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Thatcher dead 12:56 - Apr 8 with 81312 viewssix_foot_two

Skynews are are saying Magaret Thatcher has died of a stroke
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Thatcher dead on 09:14 - Apr 11 with 1757 viewslondonscottish

Thatcher dead on 23:52 - Apr 10 by MkPaul

My god there are some drama queens on here, if she was the devil then she wouldn't have been voted in 3 times some people need to get a grip on reality because the strange world they live in doesn't seem the kind of place I would want to live in

Please please get a grip


Well she was lucky in that through the first two terms she was fighting against a completely divided and ineffective opposition.

Two years into her first term she was massively popular and IMHO only the Falklands War puller her out of that. Inflation was raging, unemployment was soaring, it was ugly.

When she won her second term she won far fewer votes - it was just that Labour were in pieces at the time.

When she cam to office there were 10 Tory MP's in Scotland. When she was done there were ZERO. Poll tax anyone?

In fact the SNP openly credit her for giving them the opportunity to progress their particular brand on unhinged politics. They are even more nuts than she was but the serve as a reaction to the contempt that she showed to the Scottish people.

Yes she did a lot of good things - but by Christ did she make people hate her as a person. I respect some pf the things, totally disagree with others she did but loathe the way she went about things.

Poll: Do you love or hate the new Marmite ad?

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Thatcher dead on 09:23 - Apr 11 with 1745 viewsnadera78

Thatcher dead on 03:26 - Apr 11 by jonno

Total rubbish. Certainly in the case of gas/electricity suppliers. You are thinking of the railways.


www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2301903/Fears-grow-mounting-cost-nuclear-deal-energy-giant-EDF.html

They'll get profits guaranteed by government. In other words taxpayers.
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Thatcher dead on 09:31 - Apr 11 with 1733 viewsnadera78

Thatcher dead on 09:03 - Apr 11 by hoopstilidie

For all those who hark back to the halcyon days of Labour government that preceded the Thatcher years:

"When Labour was elected in 1974 its manifesto promised, 'It is our intention to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families.'
In fact the 1974-9 government imposed the greatest attacks on working class living standards since the hungry years of the 1930s.

Housing - by 1978 fewer council houses were being built than in any year since the Second World War.

Health - 25,000 hospital beds went in the first two years of the Labour government.

Education - teachers suffered large scale redundancies for the first time in living memory.

Prices - doubled between February 1974 and December 1978.

Jobs - 1,000 a day went in Labour's first three years. Unemployment was 500,000 in 1974. It reached 1.6 million in 1976.

Wages - a family of four on average earnings was worse off in 1979 than in 1974. Behind those cold statistics lay the shattered lives of millions of working people."

Source: "The Socialist Worker", 26 January 2002.


Housing - fewer built than since the war is still better than selling them all off and not replacing them.

Health - compared to how many lost in the 1980's? And now we're faced with no A&E unit at Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Central Mid and Ealing. Over a million people with no local A&E.

Education - Classrooms with too many children, kids sharing books, schools with outside toilets. That was in 1997 ffs!

Jobs - Unemployment was 1million in 1979. Thatcher took that to the previously unimaginable 3million.

btw growth in the 70's (the decade regarded as most disastrous) was 2.4%. Growth in the 80's (when Thatcher saved us from the shackles of government and unions) was 2.4%.

And the Socialist Worker as a source? They hate Labour even more than the Tories.

There are many brickbats you can throw at the late 70's Labour gov't, most of them true, but the Thatcher gov't is even worse by comparison. Unless you were given something for nothing by her gov't and asked to turn a blind eye to what they did elsewhere. I'm all right Jack!
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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Thatcher dead on 09:37 - Apr 11 with 1722 viewsBedford_R

Thatcher dead on 09:03 - Apr 11 by hoopstilidie

For all those who hark back to the halcyon days of Labour government that preceded the Thatcher years:

"When Labour was elected in 1974 its manifesto promised, 'It is our intention to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families.'
In fact the 1974-9 government imposed the greatest attacks on working class living standards since the hungry years of the 1930s.

