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Thatcher laid to rest with full pomp

31 Comments
By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD and JILL LAWLESS

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31 Comments
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@Lucabarasi - My father was in the army, and I grew up surrounded by khaki and DPM, Land Rovers all over the place. I was NOT a fan of Maggie, as I said above, I didn't agree with her policies for the most part. My views on the Falklands are those of most British people. The 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland started looooong before 1979, and as a child I was always afraid that the IRA would blow him up while he was on patrol. It's my background that created my liking for military ceremonies.

@falsflagsteve - the event cost around £10m... compared to what the City wastes in a day that is a small amount. 65 million people in the UK, which means it cost the tax payer 15p. You can't even buy a bag of crisps for 15p.

5 ( +9 / -4 )

Reading some of the posts above about how piddling 15p is for the taxpayer, I think Thatcherism has succeeded in reducing all arguments to what Ian McKewan called 'monetising'. It's the principle, clear?

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Watched this on the BBC news channel at work... I may not have agreed with all of her policies, but I love a military ceremony, and we do them so well ^_^ Protestors aside, I thought it was also very respectful the way people lined the streets, and it was very moving to see the Royal Marines band playing funeral marches as Maggie's coffin was taken to St Paul's for the service borne on the gun carriage. Not as powerful a ceremony as that for Churchill, but still a fitting send off for a PM who dragged the UK out of the '70s screaming and kicking, but that's a debate for another time ^^

2 ( +8 / -6 )

@Thunderbird

I hear you. My father was air force. No Ulster tour, but hairy times in Yemen.

If they'd buried Thatcher in a quiet, family ceremony, I'd have had nothing to say. But by politicising the funeral, by choosing a style reserved so far only for Nelson, Wellington and Churchill, the establishment have gone too far.

Someone should point it out.

2 ( +8 / -6 )

Although Thatcher possibly did go too far in an ideological crusade on manufacturing, her real goal was to return to the individual self-reliance that she believed had made Britain great but that had been sorely lacking since the end of the war when the country had begun relying too heavily on the state. Even Labour has admitted that they would never have been able to reform employment laws or privatize utilities because of opposition from their activist base the trade unions. But because the Tory Government had made the changes, Blair, Brown etc had the much easier task to listen to the broader public, including the prosperous, aspirational elements of the working class that had gone Conservative by the late 1980's that and to not reverse them. Thatcher did the scary, heavy lifting for all of them. If these mines had never been nationalized they would have gone gracefully before she came to power, areas would not have been so dependent upon failing industries, and the transition to a post industrial economy would have been much smoother than what turned out to be a union-organized exercise in national suicide.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

I ran across this from TIME Magazine Jan 14th 1974:

As Britons bundled up in sweaters inside their chill homes and offices and scurried at night through streets that had been curiously darkened, the country last week shifted to a three-day work week in yet another effort to conserve coal supplies and electrical power. The austerity measure, decreed by Prime Minister Edward Heath last month after Britain's coal miners refused to work overtime pending a new wage settlement, means pay cuts of up to 40% for 15 million British workers, massive unemployment, and sharp curtailments in industrial production.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908370,00.html

I was aware that things were pretty bad until she took office and took on the unions. But to be honest I never knew it was really was that bad in Britain until I read this from 1974 and that the coal miners could just hold the entire country hostage like this whenever they felt like itl before she came on the scene.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Watched this as well. No one can do pomp as well as the British.

But what moved me the most was the message from the Bishop of London, followed by prayers from the various churches.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

For many people who actually remember pre 1980 Britain, Mrs Thatcher was a revolution. Of course the policies she had were harsh, someone will always lose out no matter which direction a government takes, but the unions and laughably weak labour government had lead the country to ruin.

Definitely. It is difficult for anyone who didn't live through it to grasp just how deep were the senses of despair felt by so many in Britain in the 1970's at the powerlessness of government in the face of trade union action, nationalization of industry having failed so miserably and the nation's finances been terribly mismanaged, so quickly and significantly have things changed since then. The greatest single architect of that change of course being Thatcher. Her influence on history cannot be seriously contested.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Hard to discuss these matters truthfully without upsetting those without an open mind. The people in Britain who are posting here supporting this funeral are just what Thatcher wanted. They are sheep who cannot see the orld clearly. Before Thatcher came to power Britain was poorer but political debate was common in oubs and around the dinner table. She followed policies that destroyed peoples individuality and their ability to question. It was also the start of the police state which Blair took much further and the Tories continue to do do so. The sheep think the main arguements against this pomp are cost, it is the principal. You have people in Britain in despair and heading to awful poverty while the elite and many of their fellow Brits don't understand or care. It is all dumbed down, it is 2013 and the gap between rich and poor is many times greater than 1979, so is the national and government debt. No worries though, exam results have improved yearly for the ladt 30 years so Britain is full of Einstein types and a world leader in education.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Whatever people here have to say about Thatcher, bad or good, the fact that millions was spent on British taxpayers money to hold that state funeral whilst the disabled have their benefit lifelines cut, young children cannot find a junior school because the schools have been closed, where patients are dying in hospitals because of staff and budget cuts and not illness, and where whole families are being made homeless because of the recession, is an absolute disgrace. They should have made her multi-millionaire family bury her at their cost, not ours.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Prayers, ceremony, and messages from a Bishop should have had nothing to do with the funeral of a politician who went to war to win an election, who stripped employment from thousands of steelworkers and miners and their families, and whose celebration of the money markets saw her living in a multi-million pound mansion and dying in the Ritz hotel. Families are becoming homeless in triple-dip recession Britain, and we go and spend 10 million on a politicians state funeral.

