Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!

[jonesthecurl]

I think the great majority of british people do respect her..and for the vocal minority who want to 'spit on her grave' I have only contempt.

Do you.
http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-new ... eath-2151/

The Judy Garland version is now at no 10.

Now at no 7.

[jonesthecurl]

at no 1 in the Amazon mp3 chart,with two other versions of the song in the top twenty.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-MP3 ... SRAZRA88#1

[crispybits]

She rubberstamped the poll tax - Princess Diana would have stopped being popular if she'd done that.

None of her defenders have said that she did nothing wrong. She was only human (well, unless you believe the left wing media) and she made mistakes. But the sheer number of outright lies and exaggerations spread about her time in office is ridiculous becuase the left wing made her their poster girl for all that was wrong with the world, and heaped anything they could onto her shoulders, taking no account of what options she actually had at the time, what the actual series of events was, and just actual plain facts.

Edit - conveniently for them to also be able to blame all the economic shit they caused in the 70s on her rather than taking responsibility for it themselves - it was the left that handed the UK over to Thatcher in a complete mess....

I've seen people blaming her for Hillsborough (not true), for supporting fascist Pinochet while PM (not true on 2 counts), for destroying the mining communities (only half true, and she had little option other than continuing to throw money at a failing industry), for deregulating the banks (true, but nearly 20 years of mostly Labour government after her did nothing to reverse it before it actually caused problems, and then those problems started in the US not the UK), for selling off national industries (a lot of which were loss making and which were being supported by subsidies paid for by tax), for supporting apartheid (not true), for invading Argentina (not true) and for being the devil incarnate (not true, though I admit I have no proof )

[jonesthecurl]

Well, I'm eating a lot of garlic and carrying a wooden stake and a hammer just to be sure.

[crispybits]

And that's fair (and indeed in line with what she stood for, having courage in your convictions and being free to express them)

What I object to isn't people saying they disliked her or disagreed with her politics, but the absurd repainting of history to make everything her fault and to spread outright lies about her for political reasons. Criticise her for what she did, fine (but be prepared for a political debate from those that think differently, just as you would if you support her). Criticise her for things she either didn't do or didn't have any option but to do, not so good.

[Bones2484]

What I object to isn't people saying they disliked her or disagreed with her politics, but the absurd repainting of history to make everything her fault and to spread outright lies about her for political reasons. Criticise her for what she did, fine (but be prepared for a political debate from those that think differently, just as you would if you support her). Criticise her for things she either didn't do or didn't have any option but to do, not so good.

Welcome to every political discussion, ever.

[crispybits]

Yep - and I advocate honest constructive debate and conversation in those too, which is one of the reasons I despise the current crop of talking heads on both sides of the house here in the UK so much

[muy_thaiguy]

Yep - and I advocate honest constructive debate and conversation in those too, which is one of the reasons I despise the current crop of talking heads on both sides of the house here in the UK so much

I feel the same way about the talking heads in D.C.

[saxitoxin]

The Thatcher stuff aside, who else can point out a common theme in the photos from Brixton? Surely I'm not the only one who noticed a singular similarity in every single photo set on every single website posted so far ...

[crispybits]

That wouldn't be an American stereotyping Brits would it? Greekdog will not be happy, we're not allowed to comment on each other

[saxitoxin]

That wouldn't be an American stereotyping Brits would it? Greekdog will not be happy, we're not allowed to comment on each other

Sorry but I couldn't help it. Every single person is wearing a winter coat in April!

It wasn't just these photos but I went through scores and they were all the same. It didn't even look like it was that late out.

[crispybits]

You do know it was still snowing here about a week ago right? Bloomin global warming my ass!

[AndyDufresne]

You do know it was still snowing here about a week ago right? Bloomin global warming my ass!

Agreed. I mean, I also used to live a state far away from any water. By my estimates, the world is mostly landmass, not water!


--Andy

[Symmetry]

Judy Garland's Ding Dong the Witch is Dead races up charts after Margaret Thatcher's death

ANTI-Thatcher sentiment has seen Ding Dong the Witch is Dead soar to No.27 in the UK iTunes chart this morning.

[Lootifer]

What charts are you guys looking on, I cant see any real charts that show the song at 7/27/etc

[BigBallinStalin]

And that's fair (and indeed in line with what she stood for, having courage in your convictions and being free to express them)

What I object to isn't people saying they disliked her or disagreed with her politics, but the absurd repainting of history to make everything her fault and to spread outright lies about her for political reasons. Criticise her for what she did, fine (but be prepared for a political debate from those that think differently, just as you would if you support her). Criticise her for things she either didn't do or didn't have any option but to do, not so good.

How can you despise that tactic? Fox News does it all the time, and several of the posters in here have learned well from Fox News. Always opinionated; Very stupid.

[Ray Rider]

From Daniel Hannan, British Member of the European Parliament:

I’m not sure you can appreciate the magnitude of Margaret Thatcher’s achievement without some knowledge of the calamity that immediately preceded it. Most British people can no longer remember the Seventies. I am just fractionally above the national median age – born September 1971 – and my recollections are hazy. What I do recall, though, was the sense of despair. Again and again, I would hear adults casually say “Britain is finished”. Having spent my early years in Peru, where Britain was still looked up to as a serious country, I was shocked.

