Thatcher has died

Goodness - I'd forgotten about Pinochet - just shows the amount of evil she is connected with that I forgot that! I well remember the Belgrano - dd was a year old and when I heard the news I just sobbed in the kitchen as I thought of all the mothers whose sons would never be going home. But hey !! Lets hear it for FIS - another bloody state handout that subsidised low wages!!

I hope you don't mind Ana. My mum and gran are no longer here and I just miss the company,wisdom and the laughs.

Laidback - you are more than welcome here

Bookdreamer - your question certainly made me think hard. I suppose many people would say Churchill was a great PM, but he was a poor strategist and made many mistakes. He was reckless with his own life as a young soldier and later he was reckless with the lives of others. He described the Dardanelles campaign, where half a million men died, as a 'sporting venture'. He seemed to regard war like some kind of public school game. My father called him 'a baby starver' because the allowance for a child was one shilling a week during the depression of the 1930s. Attlee was a good , well meaning man, but probably not tough enough. John Smith may have made a good PM, had he lived.
Perhaps the kind of person who wants to climb to the top of the greasy pole is never going to be very likeable.

And btw Heath introduced FIS not the blessed Margaret and what where you doing Ana having children you couldn't afford to support without state support?

Ooh, bluebell - you really are on form tonight! Did I say Margaret Thatcher introduced FIS?

After my husband and I split up, I continued working to support my children, but on a single wage was entitled to state help, yes. I have never said that parents who choose to work should not receive benefits.

I am perhaps not entirely surprised but saddened by the vitriol and gloating sentiments expressed here and elsewhere at Margaret Thatcher's death. I will not rejoice at the death of any person (no, not even Saddam Hussein) or join in the cat-calling. Whatever your opinion on her politics I think she DID set an example to all women - along with Barbara Castle and Shirley Williams,by showing that intelligence and determination can face down the chauvinism, snobbery and general prejudice of the Tory grandees of the time .

Bluebell I am assuming yur comment to Ana is intended to be ironic, if not, I find it in very poor taste.

I agree, gracesmum.

My last post was in reply to gracesmum's previous post, I hasten to add.

Don't worry - there will be bucketsful of fawning adulation all over the media for some time to come. We are simply expressing our honest opinion - dying does not make a person's misdeeds disappear.

Yes - lots of fawning from the "great and the good" on BBC website - but the vox pop went the other way.

I am not "worried", greatnan and I am not denying the honesty of your opinion, just saying I am unable to rejoice at the death of any human being in the way I have heard expressed in some quarters.

Ooh!I'd forgotten 'We have become a grandmother'!!

I'd like to know where all the money went from North Sea gas and privatisation [where people were allowed to 'buy' what was theres already]. And [I know I rant on about this] I still haven't forgiven her for being involved in cigarette sales to third world countries.

I was quite surprised that the coverage on Radio 4 Pm was quite balanced and didn't just make fawning noises about her. There was a great deal of discussion about how how much she was disliked and even a Tory MP admitted she had become over bearing and had lost touch with the public and her cabinet. Delusions of grandure and immortality! a number of PMs seem to get like that.

Geoffrey Howes resignation speech says a lot. I still remember it it was what finally did for her as PM. When a respected colleague has a go at her like he did, you don't stand a chance.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvyAMjGSoKQ

Does no one remember what Britian was like in the 70s pre Thatcher? The sick man of Europe? Ruled by the Trades Unions? I can quite understand that if you lived and worked in an industrial area of the country and those industries ceased to exist then Margaret Thatcher is evil incarnate but I don't believe that inefficient, unprofitable industries should be subsidised by the tax payer. I guess that's the difference. Does anyone believe that without the Thatcher years, we'd be the industrial country of days of yore? Nationalised car production, railways, telephones etc?

bluebell yes, on form as Ana says but not very impressive form sadly.

And we're now dependant [and have been for many years] on getting our energy from other countries. And have no manufacturing industries to speak of. I understand that China are opening up coal mines all the time. I don't agree with the taxpayer having to subsidise people that actually 'want' to work. And anyone that lived/worked north of Watford in those days counted for nothing.

I was saddened to read the comments. When anyone announces a death of friend or relative you are so supportive and say the right thing and yet today I am hearing people saying they are cheering on the death of an elderly lady, shame on you

But she was not a friend or relative.

You do not know that Greatnan

It's interesting to see that in previous discussions re welfare, large families, etc., those who have previously implied that they are "broadminded" and politically neutral (as opposed to those expressing "narrow" or "closed" views ruled by political ideology), seem to have taken up a distinctly political position in this thread.

34 years too late.

She was not a friend or relative of mine - I thought that meaning was obvious.

Joan - how is the news being treated over there?