Thatcher has died

Well - the first female prime minister so worthy of note.
Sad for her family.
I am off to NZ tonight and will miss the fuss about the (state?) funeral etc etc. Good timing for me I think.

Wish I could have admired her more as the first woman PM of this country but her politics and mine were miles apart.

A lady that lived a long and productive life.

Not a state funeral surely? There have been two state funerals for Prime Ministers – Wellington and Churchill. This woman was so divisive, I should think a state funeral would cause an uproar. Besides, the country can't afford such a pantomime in times of austerity. It needs to save up for the next inevitable state funeral when HM the Q pops her bucket.

I can't pretend to be saddened - I just remember all the men and women who died in the Falklands war.

I think it's always sad when someone dies.

ticktock It would be a pretty overcrowded world if they didn't.

I shall shed no tears for that woman who did so much harm to the country and who set us on the path that has led us to the mess we are in now.

I'm sad in a way. First woman PM and, despite whether you agreed or didn't with her policies, she at least stood up for what she believed in and didn't dilly dally like the rest of them.

If the Tory party and their donors and the Thatcher family want to provide a big funeral, it's up to them, but please - not with my taxes.

I suppose we shall hear about nothing but the Thatcher years now for at least a week.

I would have thought the OP could have managed a "Mrs" in the thread title. Out of simple decency.

Sad news.

Not sure what you mean absent - what has the world being overcrowded got to do with being sad when someone dies, whoever it is?

j08 - it was meant to read like a headline!

Please, no tax-payer funded funeral. I'm sorry to hear she has died. I remember all those hopes pinned on her appointment, but she pulled the ladder up behind her and did little for women, much for herself.

RIP to a courageous lady

I liked her for her attitude towards stay- at-home mums. as illustrated here

I am not exactly heart broken to be honest. The first woman prime minister did not bring the feminine qualities that one had hoped - she was exspecially bellicose over the Falklands at huge cost to life on both sides.

I did not share her politics.

If Baroness Thatcher (let's give the lady her due title) were still P.M. today, she would still be the only real man among the members of both current and shadow cabinets.

And that's supposed to be a compliment?!

Her friends and family will be sad but I am not sad about the death of someone I only knew as a public figure and also I did not like the things she promoted.
As I said I wish I could admire her more for her for her political success as a female. Whilst sticking by your convictions can be a strength sometimes it can be a sign of absolute arrogance and lack of empathy.

"In the course of her life, Mrs Thatcher took on half of the British population and tried to coerce them to her will and she did not succeed. But she was a conviction politician, a sign post not a weather cock; but one that I always felt was pointing the wrong way" - Tony Benn

I agree with Tony!

No love lost here, she started this mess we're in. Now we're going to days if not weeks of television presenters telling us how great she was.

Gally I agree with you. Whatever we might think of her policies we would have to agree that she believed in what she did and stood her ground. Even Roy Hattersley has been nice about her on the radio.

I do think it is time we stopped blaming her for all our ills. It was a long time ago and there has been plenty of time to put it all right again if the political will was there. Recently I was talking to someone who used to work in HR in the NHS and she blamed MT for everything and when I asked what could be done about it now as that was a long time ago she said it was too late to do anything!

The media have had plenty of time to prepare lots of programmes about her and her biography has been written but not to be published until after her death so that will hit the shelves anytime soon. We do all have an off button if we don't want to know about it.

That's a good quotation, nanaej; sums her up well.

And yes, folks, endless TV programmes coming up. Oh deary me.

Its sad for her family but I won't be shedding any tears, I remember being very briefly hopeful when she was first PM but my hopes were almost instantly dashed..