RIP Margaret Thatcher

That's entertainment.

Very polarizing figure in my house. My old man, a hardcore Scottish Labour man, only felt she was worthy when she was sending the ships to the Falklands. He thought it was too bad they couldn't have picked up a fucking layabout like me to put me to work for once. (I was 16, 17 at the time.)

 

As has been pointed out elsewhere, there's a degree of irony that she worked so hard to preserve the Union with Northern Ireland but is also a huge part of the underlying motivation for the Scottish independence referendum.

 

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the last two Labour Party heads, made absolutely no attempt to rollback the Thatcherite economic legacy. So her impact was enormous.

Wierdly, though, she's like Jim Callaghan, the Prime Minister who presided over the "Winter of Discontent" in 1979 (strikes, strikes and more strikes.) He also faded away from the public scene long before his death, and like him, I don't see her actual death as causing any great ruckus.

 

Also: not great on apartheid. And supported Pinochet.

 

"Let's privatise her funeral. Put it out to competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. It's what she would have wanted." -- Ken Loach

 

Her two memoirs are recommended reading for political junkies on either side of the pond.

 

Amen.

Stand down, Margaret.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/04/08/margaret_thatcher_vs_pop_culture.html

 

Anybody who'd quibble with the use of "polarizing" to describe Thatcher is either clueless or just looking for a fight. If that word ever fit anyone, it's her. Deskslave nailed it in his first post at the start of this thread, Brits either loved or loathed her, with extraordinarily few in the middle.

 

Count Morrissey among those not broken up by this. I believe "Margaret on the guillotine" was in the Smiths' catalogue.

 

I'll take "What does Scotland and Texas have in common" for $500, Alex.

 

Who will make up the US delegation at her funeral?

Would Obama go?

 

Poor infrastructure and inflated sense of importance?