In fact, such sentiments were understandable. These were the years of the three-day week, of prices and incomes policies, of double-digit inflation, of constant strikes, of power cuts. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the United Kingdom had been outperformed by every European economy. “Britain is a tragedy – it has sunk to borrowing, begging, stealing until North Sea oil comes in,” said Henry Kissinger. The Wall Street Journal was blunter: “Goodbye, Great Britain: it was nice knowing you”.

Margaret Thatcher, almost alone, refused to accept the inevitability of decline. She was determined to turn the country around, and she succeeded. Inflation fell, strikes stopped, the latent enterprise of a free people was awakened. Having lagged behind for a generation, we outgrew every European country in the 1980s except Spain (which was bouncing back from an even lower place). As revenues flowed in, taxes were cut and debt was repaid, while public spending – contrary to almost universal belief – rose.

In the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher showed the world that a great country doesn’t retreat forever. And, by ending the wretched policy of one-sided détente that had allowed the Soviets to march into Europe, Korea and Afghanistan, she set in train the events that would free hundreds of millions of people from what, in crude mathematical terms, must be reckoned the most murderous ideology humanity has known.

Like everyone else, I remember where I was when she resigned. It was the equivalent, for my generation of John F Kennedy being shot – an event which, curiously, also took place on 22 November. After three election victories, the Iron Lady was brought down by a collection of Euro-fanatical MPs – the “November Criminals” as one of my local party chairmen darkly calls them. It’s true that there were several factors in her unpopularity, above all the poll tax. Still, it can’t be repeated too often: the immediate cause of Margaret Thatcher’s toppling was that she opposed Britain’s membership of the euro. Who called that one right?

On any normal measure, she was a supremely successful politician. I'd go further and call her our most successful prime minister ever. Yet she drove many to a hatred so intense that, even on the day she died, a frail grandmother, the Internet was filled with venomous joy. (Have a look, if you have a strong stomach, at my favourited comments on Twitter, or at the #dingdongthewickedwitchisdead hashtag.)

Where does it come from, this inchoate loathing? Anti-Thatcherites tell you that it’s because she closed down the old industries. (She didn’t, of course: she simply stopped obliging everyone else to support them.) Yet it must surely be obvious by now that nothing would have kept the dockyards and coalmines and steel mills open. A similar process of de-industrialisation has unfolded in every other Western European country, and the only parties that still talk of “reviving our manufacturing base” are Respect, the Scottish Socialists and the BNP.

No, what Lefties (with honourable exceptions) find so hard to forgive is the lady’s very success: the fact that she rescued a country that they had dishonoured and impoverished; that she inherited a Britain that was sclerotic, indebted and declining and left it proud, wealthy and free; that she never lost an election to them. Their rage, in truth, can never be assuaged; for it is the rage of Caliban.

[ooge]

Conservative in England to liberal for the USA

[chang50]

Conservative in England to liberal for the USA

It's hilarious to see conservatives in the US rush to praise Thatcher without realising she was no further to the right than Obama is now.

[ooge]

Conservative in England to liberal for the USA

It's hilarious to see conservatives in the US rush to praise Thatcher without realising she was no further to the right than Obama is now.

Exactly.

[Frito Bandito]

Rest In Peace, Margaret Thatcher...

Time to move on in life and remember her honorably.

[saxitoxin]

[pmchugh]

Response to crispybits

I've seen people blaming her for Hillsborough (not true),

Her role in the cover up is still not entirely clear, I hope now that she has passed the evidence of her involvement is made clear one way or the other.

for supporting fascist Pinochet while PM (not true on 2 counts),

What difference does it make whether he was in office or not? Also she lifted the arms embargo on Chile a year after coming into office: Source.

for destroying the mining communities (only half true, and she had little option other than continuing to throw money at a failing industry),

I agree, half true.

for deregulating the banks (true, but nearly 20 years of mostly Labour government after her did nothing to reverse it before it actually caused problems, and then those problems started in the US not the UK),

New labour's incompetence does not absolve her.

for supporting apartheid (not true),

She called Mandela a terrorist. Many people have also pointed out her reluctance to impose sanctions on SA, http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/briti ... ent?page=5

for invading Argentina (not true)

She did revel in the sinking of the Belgrano, while it was sailing away from the exclusion zone and then lied about which direction it was heading in.

and for being the devil incarnate (not true, though I admit I have no proof )

Lol

Additional reasons she was a bitch

Supporting Pol Pot
Being the only European leader to oppose a ban on ivory trade
Hatred for the weak, and the morally conscious (including feminists)
More than doubling unemployment.
Section 28- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28
Supporting capital punishment
"Shoot-to-kill" policy in Ireland.
Increasing societal division
Opposing minimum wage
Making drastic education cuts- see comments in parliament today by Glenda Jackson
Al-Yamamah arms deal- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal
"There is no such thing as society"
Opposed reunification of Germany
Having too many faults to list in a reasonable period of time

St Peter:
"We have a Margaret Thatcher outside, demanding entry."

God:
"Tell her we just can't afford any more immigrants."

[gordon1975]

hated her,most Scots do(testing us on poll tax etc) but suffering from dementia for the past decade and having to be reminded her husbands dead on a daily basis is punishment enough for most,sad end really for anyone

[puppydog85]

hmm, too lazy to look it up, but what was the name of the guy who called her a "tin woman" and why? The father-in-law went to school in Belfast and mentioned it some time ago.