Housing - by 1978 fewer council houses were being built than in any year since the Second World War.

Health - 25,000 hospital beds went in the first two years of the Labour government.

Education - teachers suffered large scale redundancies for the first time in living memory.

Prices - doubled between February 1974 and December 1978.

Jobs - 1,000 a day went in Labour's first three years. Unemployment was 500,000 in 1974. It reached 1.6 million in 1976.

Wages - a family of four on average earnings was worse off in 1979 than in 1974. Behind those cold statistics lay the shattered lives of millions of working people."

Source: "The Socialist Worker", 26 January 2002.


Does any of that make Thatcher less of a bitch? Thought not....

RMH_R Reborn

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Thatcher dead on 09:44 - Apr 11 with 1714 viewshoopstilidie

Thatcher dead on 09:37 - Apr 11 by Bedford_R

Does any of that make Thatcher less of a bitch? Thought not....


In your opinion? I guess not.

Other's vary.

I like life like that.

Facts are facts though.

I grew up in the 70s, it was horrendous.

Ringo Starr ate my hamper.
Poll: Yes or no?

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Thatcher dead on 10:12 - Apr 11 with 1689 viewsTheBlob

Thatcher dead on 08:54 - Apr 11 by R_from_afar

I double checked my facts, from a paper by the Rocky Mountain Institute, and on average, it's two days per month. When New York suffered those power cuts in 2003, working nuclear plants - nine, from memory - had to be taken offline and it took 12 days to get them back up and running. A close friend worked in the UK nuclear industry and led a project covering safety instrumentation for one of the UK's plants. The plant was down for at least weeks, as I recall, which is why there were punitive clauses for late completion of the project running into thousands of pounds per day.

RFA


Were those reactors water or gas cooled?Big difference.

Poll: So how was the season for you?

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Thatcher dead on 12:15 - Apr 11 with 1617 viewsElHoop

This was quite funny, back in the day:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonanamary/231354631/
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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Thatcher dead on 12:24 - Apr 11 with 1597 viewsClive_Anderson

Thatcher dead on 07:29 - Apr 11 by hoopstilidie

The rich/poor divide widened under the last Labour government.

That's a fact.


Actually the poor got better off during Thatcher's time, just not as quickly as the rich. That's why the focus changed to inequality, as they didn't want to admit the poor were actually doing ok too.

A lot blame Thatcher for selling off all the council housing, but it had been happening for decades beforehand. In fact the idea of selling them off was in Labour's 1959 manifesto.

The sell off was fastest under Blair and they also built far fewer council houses than Thatcher whilst presiding over the largest housing bubble in history, so I think they've got a take a share of the blame too.
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Thatcher dead on 12:32 - Apr 11 with 1585 viewsTacticalR

ElHoop, could you reduce the size of that map jpeg? (By at least 50%). It's made this page of the thread much harder to read.

Air hostess clique

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Thatcher dead on 12:33 - Apr 11 with 1577 viewsElHoop

Thatcher dead on 12:32 - Apr 11 by TacticalR

ElHoop, could you reduce the size of that map jpeg? (By at least 50%). It's made this page of the thread much harder to read.


Ok sorry. Will do. It's hard to read the map without making it big, but i see what you mean.
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Thatcher dead on 13:24 - Apr 11 with 1535 viewsTacticalR

Thatcher dead on 09:44 - Apr 11 by hoopstilidie

In your opinion? I guess not.

Other's vary.

I like life like that.

Facts are facts though.

I grew up in the 70s, it was horrendous.


I guess the facts don't always lead us to the same conclusions.

I also grew up in the 70s, and yes it was horrendous. That's one reason I find 70s nostalgia so bizarre. One thing I remember particularly well from the mid-70s was one of my teachers telling me that unemployment was a temporary phenomenon which would soon disappear. Because he had grown up in an era of full employment (relatively speaking), he was completely unprepared for what was happening in front of his eyes and had no inkling that unemployment was going to become a permanent feature of British society. (It wasn't just him of course, Margaret Thatcher said in 1977: 'We'd have been drummed out of office if we'd have had this level of unemployment', when unemployment was 1.5 million).