0 ( +7 / -7 )

Haters gonna hate.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

@TigersTokyoDome

a politician who went to war to win an election,>

She went to war because Argentina invaded a British overseas territory and she wasn't going to abandon British citizens and I support that. The Odds were actually stacked against Britain winning that war.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

'Although Thatcher possibly did go too far'. I Love that 'possibly'. I shudder to think what you regard as simply 'too far'.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

@Ewan

It's not sycophancy. It's worship.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

She went to war because Argentina invaded a British overseas territory and she wasn't going to abandon British citizens and I support that. The Odds were actually stacked against Britain winning that war.

My goodness, you actually believe the Thatcher rhetoric about going to war to defend sovereign territory? So if she cared so much about abandoning British citizens, how come the disfigured and disabled soldiers and sailors after fighting for us in the Falklands were wheeled out of sight and forgotten? It was for an election victory my friend and the way those soldiers and sailors were kept at the back of the memorial service and out of camera shot underlines that fact.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Maybe if she'd really cared about the Falklanders as British citizens she wouldn't have given them second-class citizenship under the 1981 Nationality Act or planned the withdrawal of the last of the Antarctic supply vessels as part of a money-saving scheme when there was a clearly unstable and belligerent state just across the water.

Exactly.

If her government gave a damn about the Falkland Islanders they would have had more than a handful of Marines to defend their land to stop the invasion in the first place. She knew the Argentinians were rattling their sabres yet the invasion took place on her watch. The "war" was an election winner.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

@Jonathanjo How much did Henry Page spend to protest against his tax being wasted? He obviously saw the principle as more important than his bottom line. That's more than be said for some, including...

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

Thunderbird2- Not just the cost but the way the elite think all this pomp is fine and have no empathy with the average person.The whole system and thise in power needs to be changed and can only be done by the people.Most now are dumbed down to veggies on cheap lager, 24 hour telly and Facebook.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

For many people who actually remember pre 1980 Britain, Mrs Thatcher was a revolution. Of course the policies she had were harsh, someone will always lose out no matter which direction a government takes, but the unions and laughably weak labour government had lead the country to ruin.

I thought the ceremony was fitting, in the usual style that only Britain can do, and if asked would happily make a donation to support it.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

I didnt always agree with what Baroness Thatcher did while she was in power, but I did agree with about 98% of it. She was a great, strong leader, who transformed the UK. She stood up to the miners and their Marxist leader, who were intent on revolution, she defeated the Argentinians in the Falklands war and restored the islands back to British Rule, she took on the IRA terrorists and because of her, they were eventually defeated, and she was insturmental in brining to an end the Cold War and the defeat of Communism in Russia and other Eastern European countries. She was away ahead of her time with regard to the EU. She saw the EU exactly for what it really was, a useless comglomeration of nations, with aspirations to becoming a United States of Europe. She defended the UK against the attempts by the u to take away British Sovereignty. She was also ahead of her time with regard to the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, seeing it as a vehicle which could be used by socialists using a "Green" agenda to mask an "anti capitalist, Left-wing political agenda which posed a serious risk to the future of mankind." She was a remarkable, intelligent lady, with an iron will. Its a pity we don't have any politicians with the same guts today. She will be long remembered, and many Rople around the world will always be thankful for her 11 and a half years as Prime Minister of the UK.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

She went to war because Argentina invaded a British overseas territory and she wasn't going to abandon British citizens

Maybe if she'd really cared about the Falklanders as British citizens she wouldn't have given them second-class citizenship under the 1981 Nationality Act or planned the withdrawal of the last of the Antarctic supply vessels as part of a money-saving scheme when there was a clearly unstable and belligerent state just across the water.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

This type of event should not occur when some have to resort to food banks. Sort of vulgur trash you would expect from the Soviet Union during the cold war.Of course many will love the display, a bit of distraction from reality, back to the dire soaps and reality television tomorrow.

-2 ( +7 / -9 )

£10million was spent on this procedure. The only state funeral for a politician (I hear) after Winston Churchill, a man who was undoubtedly less divisive of the British people. whilst I take no pleasure in her death, this ceremony was wholly unnecessary...

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Yea, everyone should just focus on the bad right? Thatcher did many great things for this country and all of you guys in these comments just complain and complain on how horrible of a leader she is. None of you should be celebrating a death. You should be celebrating the wonderful things Margaret did for Great Britain.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

Anyone non-British and under the age of 40 should sling their hook right now. I'm sick of this sycophantic, gushing praise from anyone who didn't experience the 'Thatcher years' first hand...... you know the sum total of nothing !

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Also present was retired teacher Henry Page, who stood outside the cathedral protesting the funeral's reported $15 million cost with a sign: "Over 10 million pounds of our money for a Tory funeral!"

How much did Henry Page spend to get there in order to protest about his 15 pence-worth of tax being spent on the funeral?

-3 ( +8 / -11 )

"Haters gonna hate."

Yep. And with very good reason...

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

@Thunderbird

You love a military ceremony?

Well, Maggie must have been a special favourite of yours: her policies towards the Falklands dispute and Ulster led to over a thousand military funerals. Great stuff!

-5 ( +6 / -11 )

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