Maggie Thatcher Is Dead.

[Thakkar]

MICK JAGGER on Margaret Thatcher.

Jagger is spouting a bunch of word salad. Seems like he doesn't want to take a stand one way or the other. Or he was on coke.

T

[Thakkar]

The problem with a State funeral for Thatcher isn't the 10M cost. The problem is that it burnishes her image and legitimizes her failed policies. This allows current and future corporatist governments to continue her policies, policies that reward wealth owners at the expense of the real wealth creators—the workers, the professionals, the middle class. If those cynically trying to perpetuate her image as a "successful" (for them, they leave out to mention) Prime Minister get their way, as they have over the last three decades, the continuing cost to the vast majority is incalculable.

Even more insidious is another cost: the destruction of common causes, community spirit, human bondage, the feeling that we are our brothers' keepers, true Christian spirit.

T

[nong38]

Another example of the Cultural Divide:

How many folks read The Morning Star.?

True! but how many people believe the Daily Mail?

Or indeed the Morning Star?

Edited April 16, 2013 by Scott

[Ace of Pop]

RUBBISH Thakkar.Wealth is created by the whole spectrum of the Workforce. Not that a Communist could ever figure that out.Thatcher was The Gardner, that removed the Weeds .

[nong38]

Chiang Mai

I worked it out, based on a taxable UK income of GBP16,500 per year, the average expat with such an income would contribute GBP 0.032 towards the cost of the funeral.

Did you ever work for a bank? That is the sort of trick they usually play in order to disguise the true cost. They always reduce the figure to some insignificant amount so that they can disguise the true cost. We learn today that the government is doing the same thing by stating that unlike on previous occasions they will not be counting the cost of the police or military as they would be working anyway. Just how disingenuous can you get? The police and military used will have to be bussed in as they come form surrounding forces not only from the Metropolitan area and for the police it will involve overtime and cancelled leave, Then there will be catering, accommodation and extra support costs. I was once involved with the Met Police and a special operation always entailed a huge extra cost.

This is a state funeral in everything but name and is going to cost a lot of public money, money that Thatcher was loathe to spend on far more deserving cases when she was in office. I don't think many opposed a state funeral for Churchill a man who united the country and it says everything about Thatcher that so many are so opposed to this shabby event.

Well you and 2 others anyway, perhaps thats why its being beamed around the world tomorrow, I doubt Scargill be command such an audience.

[chiang mai]

Chiang Mai

I worked it out, based on a taxable UK income of GBP16,500 per year, the average expat with such an income would contribute GBP 0.032 towards the cost of the funeral.

Did you ever work for a bank? That is the sort of trick they usually play in order to disguise the true cost. They always reduce the figure to some insignificant amount so that they can disguise the true cost. We learn today that the government is doing the same thing by stating that unlike on previous occasions they will not be counting the cost of the police or military as they would be working anyway. Just how disingenuous can you get? The police and military used will have to be bussed in as they come form surrounding forces not only from the Metropolitan area and for the police it will involve overtime and cancelled leave, Then there will be catering, accommodation and extra support costs. I was once involved with the Met Police and a special operation always entailed a huge extra cost.

This is a state funeral in everything but name and is going to cost a lot of public money, money that Thatcher was loathe to spend on far more deserving cases when she was in office. I don't think many opposed a state funeral for Churchill a man who united the country and it says everything about Thatcher that so many are so opposed to this shabby event.

Well you and 2 others anyway, perhaps thats why its being beamed around the world tomorrow, I doubt Scargill be command such an audience.

+1 (and their dog)

[chiang mai]

This thread has now turned into a very low class trolling thread and should be closed, for everyones sake.

[metisdead]

Nonsense trolling post has been removed.

[theblether]

Can I point out yet again that the State Funeral was awarded by Tony Blair when he was prime minister...........if you have a complaint about the cost direct it to him as he's still living.

[theblether]

Another example of the Cultural Divide:

How many folks read The Morning Star.?

True! but how many people believe the Daily Mail?

I'm delighted she tore that Britain apart, and she had no choice.

We working men cut our own throats..........and by the time we realized it, our jobs had been exported by to other countries that couldn't believe their luck.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Scott

[wigantojapan]

Please get you facts right.

A short extract from the song was played by both the BBC's and commercial radios' chart shows, along with an explanation of why they weren't playing the song in full; i.e. that it was in bad taste.

