Breaking news: Margaret Thatcher has died

[garbon]

I'm guessing a part where they haven't had any street parties to celebrate the death of a former president?

Our attention spans are not really that long.  I mean sure people hated Nixon but in 1993 the emotions from 20 years ago had cooled.  The British clearly stay mad much longer.

Yeah I came to the same conclusion in one of these threads.

[frunk]

Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.

Do 20 somethings really care if they look mature?  It's a shitty thing to do and I don't support it at all, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why they do it.

[Viking]

I don't agree with the "only good things about the dead" attitude, beyond private circumstances and the funeral service. When a public figure dies, it does not make them immune to criticism.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that. It is more a case of suspending the vitriol while the family and friends are grieving rather than ramping it up and celebrating. This is especially true in cases where the death has no impact itself. Not like Hitler, Gaddhaffi, Saddam or Stalin dying, which had real political effects, in which case cheering is ok. Thatcher was a senile old retired grandmother.

[crazy canuck]

Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.

Do 20 somethings really care if they look mature?  It's a shitty thing to do and I don't support it at all, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why they do it.

I understand why immature kids out for a good time do it.  What I dont understand is the attempt to justify it on some other basis.

[Jacob]

Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do!  Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was  Maggie's creature.

That's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.

[garbon]

Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.

Do 20 somethings really care if they look mature?  It's a shitty thing to do and I don't support it at all, but that doesn't mean I can't understand why they do it.

Jos said we shouldn't dismiss them out of hand - I'm saying that we should.

[crazy canuck]

Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do!  Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was  Maggie's creature.

That's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.

Really, that is about as convincing as the other stuff you said about how she destroyed otherwise prosperous communities.

[mongers]

Perhaps, but then I suspect the reaction to her death would have been much more tame had she been vilified universally - that's the nature of modern politics - the more divisive it is, the stronger emotions it breeds.

The partying is an emotional fuck you to people who depict her as a living saint (we had the same stuff going on after Kaczynski's death). If the general consensus was that "well yeah she was pretty shitty", there would be no more to it.

Don't they realize that just makes them look immature? Having a party as a protest seems to be mixing message with entertainment.

One of the most interesting reactions to this issue, was what someone, who presumably genuinely hates Thatcher, said about a possible party in Belfast:

"resist celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher".
He added: "She was not a peacemaker but it is a mistake to allow her death to poison our minds."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22078303


That someone is Martin McGuinness. Whether you hate him or admire him, that certainly politically astute advice, something the clowns in London and Bristol wouldn't have a hope of understanding.

[Viking]

Thatcher started something that moved England so far right, that even the labour party is now a centrist, or centre-right party.
That's part of her legacy.

Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do!  Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was  Maggie's creature.

Somebody already did Mandelson: we are all Thatcherites now back in 2002

[MadImmortalMan]

Thatcher started something that moved England so far right, that even the labour party is now a centrist, or centre-right party.
That's part of her legacy.

Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do!  Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was  Maggie's creature.

That's not the first time I've seen that assertion. My sadly-Paulite brother sent me a link from the libertarian punditry class accusing her of the same thing. That she created New Labour. And apparently liked to eat puppies.

[Jacob]

Really, that is about as convincing as the other stuff you said about how she destroyed otherwise prosperous communities.

Alright, maybe not uncontroversial but certainly not an uncommon argument to make.

Really, sometimes you seem so sheltered.

[frunk]

Jos said we shouldn't dismiss them out of hand - I'm saying that we should.

Dismiss them out of hand meaning we ignore them?  We've failed that in this thread.  Assume they have no relevency?  I think they do, if only as a marker of the beliefs of a segment of the population.  Even if those beliefs don't go much beyond "we didn't like this person".

[Admiral Yi]

I really don't get the logic of complaining that Thatcher moved the center of British politics to the right.  If you don't like the way the British electorate thinks and votes, yell at them.

[Agelastus]

Wow, is there anything that Maggie could not do!  Quick someone call Blair and tell him he was  Maggie's creature.

That's actually a pretty common sentiment as I understand it, to the point of being fairly uncontroversial. I think the term is "heir to Thatcher" rather than "creature", but otherwise I've seen it getting some play.

There's even a certain truth to it given how few of the Thatcher era's reforms were reversed by Labour; consider by contrast earlier periods where "Steel was nationalised, privatised and renationalised" by succeeding governments of opposing parties.

He was a "water-downer" or "steady-as-you-goer" rather than a "reverser" or "innovator" and has inspired a generation of politicians to be just like him due to his managing three electoral successes without causing a section of the Electorate to permanently vilify him as happened with Thatcher...which is in it's own way a problem.

Also, unfortunately, he let Brown run the Treasury as he saw fit, and Brown couldn't have organised a piss-up in a brewery let alone be a good chancellor.

[Valmy]

What would be in opposition to Thatcher's legacy?  Creating nationalized industries?  I mean if an anti-Thatcher party was elected what sorts of things would they be doing?