So how do you feel about Margaret Thatcher's death

[Frission]

Ugh. You just have to look at R&P to see some of the reactions.

Some of the exclamations really crosses the boundary of good taste and humanity.

I remember that someone posted something along the lines of "One of the greatest criticisms of Ms. Thatcher was her lack of empathy, and as her critics it behooves us to act decently" or something like that.

 

[Hazy992]

I'm not going to celebrate somebody dying but I sure as hell won't mourn. Margaret Thatcher was a vile woman who's negative effects are still being felt to this day and caused suffering to millions.

 

[Storm Dragon]

Oh and she called Nelson Mandela a terrorist once.

Wait.....she did what now........

why............

Well he led an organisation in an armed struggle against the government of South African which involved quite a large bombing campaign. At the time she wanted to work with the group in power to change the regime through peaceful methods, whereas Mandela thought more extreme measures were needed. In the end up Mandela seems to have been right and the Conservative party later went on to declare she was wrong to call him and his group terrorists. At least that's my understanding of it.

Umm... That sounds more or less like terrorist activity to me. Or are we going with the definition of "terrorist" that excludes all allies and anyone else that the speaker doesn't want to look bad?

 

[uchytjes]

I actually had to google who this was. Thank you, American education system!

In all seriousness, I don't really care that much. I won't celebrate a person's death, but from what I can tell from wikipedia, she was a kind of person I'd at least dislike and at the worst want to overthrow the government due to.

 

[Barciad]

I am an Englishman born a couple of years after her accession to power. Only the most fleeting of memories involve her and what she did. One of my earliest vivid memories was her final fall at the end of 1990. Thus everything I know about her, I have had to have read. Also, I come from that blessed belt that surrounds London. Thus, whilst the rest of Britain began to sink, we stayed prosperous.
Thus, I have never truly experienced Thatcherism and its ill effects. Yet, the region in which I come from is not somewhere that I wish to return to willingly. Sure, it might be rich, with many large houses, expensive cars, not to mention a spectacular countryside. However, the people that inhabit the region are spoiled and spiteful to a tee. They have grown rich whilst the rest of the country burned.
They believe that their riches are their natural right because it is they that are the chosen ones. Those that fall ill, those that are poor, those that have not enjoyed their privileges. It must all somehow be their fault. Thatcher's children are as odious a bunch as any person you may run into. When the basic of your ideology is 'Greed is good', then some part of the soul is missing I am afraid.
Britain once had a society. We once cared for our fellow man. We used to see things such as generosity, pity and compassion as virtues. Not any more I am afraid. Everyone, especially the poor, the sick, the disabled, those that look 'foreign'. They must all be punished. What a wreck of a country we have become.

 

[beastro]

Typical responses from those born during and after her term who didn't experience what came before her.

The never ending curse of youth.

 

[zehydra]

I'm American.

My thoughts are...

"Oh, I thought she was already dead"

So no impact for me, really.

 

[YingDerpington]

Well as sad as it is that a person died, well I don't think anyone apart from the rich upper class of Britain will mourn her. I imagine the rest of us (UK and Australia to an extent) will either be celebrating or not caring for the vile old shrew. Studying history told me enough about the old hag that she certainly wasn't a very good person

 

[vallorn]

I see Margaret Thatcher is a very unpopular person.

Less unpopular more controversial. Once you understand The Escapist is mostly populated by left leaning types politically then it kinda makes sense because she shattered the socialist death spiral in the UK (And before I get lambasted that was a rhetorical flourish)

Thatcher rescued the overall British economy from having its lights turned off at the whims of trade union bosses and led the country through the end of the cold war. She also forced the Labour Party to give up trying to impose full blooded socialism and move to a more corporatist "We don't care what you do big company A give us your juicy taxes" approach.

However at the same time she broke the heavily subsidies British manufacturing industry and turned the north of the country into an economic desert from which it still has yet to recover, she cut benefits, grammar schools and raised unpopular taxes like the stupid Poll Tax.

So in the end, people's opinions of her tend to fall into the same categories as people's enjoyment of Marmite. You love her or you despise her.

I wont say my position to keep this reasonably objective but that's basically why she is loved and / or reviled in Britain today.

EDIT: because regions play a large role in this. I'm an emigrant from Hampshire in Britain and my boyfriend lives in Glasgow. So I do try to see both sides of her. They aren't irreconcilable from what Ive found.

 

[The Selkie]

Umm... That sounds more or less like terrorist activity to me. Or are we going with the definition of "terrorist" that excludes all allies and anyone else that the speaker doesn't want to look bad?

Yep, he is by definition probably a terrorist, but once you give someone a Nobel Peace prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and just about every other award under the sun, people get touchy when you actually use the word terrorist. In his defence the government he was launching a bombing campaign against was corrupt and incredibly racist.

 

[vallorn]

For the Americans here I would like to present the Telegraph's list of how various papers in blighty covered her death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9980529/Margaret-Thatcher-how-the-papers-covered-her-death.html

For brits. I know its a center right paper but it provides a pretty objective summary on the papers and includes the left wing and far left papers on this article so it should be pretty good overall.

 

[putowtin]

All I can think of is:


Funnily enough if you go to that video there's a whole bunch of Maggie tributes being posted.

This,

I can't describe how much she affected those around me when I was a kid, but where I lived we saw the closure of four mines, 98% of my friends dads lost their jobs, families were being split up as people moved on looking for work, there were dozens of divorces and a couple of guys even took their lives because they were unable to cope.

That was how Maggie and the Conservatives affected communities. Did the mines have to go? Maybe, did they have to do it in the way they did? No.

 

[Seneschal]

What really surprised me is how my mother felt sorry that "the iron lady" died. She had no idea about the whole hard-conservative, anti-syndicalist, anti-welfare thing, only Thatcher's positive reputation made it all the way here. I wonder how - at her time, my country was part of socialist Yugoslavia, you'd think they'd show a less flattering (and maybe more even-handed) side of her in the media. Nope, all everyone knows about her over here is "ooh, she's that hard-ass iron lady", as if she led the country through martial arts or something.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Sorry to maybe sound disrespectful, or even ignorant, but I wasn't aware she was even still alive up until a day or so ago.

 

[sb666]

For the Americans out there: she was essentially the female version of Ronald Reagan. A heartless old person who caused suffering to many people.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I disagree with almost all of her stuff, but that doesn't mean that I don't respect what she did, even if I don't like it.
But C'mon guys, show a little class. You don't have to celebrate that she's dead.

 

[Ironside]

I see Margaret Thatcher is a very unpopular person.

Not really, only people who consider themselves left wing dont like her, because they seem to think living in a failed state would have been preferrable to what she did.

 

[Barciad]

Typical responses from those born during and after her term who didn't experience what came before her.

The never ending curse of youth.

True, there were problems, but the 'cure' created even greater problems.
Instead of outdated manufacturing methods and too many union leaders drunk on their own power you have the following:-

Over powerful bosses
Over powerful landlords
Over powerful financiers
Out of control journalists
Corrupt and out of touch politicians

In other words, we have, as Peter Oborne remarked 'a feral elite' which shats daily on us normal people. Plus, you might also remember this little 'financial crisis' that we've been having of late. De-regulate the banks, she said, what could possibly go wrong? Jesus wept.