Something I hope they would do with any song which celebrated the death of anyone; whether I agreed with the deceased politics or not.

The BBC were well aware of the satirical nature of the other song but played it in full as it was not celebrating her death but a comment on her policies. (See here)

Interesting that you accuse them of lack of balance for not playing it (even though they did!) yet the Daily Mail say that playing it 'caused outrage' (see here).

Seems to me that yet again the BBC are facing accusations of bias from both extremes of the political divide. A sure sign that they are getting it about right, in my opinio..

Maybe the person who made the statement would sit down with you over a nice cup of English tea and discuss the facts.

Doubt it some how young man.

Like you said just about right in your opinion,,,,,so your opnion isnt just about right...... it is right..... and it is your opinion,,,,not any of the links that you kindly provided..

You learn something new everyday

Thanks

Here is an extract from one of your postings of the 28.12.2012:

" I do it myself when i am being a prat which is a daily occurrance but i would also say the same

wherever i have lived be it scotland japan or india etc"

Was this a brief episode of insight !

I thought the trolling posts had been removed

Not only has he/she been trolling my posts here but also posts unrelated to this topic

comical

Thatcher is no importance at all

human compassion has far more importance than any of the Iron lady guff

Now a funeral is not a political ceromony

This one is .

[Rajab Al Zarahni]

It appears that the Queen may have some doubts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/11/thatcher-funeral-pomp-concerns-palace

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/15/lady-thatcher-funeral-arrangements-criticised

Completely mis-representative post, the Queen expressly indicated her desire to attend the funeral

Diane Abbot the main protaganist of the second reference is a bigoted & manic racist, not worthy of any intelligent airtime

Certainly manic and sometimes bordering on maniac!

[chiang mai]

If this thread is anything to go by, I can see there being near civil war in London on Wednesday, it'll be interesting to see what the numbers look like, almost certainly it'll be 10% detractors and trolls vs 90% normal folk.

[Potosi]

Yes, the facility can hold only so much people, the 90% will be outdoors.

[pitrevie]

Can I point out yet again that the State Funeral was awarded by Tony Blair when he was prime minister...........if you have a complaint about the cost direct it to him as he's still living.

No government can dictate to its successors. It was entirely up to the present government what should be done and how.

[Rajab Al Zarahni]

Can I point out yet again that the State Funeral was awarded by Tony Blair when he was prime minister...........if you have a complaint about the cost direct it to him as he's still living.

No government can dictate to its successors. It was entirely up to the present government what should be done and how.

I think you are right, particularly since a decision to award a particular type of funeral is in contemplation of a death which had yet to occur. It is however noteworthy that the decision of the Blair government was consistent with the decision of the present government.

[exeter]

Right now settle down everyone, funeral kicks off at about 1500 hrs Thai time tomorrow, due to last about 3 hours, then we will see what we will see.

Let us all draw a line under now under this topic all our positions are intransigent, accept it, lets move on after tomorrow. It will depend who writes historical documents if we are prepared to look again. Its abit like a football match with contrevertial decisions, managers always ee their side as being right regardless of what the cameras and officials see.

[theblether]

Can I point out yet again that the State Funeral was awarded by Tony Blair when he was prime minister...........if you have a complaint about the cost direct it to him as he's still living.

No government can dictate to its successors. It was entirely up to the present government what should be done and how.

I think you are right, particularly since a decision to award a particular type of funeral is in contemplation of a death which had yet to occur. It is however noteworthy that the decision of the Blair government was consistent with the decision of the present government.

Out with acts of Statute no government can compel a successor government to do anything. It was the Labour Party that awarded the State Funeral to Thatcher, they suggested it to the palace and had to get the assent of the Queen.

There was no way that the award of the State Funeral was going to be rescinded after that negotiation. Take it up with the Labour Party, it was their suggestion. If you then think a majority coalition partner Conservative Party was then going to return to the palace and undo the arrangements then you are naive. State Funerals are not awarded lightly.

I hope tomorrow passes peacefully.

[Thakkar]

Ace of Pop, on 16 Apr 2013 - 10:29, said:

RUBBISH Thakkar.Wealth is created by the whole spectrum of the Workforce. Not that a Communist could ever figure that out.Thatcher was The Gardner, that removed the Weeds .

