Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

[leclerc]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Let me give an opinion and I was 5 years old when she became prime minister and was 16ish when she finally left office. She was a very powerful prime minister and clearly I would add I was someone who very much supported her over the opposition, as poor as it was. However, he undoing was the devious way she got the poll tax through parliament. She prolonged an ambulance dispute to get this through and the poll tax was her undoing. Ultimately, she was the first and hopefully not the last female prime minister but she was very anti Europe at a time when I was very pro Europe. She represented the Right of the conservative party, rather than a moderate or centrist.
It is a major event that she is dead but ultimately, he last deeds are remembered more that her first deeds.

There are perhaps some people who will celebrate her death.

[PlanB]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I find the title of this thread unsettling and ghoulish.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Succinctly, she was a pathological liar.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I find the title of this thread unsettling and ghoulish.

Because she didn't melt after water had been thrown over her?

[bluebottle]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I can recall a Poll Tax demonstration in Plymouth when I was with the police. A protester had a placard reading "Maggie. You Rob From The Poor And Give To The Rich. You Stupid Bitch." At the suggestion of a Devon & Cornwall officer, the word "Bitch" was changed to "Witch". Whether the said officer had an opinion about her, I do not know.

[PlanB]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Because she didn't melt after water had been thrown over her?

No. Because of the timing.

[starukkiwi]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

This is from the film director Ken Loach.

Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and destructive Prime Minister of modern times.

Mass Unemployment, factory closures, communities destroyed – this is her legacy. She was a fighter and her enemy was the British working class. Her victories were aided by the politically corrupt leaders of the Labour Party and of many Trades Unions. It is because of policies begun by her that we are in this mess today.

Other prime ministers have followed her path, notably Tony Blair. She was the organ grinder, he was the monkey.

Remember she called Mandela a terrorist and took tea with the torturer and murderer Pinochet.

How should we honour her? Let’s privatise her funeral. Put it out to competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. It’s what she would have wanted.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I can recall a Poll Tax demonstration in Plymouth when I was with the police. A protester had a placard reading "Maggie. You Rob From The Poor And Give To The Rich. You Stupid Bitch." At the suggestion of a Devon & Cornwall officer, the word "Bitch" was changed to "Witch". Whether the said officer had an opinion about her, I do not know.

He may just have liked dogs.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

No. Because of the timing.

When, then, should one celebrate the fact that she has finally died?

[starukkiwi]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I can assure you that no miner drank or smoked before feeding their family or paying their bills. Or those that did would have done it before the Stike too and probably weren't on strike. The day I mentioned in Nottingham? I was there. I went home to see the news. I have never believed a word of the news since that day. It scares me that we don't know enough about how our country is really run. Maggie may have believed what she did was right. I actually sort of hope she did, because it was probably all she was left with in the end. As Cleverclogs observed - so did Stalin. So did Hitler.

But just to emphasise, I did not blame the police any more than I blamed the miners. In fact there is quite a lot of evidence that more than a few of those people in police uniforms were not police officers at all. But we know that police officers aren't all perfect either. Nor is anyone else. Scargill made fundamental errors of judgement, if not of belief. But we still live with the legacy of Thatcher - it is alive and well in the current government, but they are, despite opinion to the contrary, much cleverer. She laid a foundation of callous government which, now, ordinary people vote for. As a society we are far more selfish and far more concerned about what we get for ourselves and the devil take the hindmost. Now the government can steal from the poorest with the consent of the people.

I agree; the police were bussed all over the country, they couldn't police in their own community - I was at a picket line when the Met pulled up - waving £5 notes - it was the destruction and decimation of communities - they closed the mines down, but did nothing to support retraining or to build other local industry. I do recall sending food parcels (I had just arrived from NZ in 1979 and it snowed on election day). I also recall her authorising the US Bombers to bomb Libya (I went to Greenham Common - those women were an inspiration to a young Trade Unionist).

For those who were not there Orgreave Reaction

and another perspective on public figures http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette

[seduraed]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I am old enough to remember the poll tax riots , the miners strikes andthe winter of discontent . I have to say that of all the policies that she intoducedthere were a few goodthings . The main one was the bringing of global warming into the political adgenda. I dont know if this makes up for the destruction she wrought on the british economy . I loathed her arrogance and her petty hatred of ordinary people and those who did not share her ambition. Ido know that although dead her legacy will live on . "The evil men do lives after them the good is too often interred with their bones . " To misquote shakespeare.

I just hope that her memory can be kept alive and her actions used as a terrible lesson to the future as to how badly wrongpolitics in this country cango .

[CleverClogs]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Privatise her funeral? link

[gravytrain]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

So is Melanie Boswell. By all accounts she is somebody's grandmother. So is Maraid Phillpott somebodies mother, wife and daughter. Onbviously none of these things are qualifying factors in being a decent human being.

I think you miss the point.

You may not wish to mourn here passing, but she will have people who do.

I am sure we all have lost someone we care about an know how it feels, if you cannot respect her, then you should respect the feelings of those who are suffered her loss.

They don't deserve to go through this abuse at this difficult time.

CC. It is not enough to say that none of the people effected may read this thread, just because the person or group of people you are abusing are not present.

[gravytrain]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I take it some people didnt like her then?

Well quite, but not all the time, she didn't force her way into power, she wasn't a dictator

She got 40% of the vote in 79( and was at the Top for 11 years.) we put her there.

But this is for another thread, perhaps a discussion of her life and times , and a sensible reasoned discussion, not this unpleasant celebration of an old ladies death.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

So is Melanie Boswell. By all accounts she is somebody's grandmother. So is Maraid Phillpott somebodies mother, wife and daughter. Onbviously none of these things are qualifying factors in being a decent human being.

With all of these people I have never once said Altzheimers is too good for them.

I hope the Philpot couple rot in jail, as terrified as the kiddies they killed, I hope Boswell never finds another job and is found unsuiitable for benefits, but for the sake of their families I sincerely hope they NEVER have to face Altzheimers.

Altzheimers dehumanizes people, if that is a word.

My own beloved Granddaddy had it, and I can remember him calling my mum Kathleen (his sister) and me Beth (my mum). I can remember the hours Gran spent sewing labels in the back of his jackets with his name and address because he would leave the house and go to work, 20 years after the factory shut.

Until you actually sit and watch someone go through it, you have no clue as to the horrific changes it puts a person through. While I hope with every fibre some lag beats Phillpot black and blue, for his remaining kids I don't wish the mental torture of altzhiemers on him.

My sister is a domicillary carer who nurses a woman who has it. My sister is 36 and a mum of 3, the woman she nurses is in her 70 and calls D Mam. I see it tearing her up on a daily basis, so yes, this particular comment has hit home hard, sideways and with the full force of a nuclear bomb.. and to read CC's comment of I apologise to her family present?

How about the familys of people living with the monster that is altzhiemers on here.

Possibly the most inhumane, disgraceful thing I have ever read, and from someone I highly respect.

I dont care if you are Maggie Thatcher, Melanie Boswell or Attila the Hun.. nor does Altzhiemers, but IO feel deeply for those who's loved ones have it.. no matter what wrongs the person has done.