady who lives down the road, never mind Mrs Thatcher!

She encouraged selfishness and greed and created this dog-eat-dog world. Yet if she needed help in some way, you've just said you'd give her that basic help. Sure that's respect!

we're just bitching about the woman on the internet, rhubarb, i don't think that equates to pushing her down a flight of stairs and pissing ourselves laughing.

I'm sure people understand here that my saying her policies are legitimate is in no way an endorsement of them - simply pointing out that they are not comparable with true, tyrannical evil. To say they are is to cheapen genuinely nasty, anti-democratic movements like the BNP. There is a smear tactic on the hard Left at the moment to bracket "Conservative, UKIP and BNP" together as if they all stand for the same thing, and I think moderate centre-lefties like me ought not to stand for that!

Book going well thanks. Er... I'm not here. You didn't see me. (Penis emoticon by name.)

Sorry Aitch, I was responding to mrsruffallo and not your good self.

As someone from a mining community and mining family in Scotland, i will show her the same respect with which she treated us.

Lol Aitch
Rhubarb- I think that reflects a respect for myself maybe, but not for Thatcher
Anyway, let's just agree to disagree

i'm quite interested in hearing what the bnp have to say, now that they've made it onto the main stage, as it were. am narked at the lefties and their eggs, so silly. let the man speak, let's get the measure of him. (he'd have a tiny penis emoticon i suspect).

i think that whether you're happy with the use of the word 'evil' may just come down to where you live. she threw entire communities to the dogs round here, those people whose dads committed suicide (two i know of) because they couldn't handle the poverty and the shame can legitimately call her what they want imo.

As for Unemployment, isn't it expected to hit the same rate in the second half of this year as it was at its peak under her?

I dunno, I think it means that you are a better person than she is, and that's what makes the difference.

When she was in power she'd probably piss on a pensioner lying in the gutter. But now that she needs help, she'll find our kindness an embarrassment, our respect will invoke shame in her. I hope she does end up being treated by NHS nurses and I hope they do their jobs with professionalism and treat her as they would any patient - and I hope she does feel real shame.

That's the best form of revenge.

Gotta pick kids up.

what's happening now is not relevant, except insofar as her letting the markets run riot is responsible for the rot that became this recession.

and i'm never convinced by the 'be better' argument. i am better than her, no doubt, i'm hardly proving it by abstaining from an internet debate. and she'll be nursed by private nurses, i have no doubt. she can afford it, she and her dodgy son are loaded.

Or mine as to why not a single one of her major plicies has ever been reversed by subsequent governments??

i don't know the answer, swc. didn't realise we had to be military historians to participate in the thread.

what subsequent govts? major? blair? the unelected brown? and what major policies? givvus a list, let's see what you're talking about.

Well ALL of her major policies, every single one (obviously not free milk and so on). None have been reversed, only extended and indeed many other countries have followed suit.

The Falklands was very fortuitous for Maggie.
The Argentines invaded, believing as they still do, that the land was theirs. Maggie sent the troops off....they won.
The General Belgrano was sunk 24 hours after the Argentine leaders asked for a ceasefire. That was her (and her boys') answer to it. Another Argentine boat was sunk outside the internationally agreed "fight zone".....

The Argentinian invasion may well have been wrong, (unless you're an Argentinian) but she didn't fight a war for any noble causes. She fought that war because the Conservatives were at their lowest point in the opinion polls since the previous election. She would have been Baroness Thing a good 10 years earlier had the Falklands not come along.

And excepting of course JOhn Major's replacement of the poll tax with the community charge,

sorry talbot, without further detail that just sounds like a soundbite. although i'd hazard if you mean her monetary policies that is something the world is now coming to regret now that capitalism has hit a rather large wall.