You're quite right that wealth in a society is created by a wide spectrum of participants. This is a good starting point for my argument against Thatcherism and why it should not be aggrandized through bestowing exalted status to its eponym with a State funeral* and official hagiographic eulogies that officially become, because it's a State funeral, the country's one-sided historical record.

A random example of how wealth is created communally is Google, with it's multi billionaire founders and investors and millionaire executives. Google would not have been possible without The Internet's precursor, the taxpayer-funded Arpanet, or the World-Wide Web created by Tim Berners-Lee as part of his work at research centre, CERN (also funded by taxpayers). CERN also produced the first web browser which was the precursor to Mosaic on which many of the future browsers were based. The list of government-funded shoulders Google stands on is much, much longer, but I'll stop here.

Of course, corporations conveniently forget the above. They want to privatize the profits, but socialize the costs. Thatcherism/Reaganomics/trickle-down economics, whatever you want to call it, allows them to do just that. An example: Thatcher cut taxes for everyone, but those in the higher tax brackets, and corporations got a much bigger tax cut than those lower down. Moreover, some of the tax cuts to the plebs was clawed right back with increases in VAT and other taxes that tend to have a bigger impact on low income earners. One of the ways to fund the tax cuts was to reduce services, like, say, education. The rich didn't care; they sent their kids to private schools anyway where they studied under well-paid teachers who themselves were educated at government-funded universities.

Reams of data conclusively show that trickle-down economics simply does not work for society as a whole. It is anti-capitalistic because it subverts Capitalism itself. It's proponents know this but pretend otherwise, because it works for them. There's a shocking disparity between Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and actual (rather than the anodyne packaging it comes in) Thatcherite policies.

If you keep an open mind and look at the evidence dispassionately, I'm confident that you'd come to the same conclusions I have. The truth is out there.

Against the mountain of evidence showing Thatcherism's inefficacy, The Mail could come up with only one chart. This chart shows steadily rising aggregate income over decades. It is disingenuous and easily debunked. They know this, yet it is what they trot out, because it's all they've got in their defense of the indefensible. How is It disingenuous? It pretends to be not aggregate by dividing total income with total households to ostensibly show rising household incomes without regard to how this income is distributed. The facts are that Britain's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has been rising steadily over the last thirty years with the steepest rises occurring during the decade of Thatcher's reign. From 0.25 in 1979, it is currently almost 0.4. That's just income. If you look at figures for household wealth, net of debt, the richest 10% leave everyone else in the dust. The proportion of children in poverty rose from 20% in 1981, two years after Tatcher's ascent, to 31% in 1991 and stood at 27% in 2011. For working age adults without children, the figures respectively are 7%, 15% and 20%. Note that all governments, left and right, have followed Thatcher's policies because all parties have been captured by corporate interests.

This is the legacy the corporate flunky, dressed as your Gardner, Margret Thatcher, has left us.

T

* What the funeral costs and who pays is an insignificant issue in the big scheme of things. A classic ploy in debate is to bog your opponent down in a silly side topic where one can easily present a 'good enough' counter argument that makes one's opponent look silly. This is what's happening here. Supporters of the State funeral (remember, what her acolytes really want is a State funeral, rather than the State *paying* for the funeral. Her wealthy family and rich supporters can well afford a far more lavish funeral than even the State can provide. The reason for a State funeral is because it's a means to an end: to burnish her image and thus the successful—successful for the rich—economic policies she championed) counter the money argument with: "she secured 75 Billion from the EU for us" which successfully makes opponents out to be mean-spirited penny-pinchers.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Thakkar

[Simhne]

Thakkar, thank you. Great clarity.

[awayego]

+ 1.

[Boon Mee]

This is typical behavior for Obama. After all, he returned Churchill's Bust that had been sitting in the Oval Office throughout many administrations.

On Topic: Obama Snubs Lady Thatcher's Funeral

Edited April 17, 2013 by Boon Mee

[Potosi]

What's the problem? You don't want him to use Air Force One on taxpayers expense, anyway.

[Boon Mee]

What's the problem? You don't want him to use Air Force One on taxpayers expense, anyway.

The snub is too that Obama is not sending anyone currently working in his administration to her funeral.

[Boon Mee]

The hits just keep on coming!

Senate Democrats delete Lady Thatcher's defiance of terrorism from resolution honoring her:

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J.,
drafted a resolution honoring the late British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher that omitted several passages that Republicans have sought,
including praise for her statement that “all attempts to destroy
democracy by terrorism will fail.”