What I have concluded from the long list of failings of the Labour Party in the 70s that you provided, was that these failings were a product of the decline of Britain in particular combined with general problems of the world economy (illustrated by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971). The militancy of the workers was simply a response to the rapid decline in living standards brought about by high inflation (which afflicted the entire western world). I haven't been able to find the original quote, but I read somewhere in the 1970s more strike days were lost in Switzerland per capita than in Britain. So I attribute Labour's problems in the 1970s to structural problems with the capitalist economy. Those problems weren't amenable to Labour's past solutions, and led to the abandonment of Keynesianism. (By the way, I think that your jabs at Labour for closing mines in this thread show that any capitalist party would have behaved in roughly the same way). Labour, through its intimate connections with trade union officialdom had often been able to get the workforce to accept job losses and reduced living standards. In the 1970s the militancy of the workforce showed that trade union officialdom was no longer able to exert the same controlling influence that it had done in the past, and therefore was of no further use to the British establishment (no more 'Beer and sandwiches at Number 10'). Instead, much more confrontational methods were needed to smash the most militant sections of the workforce (although Thatcher did proceed very cautiously at first). In my opinion that explains 'Thatcherism' more convincingly than the individual psychology of a particular leader of the Conservative Party.

Air hostess clique

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Thatcher dead on 13:47 - Apr 11 with 1505 viewsMkPaul

Thatcher dead on 09:14 - Apr 11 by londonscottish

Well she was lucky in that through the first two terms she was fighting against a completely divided and ineffective opposition.

Two years into her first term she was massively popular and IMHO only the Falklands War puller her out of that. Inflation was raging, unemployment was soaring, it was ugly.

When she won her second term she won far fewer votes - it was just that Labour were in pieces at the time.

When she cam to office there were 10 Tory MP's in Scotland. When she was done there were ZERO. Poll tax anyone?

In fact the SNP openly credit her for giving them the opportunity to progress their particular brand on unhinged politics. They are even more nuts than she was but the serve as a reaction to the contempt that she showed to the Scottish people.

Yes she did a lot of good things - but by Christ did she make people hate her as a person. I respect some pf the things, totally disagree with others she did but loathe the way she went about things.


I have never agreed with everything anyone does and also agree there was good and bad in what she did, what I can't get my head around is people going as far as celebrating someone's death, it just feels wrong to me... Probably excluding the likes of hitler etc

In principle was the poll tax such a bad thing in so much as if there are 10 adults living in a house using all the services etc why shouldn't they pay more than 2 people living in a house using the same services etc? Some of the issues with the poll tax as I remember them was caused by the way councils used it to score points and generate more income than before... But time may have clouded my memory

In some stuff posted earlier on here I seem to remember that the numbers that voted for her did not change that dramatically between all three terms and were no worse than most of the governments we have had since.

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Thatcher dead on 13:47 - Apr 11 with 1503 viewsjonno

Thatcher dead on 09:23 - Apr 11 by nadera78

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2301903/Fears-grow-mounting-cost-nuclear-deal-energy-giant-EDF.html

They'll get profits guaranteed by government. In other words taxpayers.


Errr.....EDF are a commercial company (in fact they are state owned by the French). Do you expect them to build the nuclear power stations we need for nothing? The fact is that successive governments in this country have neglected to update existing power stations, and now they are mostly coming to the end of their lives and need replacing. The UK's largest energy supplier (Centrica) was going to be involved with EDF in building the new power stations but have now pulled out. Why do think that is? Because the Govt expected them to pay the full cost - after failing themselves to invest for many years.
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Thatcher dead on 13:48 - Apr 11 with 1496 viewsTheBlob

Thatcher dead on 13:24 - Apr 11 by TacticalR

I guess the facts don't always lead us to the same conclusions.

