State funeral for Thatcher?

[Rod in Japan]

Besides, I doubt Mrs Thatcher would approve of such profligacy.

She's had at least since August 2006 to make her principled disapproval clear. Meanwhile, planning goes on...

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but this website is called "self sufficient'ish" is it not?

What exactly was it Thatcher stood for if not self sufficiency? Or at the very least sufficiency without government subsidy.

You should note I said communists not Communists.

One group worshipped Stalins efforts to make everyone reliant on the bloke round the corner for there next breath. The other group died in those efforts.

Sorry - in what way are the current mob minding the shop in the UK in any way left-wing let alone communist? A more right-wing bunch of foamers, knee jerkers and anti-libitarians would be difficult to find, certainly in Europe.

Exception of Italy, perhaps.

I mean, Charles Clarke? A leftie? I don't think so.

The Blairites were just Tories who put on red underpants when they realised that blue (or grey) would make them unelectable.

I never took to Maggie: too much war-war about her. I liked Denis though - he was far more moderate and considered than many give him credit. It was almost certainly due to him, for example, that the UK did not re-instate the death penalty during the 1980's. He was dead against it on moral grounds, even though his missus thought a short, sharp shock involving a rope and a four-foot drop was the panacea for all ills.

Maybe he should have got the state funeral.

If Maggie gets one, where do we stop? Tony B? Peter Mandelson? I mean, it could start an unfortunate fashion

[urbanwookie]

Frankie Boyle on Mock the Week reckoned that for the £3million budget that is being discussed, they could buy a shovel for every person in Scotland and we'd dig a hole sooooooo deep that they could hand her over to Satan personally!

[MKG]

I watched that, and I'm an awful pedant - so I checked the figures. Now I want to know where you can buy a Scottish shovel for 60 pence.

[urbanwookie]

I watched that, and I'm an awful pedant - so I checked the figures. Now I want to know where you can buy a Scottish shovel for 60 pence.

I imagine most of the population would happily dig with their bare hands. We'd only need a limted number of shovels for smacking her in the face to ensure she didn't wake up again...

[JulieSherris]

I respectfully pop my head above the parapet......

My hubby has always been, and is even now, deeply in love with Maggie.... sigh.... he has even said in the past that he wanted to have her babies, such is his love!

Yep, I too voted for her when I was fresh faced 18yr old & barely old enough to pop my cross in the box - and would still do so now. I lived with a dad who was a labour man & union man through & through & remember the arguments when he willingly gave up over half of his pay to the miners strike... and having my birthday party by candle-light because of the scheduled power cuts.... and the bigotism, and I now shut my gob, because politics, like religion is a personal and emotive subject to many and had the UK veered away from a labour control during these last few years, we might not have moved over to Ireland.... but, hey, I'm glad we did!
Julie

[DominicJ]

Riff Raff, are you trying to claim libertarianism as a left wing ideal? My good Sir, tht is simply not true.

Libertarianism is on both the economic and social right.

Liberalism is the one on the economic left, but thats also on the social right.

Our current crop are statists, like liberals, they believe they can spend your money better than you can, they expand this to include they can live your life for you better than you can.

Thatcher was on the economic right, but the social left.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Riff Raff, are you trying to claim libertarianism as a left wing ideal? My good Sir, tht is simply not true.

Libertarianism is on both the economic and social right.

Liberalism is the one on the economic left, but thats also on the social right.

Our current crop are statists, like liberals, they believe they can spend your money better than you can, they expand this to include they can live your life for you better than you can.

Thatcher was on the economic right, but the social left.

I think that in terms of Hegelian left-wing philosophy it is entirely possible to reconcile libertarianism with social responsibility, pariticularly with its view of the "right-wing" state as being despotic.

But Hegel can be read in many ways, and one could question whether a political philosophy of the late 18th / early 19th century really continues to be relevent in the early 21st.

Doesn't stop people wheeling out Adam Smith as a cure for all ills though.

I would suggest that neither the social nor economic left or right in the current political spectrum could make any claim to libertarianism. Libertarianism by definition must include tolerance of other people's lifestyles, and that is a commodity that is in increasingly short supply.

A lot of self-declared libertarians are nothing more than rabid free-marketers, and then generally because they believe themselves to be amongst the small group who are able to profit from unfettered free trade whilst being insulated from its more pernicious effects.

Beyond that they have no interest in live-and-let live.

Personally I would place myself both socially and economically to the right - I regard free enteprise, small government and fair taxation as being the right way forward - but I do not accept the unfettered free market as being any way capable of maintaining a free, just and stable society.

The Thatcher years presented me with ample evidence to support that view.

Blair just carried on where she left off, but with a more control-freak approach. Politically it would be difficult to slide many sheets of paper between them: he knew a winning formula when he saw it. But he overestimated the free market: left to their own devices, people built up huge debt, the housing market went mad and now we are all but set for a huge and bloody crash.

Things are so bad I'm starting to think of the Major years as an era of one of moderation and tolerance. Now that is worrying.

[Millymollymandy]

Things are so bad I'm starting to think of the Major years as an era of one of moderation and tolerance. Now that is worrying.

All I can remember is Spitting Image and the grey bloke eating peas with Norma.

[Odsox]

I have the greatest regard for Maggie Thatcher.
She is, after all, the main reason I left the UK.

Not only did she wind me up so much that I was ashamed to be English, she also caused the housing boom that allowed me to sell up at a healthy profit.
I couldn't stand the heat so I got out of the ......