Margaret Thatcher is dead

[MrJonno]

Expediency as ever wins the day. A great many Hong Kong Chinese wanted to be 'British' when the takeover loomed prior to 1998. It would have been wildly unrealistic to suddenly add 5 or 6 million British citizens to our potential population.

The problem there was that the New Territories were never British land - they were on a 100 year lease, which was expiring. Without the New Territories, Hong Kong would have had to have been largely abandoned.

For that matter, Hong Kong itself was technically on a lease as well.

Like I said - expediency. I lived there for many years and the idea that HK without the NT could have been viable without a more or less non-existent and porous frontier it would have been simply unworkable. Still many HK Chinese were pretty worried about their fate when the mainland took over and petitioned pretty strenuously for at least some UK citizens' rights - which were not really forthcoming.
Patten was in my view, the hero of the time (he was the last governor for those who don't know). He hammered out the 'one nation, two systems' deal with determination and very much with the welfare of local people in mind.

Hong Kong does seem to be have pretty successful, a successful economy without too much oppression and random arrests/executions

[Rum]

True enough, but like much of China its prosperity relies to a great extent on a huge pile of cheap labour and 'disposable' humanity. China (and Hong Kong) may look much better off than it they used to be but there is still massive poverty, particularly in mainland China.

[sandinista]

Little late to the celebration, but must post my Best song bout the old bag:



Why Would Anyone Celebrate the Death of Margaret Thatcher? Ask a Chilean

Never have I witnessed a gap between the mainstream media and the public quite like the last twenty-four hours since the death of Margaret Thatcher. While both the press and President Obama were uttering tearful remembrances, thousands took to the streets of the UK and beyond to celebrate. Immediately this drew strong condemnation of what were called "death parties," described as “tasteless”, “horrible” and “beneath all human decency.” Yet if the same media praising Thatcher and appalled by the popular response would bother to ask one of the people celebrating, they might get a story that doesn't fit into their narrative, which is probably why they aren't asking at all.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/173731/wh ... sk-chilean

[Rum]

She was divisive and her policies ruined communities which had relied on loss making subsidised industries for decades. That model doesn't work any more it seems. She pressed the reset button.

[DaveD]

The download charts give a very different picture of the public's reaction to Thatcher's death, compared to most of the national news media: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ma ... ng-1821155

[sandinista]

now that is fucking funny thanks for that!

[klr]

Why stop with one or two songs?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/angelameiquan/2 ... t-thatcher

There are also a great many more that refer in some way or other to "her" Britain. Think songs like "Heartland" by The The, and so forth.

[pErvinalia]

Little late to the celebration, but must post my Best song bout the old bag:

[DaveDodo007]

This is fucking pathetic, Thatcher saved Britain as before her we were in steep decline. Bodies on the streets, rubbish not collected and there was no pride in the country at all. Labour had bankrubt the country and we had to go cap in hand to the MRI. The fucking argie bastards would be running the Falklands Islands right now without her strong leasdership and the Belgrano would have ben able to cost milllions in British soidiers lives. I really don't get this negative rep Maggies getting. Where all losers and want to live off other peoples money. The unions were running the UK at the time and the whole country was a fucking joke. When theYankie preidents were wavering she stuck true to her guns and brought abothte fall of communism which would have continued for hundreds of years if it wasn't for the Iron lady. I really feel that there is a lot of misogyny in the critisism of one of the the greatest Prime Ministers Britain has ever had. Look how she promoted woman's rights and was a inspiration to woman all over the world. If it wasn't for her we would be speakng Gereman right now and ruled from Brussels. She turned around the whole old boys club and was a ispriation to millions of young woman. I the Labour party was so great why did in lose so many elections. She survived a sick and twisted atttack from the cowardly IRA. The losers on the left will always fin someone else to blame for their own iweakness. She will be remembered as the saviour of Great Britain and this is only to be gloried by not taking any any sexist shit s at all..











TL/DR: Yeah right fuck that crazy loony tunes.Ding dong the witch is dead. Which sums up her lwhole hold. narrr neers.

[pErvinalia]

Great post!

[Rum]

Most of anyone who has noticed knows that I lean pretty far to the left on most political matters, but what has got me over this last few days is the anger which people who were just kids - or not even born at the time - seem to feel for this woman.

There is actually a strong argument for the policies she put into place. They may have been radical, unpopular and destructive of certain old established industrially based communities, but Britain was reality in a right old pickle when she came into power. Unions all but ran the country and were effectively beyond the law in some cases. The large industries were making huge losses and being subsidised by everyone else's taxes and huge loans and the country was on its knees.

The country could have gone two ways - either further towards a socialism of sorts - into a revolutionary phase perhaps, or someone or some force could step in and say 'that's enough'. She did the latter and it is hard to see how the former could have happened in retrospect. There was really no middle way at the time.

In demolishing the loss making parts of the steel and coal industries she demolished communities which had grown on the back of those and it seems to me that it is this factor that causes much of the hatred.

My own family was from a coal mining village in South Wales and I remember the black soot and grime as well as hardship of the place when I was a kid. It is easy to be romantic about those communities but life was very hard. I for one don't mourn their loss.

[cronus]

She closed the mines, despite large reserves, and flooding means the only way to get at the coal now is opencast mining which is environmentally destructive. She allowed houses to be built on floodplains. Deregulated the financial industry. She wasn't thinking things through. That said I don't hate her. Attack the ideas not the idiot.

[Audley Strange]

The Good Lady is (as consequently am I) lucky enough to have been young enough not to recall with any clarity the mid 70's to Mid 80's and was a teenager until the mid 90's so has no real recollection of the political or social aspects to the revulsion towards Thatcher. Watching some thing about her last night she said to me that there was something odd about Thatch, that she didn't seem to be real, but almost like someone playing a character, a smug patronising and incredibly camp woman, but you could see through that by looking at her eyes which looked like the eyes of a creepy doll.

I think the truth is a bit more simple, she had no understanding at all that other people were actually real and was playing dolls house with an entire fucking country. She was only prime minister because she couldn't be an actual tyrant.

I wish she could die again, as an encore.

[John_fi_Skye]

"MPs can claim up to £3,750 in travel costs to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher in parliament today - sparking warnings the bill could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Parliament’s expenses watchdog has confirmed that MPs can put their travel costs to attend the special session of parliament on expenses – including their family.

Taxpayers now face a potentially hefty bill for today’s recall of parliament, where MPs will discuss Baroness Thatcher's contributions to British politics and her legacy following her death on Monday."




Fucking bastards, the lot of them. DEMOCRACY?! It's a fucking SHAM.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...I think the truth is a bit more simple, she had no understanding at all that other people were actually real and was playing dolls house with an entire fucking country...

Just like Gideon and Dave now. It's all a great big game to those cunts; you can see it in their eyes.