Republicans and Democrats have been exchanging edits to the
resolution since last week. “Whereas Baroness Margaret Thatcher in 1984
survived an assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army in
Brighton, United Kingdom, and declared that ‘all attempts to destroy
democracy by terrorism will fail”’ says one point in the Republican
version of the resolution.

Menendez drafted an alternative resolution today that makes no
mention of the assassination attempt or Thatcher’s response to that
terrorist attack.."

This Is What Progressives Do

[pitrevie]

Can I point out yet again that the State Funeral was awarded by Tony Blair when he was prime minister...........if you have a complaint about the cost direct it to him as he's still living.

No government can dictate to its successors. It was entirely up to the present government what should be done and how.

I think you are right, particularly since a decision to award a particular type of funeral is in contemplation of a death which had yet to occur. It is however noteworthy that the decision of the Blair government was consistent with the decision of the present government.

Out with acts of Statute no government can compel a successor government to do anything. It was the Labour Party that awarded the State Funeral to Thatcher, they suggested it to the palace and had to get the assent of the Queen.

There was no way that the award of the State Funeral was going to be rescinded after that negotiation. Take it up with the Labour Party, it was their suggestion. If you then think a majority coalition partner Conservative Party was then going to return to the palace and undo the arrangements then you are naive. State Funerals are not awarded lightly.

I hope tomorrow passes peacefully.

So now it is a state funeral which is something that Thatcher apparently never wanted.

However lets make something clear although these things are decided many years in advance thing are never set in stone and things can and do change.

I recall when I was in the RAF many years ago being told by a colleague how rehearsals took place on his camp preparing for the day when the former Duke of Windsor's body would be returned to British soil, he was the Nazi saluting one if you remember. In fact I seem to recall that he was brought back to a different location.

I am sure you remember what happened when Princess Di met her end. The PM realized that HM wasn't in tune with the public mood and the House of Windsor did what always does well and that is bend with the prevailing wind. At that stage the Queen was getting very unpopular by rigidly adhering to what were the agreed and correct procedures but changes were made.

I am certain that at this very moment arrangements are well advanced for the funerals of several members of the Royal family all having been agreed with the Palace and Downing Street.

However come the day when these have to be put into effect the serving PM will be the one with the Palace who decides what actually takes places. Can you imagine if in a few years GB Ltd is in even deeper doodoo than it is now and Osborne is having to make even deeper cuts that at present. Then the situation presents itself to the government of some grandiose state funeral with millions going to be spent on a ceremony with huge cuts going on. I think it most unlikely that the PM of the day even it is is still Cameron doesn't make changes in view of the changing circumstances no matter what he or anyone else agreed to previously.

We are in a situation where the present incumbent George Osborne tells us that deeps cuts have to be made in public spending as we are in the most serious financial situation since whenever. Then we get a recall of Parliament, a state funeral in all but name and a huge sum of public money being squandered. It illustrates how embarrassing the cost is for the government as unlike the Blair government for the Queen Mum and Princess Di they are refusing to reveal the total cost and and as we speak Francis Maude the government minster responsible for the whole affair is engaged in some fancy accounting to conceal the real cost. So it matters not a jot what has been agreed previously, the government of the day will take whatever decision they feel is in the National interest or what suits them.

I must also add that it was Thatcher's government that abolished the miserly amount that people got to assist them with their funeral costs and now we have to contribute to hers.

Edited April 17, 2013 by pitrevie

[Scott]

This thread is about Lady Thatcher's funeral. Continued off-topic posts about the US delegation will be deleted.

[Mosha]

People who will protest at Margaret Thatcher's funeral are no better than the Westboro Baptist Church.

[uptheos]

I would have thought she has enough put enough aside + her family, to pay for any funeral expenses.

Considering the ability to pay £3,600 a night at The Ritz since Christmas......not exactly an old age home.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306724/Margaret-Thatcher-The-Ritz-suite-died-peacefully-sitting-bed-reading.html

[chiang mai]

I would have thought she has enough put enough aside + her family, to pay for any funeral expenses.

Considering the ability to pay £3,600 a night at The Ritz since Christmas......not exactly an old age home.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306724/Margaret-Thatcher-The-Ritz-suite-died-peacefully-sitting-bed-reading.html

She stayed there as a guest of the owners and/or I had read that her stay was paid for by the Barclay Brothers, one or the other

Edited April 17, 2013 by chiang mai