I also grew up in the 70s, and yes it was horrendous. That's one reason I find 70s nostalgia so bizarre. One thing I remember particularly well from the mid-70s was one of my teachers telling me that unemployment was a temporary phenomenon which would soon disappear. Because he had grown up in an era of full employment (relatively speaking), he was completely unprepared for what was happening in front of his eyes and had no inkling that unemployment was going to become a permanent feature of British society. (It wasn't just him of course, Margaret Thatcher said in 1977: 'We'd have been drummed out of office if we'd have had this level of unemployment', when unemployment was 1.5 million).

What I have concluded from the long list of failings of the Labour Party in the 70s that you provided, was that these failings were a product of the decline of Britain in particular combined with general problems of the world economy (illustrated by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971). The militancy of the workers was simply a response to the rapid decline in living standards brought about by high inflation (which afflicted the entire western world). I haven't been able to find the original quote, but I read somewhere in the 1970s more strike days were lost in Switzerland per capita than in Britain. So I attribute Labour's problems in the 1970s to structural problems with the capitalist economy. Those problems weren't amenable to Labour's past solutions, and led to the abandonment of Keynesianism. (By the way, I think that your jabs at Labour for closing mines in this thread show that any capitalist party would have behaved in roughly the same way). Labour, through its intimate connections with trade union officialdom had often been able to get the workforce to accept job losses and reduced living standards. In the 1970s the militancy of the workforce showed that trade union officialdom was no longer able to exert the same controlling influence that it had done in the past, and therefore was of no further use to the British establishment (no more 'Beer and sandwiches at Number 10'). Instead, much more confrontational methods were needed to smash the most militant sections of the workforce (although Thatcher did proceed very cautiously at first). In my opinion that explains 'Thatcherism' more convincingly than the individual psychology of a particular leader of the Conservative Party.


The seventies were great.Well,until Punk came in and that whole world of petty jealousy.You could have a surprising amount of fun on very little dosh.But even then there were always those who preferred siiting around with their thumbs up their arses spouting political and economic theory - always sounded like they were reading from a prepared statement.


Poll: So how was the season for you?

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Thatcher dead on 13:55 - Apr 11 with 1479 viewsMetallica_Hoop

Reading this thread is better than any A-level politics lesson I ever attended.

I now know 3xmore about Nuclear fusion than I did before too

PS 1970-76 was great for Heavy Rock, maybe not so for Heavy industry.

Beer and Beef has made us what we are - The Prince Regent

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Thatcher dead on 13:56 - Apr 11 with 1478 viewsCliff

Thatcher dead on 12:24 - Apr 11 by Clive_Anderson

Actually the poor got better off during Thatcher's time, just not as quickly as the rich. That's why the focus changed to inequality, as they didn't want to admit the poor were actually doing ok too.

A lot blame Thatcher for selling off all the council housing, but it had been happening for decades beforehand. In fact the idea of selling them off was in Labour's 1959 manifesto.

The sell off was fastest under Blair and they also built far fewer council houses than Thatcher whilst presiding over the largest housing bubble in history, so I think they've got a take a share of the blame too.


From the link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/datablog/2013/apr/08/britain-changed-margaret

There are links to the raw data if you want.

The text accompanying the last two graphs reads:

"Poverty went up under Thatcher, according to these figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. In 1979, 13.4% of the population lived below 60% of median incomes before housing costs. By 1990, it had gone up to 22.2%, or 12.2m people, with huge rises in the mid-1980s.

With it came a huge rise in inequality. This shows the gini coefficient, which is the most common method of measuring inequality. Under gini, a score of one would be a completely unequal society; zero would be completely equal. Britain's gini score went up from 0.253 to 0.339 by the time Thatcher resigned."
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Thatcher dead on 13:56 - Apr 11 with 1478 viewsQPR_John

Thatcher dead on 13:47 - Apr 11 by MkPaul

I have never agreed with everything anyone does and also agree there was good and bad in what she did, what I can't get my head around is people going as far as celebrating someone's death, it just feels wrong to me... Probably excluding the likes of hitler etc

In principle was the poll tax such a bad thing in so much as if there are 10 adults living in a house using all the services etc why shouldn't they pay more than 2 people living in a house using the same services etc? Some of the issues with the poll tax as I remember them was caused by the way councils used it to score points and generate more income than before... But time may have clouded my memory

In some stuff posted earlier on here I seem to remember that the numbers that voted for her did not change that dramatically between all three terms and were no worse than most of the governments we have had since.



Always wondered about the poll tax myself. It seems the concept of paying for council services on the basis of the market value of the house as a policy is at least no better (fairer) than asking each individual to pay a share. Clearly there must be more to it than that, there's never been a rates riot, so if somebody could explain.
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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Thatcher dead on 13:57 - Apr 11 with 1471 viewsNW5Hoop

Thatcher dead on 13:47 - Apr 11 by jonno

Errr.....EDF are a commercial company (in fact they are state owned by the French). Do you expect them to build the nuclear power stations we need for nothing? The fact is that successive governments in this country have neglected to update existing power stations, and now they are mostly coming to the end of their lives and need replacing. The UK's largest energy supplier (Centrica) was going to be involved with EDF in building the new power stations but have now pulled out. Why do think that is? Because the Govt expected them to pay the full cost - after failing themselves to invest for many years.


The reason successive governments have failed to build new power stations is that … the electricity industry was privatised under the 1989 Electricity Act. So it became the privatised companies' responsibility to upgrade the electricity generation. But guess what? None of the private companies wanted to indulge in that kind of capital outlay — until they got guarantees from the government that it wouldn't cost them any profits.

Why the f*ck shouldn't private companies pay the full cost of their own facilities?
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Thatcher dead on 14:03 - Apr 11 with 1459 viewsjonno

Thatcher dead on 13:56 - Apr 11 by QPR_John

Always wondered about the poll tax myself. It seems the concept of paying for council services on the basis of the market value of the house as a policy is at least no better (fairer) than asking each individual to pay a share. Clearly there must be more to it than that, there's never been a rates riot, so if somebody could explain.
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]


I never saw what was wrong with the poll tax myself - it seemed eminently fair in that everybody paid their share. Those people protesting against it were generally the same people that don't pay rates - and probably don't pay their council tax now - it seemed to me. Rent-a-mob with a dog on piece of string types. I'm willing to be corrected though, as I don't know the full SP on the poll tax admittedly.
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Thatcher dead on 14:03 - Apr 11 with 1457 viewsTheBlob

Thatcher dead on 13:55 - Apr 11 by Metallica_Hoop

Reading this thread is better than any A-level politics lesson I ever attended.

I now know 3xmore about Nuclear fusion than I did before too

PS 1970-76 was great for Heavy Rock, maybe not so for Heavy industry.


We could turn this into a rock thread Met,but it wouldn't be appreciated.


Poll: So how was the season for you?

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Thatcher dead on 14:04 - Apr 11 with 1453 viewsMetallica_Hoop

Thatcher dead on 14:03 - Apr 11 by TheBlob

We could turn this into a rock thread Met,but it wouldn't be appreciated.



No best not Blob

Or a 'Fusion' one

Beer and Beef has made us what we are - The Prince Regent

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Thatcher dead on 14:09 - Apr 11 with 1444 viewsCliff

Thatcher dead on 13:47 - Apr 11 by MkPaul

I have never agreed with everything anyone does and also agree there was good and bad in what she did, what I can't get my head around is people going as far as celebrating someone's death, it just feels wrong to me... Probably excluding the likes of hitler etc

In principle was the poll tax such a bad thing in so much as if there are 10 adults living in a house using all the services etc why shouldn't they pay more than 2 people living in a house using the same services etc? Some of the issues with the poll tax as I remember them was caused by the way councils used it to score points and generate more income than before... But time may have clouded my memory

In some stuff posted earlier on here I seem to remember that the numbers that voted for her did not change that dramatically between all three terms and were no worse than most of the governments we have had since.



I would just like to start of by saying that this post is NOT comparing Thatcher to Hitler, it is replying to a post that mentioned Hitler and is expanding on the idea that was used to illustrate.

MkPaul in you post you suggested you could understand (probably) celebrating the death of someone like Hitler but not Thatcher. My point is, if you are against celebrating any death then I have some sympathy for not understanding why people are celebrating the death of Thatcher. If however, you can see why some would celebrate some deaths, even if for you it would only be in extreme cases, then it suggests that it's not the celebration of death per se that you disagree with, but whether Thatcher deserves to dishonoured in this way.

In other words it's just down to where you draw your line in the sand. For me and an awful lot of others, both on and off this forum, Thatcher is over that line, fir you she's not - that is the only difference.
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Thatcher dead on 14:16 - Apr 11 with 1427 viewsQPR_John

Thatcher dead on 14:09 - Apr 11 by Cliff

I would just like to start of by saying that this post is NOT comparing Thatcher to Hitler, it is replying to a post that mentioned Hitler and is expanding on the idea that was used to illustrate.

MkPaul in you post you suggested you could understand (probably) celebrating the death of someone like Hitler but not Thatcher. My point is, if you are against celebrating any death then I have some sympathy for not understanding why people are celebrating the death of Thatcher. If however, you can see why some would celebrate some deaths, even if for you it would only be in extreme cases, then it suggests that it's not the celebration of death per se that you disagree with, but whether Thatcher deserves to dishonoured in this way.

In other words it's just down to where you draw your line in the sand. For me and an awful lot of others, both on and off this forum, Thatcher is over that line, fir you she's not - that is the only difference.


You start by saying you are not comparing Thatcher to Hitler but then in reality do so in the fact that the line you draw groups Thatcher and Hitler. Clearly you do not think Thatcher is a bad as Hitler and I accept that but nevertheless you have accepted there is a group in your eyes that does contain both.
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Thatcher dead on 14:20 - Apr 11 with 1419 viewsMkPaul

Thatcher dead on 14:09 - Apr 11 by Cliff

I would just like to start of by saying that this post is NOT comparing Thatcher to Hitler, it is replying to a post that mentioned Hitler and is expanding on the idea that was used to illustrate.

MkPaul in you post you suggested you could understand (probably) celebrating the death of someone like Hitler but not Thatcher. My point is, if you are against celebrating any death then I have some sympathy for not understanding why people are celebrating the death of Thatcher. If however, you can see why some would celebrate some deaths, even if for you it would only be in extreme cases, then it suggests that it's not the celebration of death per se that you disagree with, but whether Thatcher deserves to dishonoured in this way.

In other words it's just down to where you draw your line in the sand. For me and an awful lot of others, both on and off this forum, Thatcher is over that line, fir you she's not - that is the only difference.


Fair point ... But the reason I say Hitler etc is the killing of millions of people rather than having political views or introducing changes that you don't agree with ... Therefore I think the line for celebrating the death of my nan for example is far closer to the line for celebrating MT's death that the difference between MT and Hitler? That's why I can not understand it
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Thatcher dead on 14:20 - Apr 11 with 1419 viewsMkPaul

Thatcher dead on 14:09 - Apr 11 by Cliff

I would just like to start of by saying that this post is NOT comparing Thatcher to Hitler, it is replying to a post that mentioned Hitler and is expanding on the idea that was used to illustrate.

MkPaul in you post you suggested you could understand (probably) celebrating the death of someone like Hitler but not Thatcher. My point is, if you are against celebrating any death then I have some sympathy for not understanding why people are celebrating the death of Thatcher. If however, you can see why some would celebrate some deaths, even if for you it would only be in extreme cases, then it suggests that it's not the celebration of death per se that you disagree with, but whether Thatcher deserves to dishonoured in this way.

In other words it's just down to where you draw your line in the sand. For me and an awful lot of others, both on and off this forum, Thatcher is over that line, fir you she's not - that is the only difference.


Wasn't good enough to post twice
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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