Margaret Thatcher celebrates 85 years
Those of you who are glued to live coverage of the Chilean mine rescue have probably not had time to raise a toast to Baroness Thatcher, who is today celebrating her 85th birthday. Indeed, the woman who did so much for the British coal industry will be returning to 10 Downing Street for a knees-up just as the 33 trapped miners …
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Thatcher is to get a state funeral that will cost an estimated £5 million
For that you could buy everyone in Wales a spade and we'll happily dig her a hole straight to hell.
They could recoup the money by...
...opening up a nightclub on top of her grave. Everyone will come round to dance on it
We could Invent a renewable energey source...
...using her zombified remains and a large hamster wheel are all that's needed.
No Comment
..probably the only thing I could write about the traitorous old swine that would get past the mods.
Irony?
The day that the Iron Lady celebrates (she's probably the only one doing that!) her birthday, the country is focused on scousers winning in court and a mine!
May I be amongst the first to say-
Happy Birthday, you evil cow.
Wish
she'd hurry up and exit, stage down. I'm dying for a piss!
Thatcher
I doubt anyone cares about her really.
And is probably surprised that the bitch lived this long.
Wonderful news about the miners release.
They have shown unparalleled courage and fortitude.
You forgot the wonderful work she did for Chileans herself
Having stopped those cursed Spaniards from prosecuting that poor sick Pinochet chap.
Truly her life will be long remembered by freedom loving people everywhere (in their darkest nightmares)
I presume God doesn't want her and hell won't have her @ this point (cf Mr. Frankie Boyle on the subject)
My thoughts as well.
I'm pretty sure that most Chileans don't give a flying fudge at Thatcher's birthday. She actively supported Pinochet, especially because of Chile's stance on the Falklands/Malvinas war. Of course, that war was what kept Thatcher in power, so go figure.
But I'm pretty sure that Thatcher isn't quite loved in Chile ... except probably by the Pinochet apologists.
How about Coal-black Sky
Tom Cruise is a playboy international mining expert who gets trapped in a mine. Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz fight for his affections topside.
There is only one star big enough for this role
Paris - she'll bring the necessary sleb razzamatazz to the story of young Hilda and her life in glamorous interwar Grantham.
Beelzebub Has a Devil Put Aside for Her..
Seriously, is there a more hated former PM. A day of Miners and Scousers celebrating should help her shuffle off her mortal coil.
otoh
Thatcher and Blair are interchangeable. Brown is too pitiful.
Blair & Thatcher
Actually Blair lied a lot more and Thatcher had more balls
Semantics
In both respects. It doesn't take balls to be vicious, it just seems that way to those who would like to be too.
As for lying, I wonder if it doesn't come down to how much the electorate lies to itself to see even the slightest iota of nobility in either of the apparently celebrated fuckers. I suggest it's the same demographic as the Kray Bros. apologists.
TBFC
Got a few downvotes - must be the Tony Blair fan club
Congratulations Maggie
Hopefully I won't have to say the same this time next year.
Not just miners
As Gregg Roughley at the Guardian put it: "Liverpool fans might enjoy knowing that on Margaret Thatcher's 85th birthday she'll be watching nothing but celebrating scousers and miners all day on TV."
Headstone, soon please
Milk
I hated school milk.
If she had stopped there we'd still be on cordial terms. As it were.
Die Bitch
For once the title on this is really useful.
But seriously, hurry up an die so I and many others can dance on your grave.
Oh, delicious irony...
...having spent years pissing off Scousers and miners, that's all she'll be watching on the telly today!
Paris, cos she'd sell out to the red sox too...
Milk-snatcher
Dear Old Maggie, who, as you write, did so much for the British Coal industry - was of course great friends with Chile's benevolent, caring and compassionate* leader Pinochet.
Pinochet's brutal dictatorship combined with his laissez-faire economic style is certainly part of the reason for the utter lack of safety which led to the collapse of this mineshaft.
So, by association, it's Maggies fault.
The milk-snatching union-bashing polltax-grabbing pain in the ass.
Paris - cos she'd have loved to have had 33 miners in a hole.
*not really.
Fun!
Rescue the miners and then chuck that hideous, disgusting, hateful old hag down the hole and bung it up with her nauseating offspring.
Major would make a fitting plug if they could use Tebbit to ram him down.
I guess im the only one around here
Who thinks she was a decent PM then LOL
RE: I guess im the only one around here
No, you're not. As cornz 1 points out, certain unions were well overdue for bringing down to size. I remember I was at school when we could walk past the local electricity board showroom and read the posters informing us of our power allocation (ie when we'd be getting the power cuts).
And as someone in the office said today, what would Gordon Brown have done if he'd been in her shoes over the Falklands ? "nothing effectual" might sum it up I think.
You may not like Thatcherite policies and politics, but at least in her day there was an environment where those that wanted to, and were prepared to put the effort into it, could make a go of things for themselves. These days there's an environment bred by Blair's government where people expect the state top make all the decisions for them, and expect the state to take care of them - so where's the incentive to G.O.Y.A. and make a go of things yourself ?
I agree
The past 50 years has seen a recurring cycle:
1. The electorate gets all misty-eyed and elects a Labour government.
2. One or two Parliaments later, they've spent all the money and the country's bust.
3. A Tory government rescues the country, to accompanying wailing and tooth-gnashing from that part of the population who think "hell in a handcart" sounds like a nice trip.
4. Goto 1
... and here come the downvotes, from those who ignore the lessons of history.
WWGBD
Actually... he would've done the same thing Thatcher did. She didn't do it "for the UK" ... she did it 'coz that gave her the popular boost she needed to stay in power. Labour was all set to win those elections before Falklands. Gordon Brown would've equally cinched a NuLabour victory as well!
So the saying is true
Only the good die young, but the evil seem to live forever.
I can think of a good use for that Chilean mine now that it's being cleared of Chilean miners...should be a hell of a lot cheaper than the 5 million quid sendoff Marcus mentions, and infinitely more satisfying.
The good die young.....
She, however, will live to 150.
And a good thing too. I hope she makes it that far at least.
Don't get the wrong idea; I grew up in the 70s and have as much reason to hate this evil old trout as the next man.... and I do absolutely hate her.... with a passion.
The thing is, she's gone a bit senile, but is apparently having ludic moments every so often. This means that at times she must realise how old and frail she is, how hated she is and how far she has fallen, and that very shortly the grey fog of senility will again descend.
Politics aside, one thing you could never say about the woman is that she was thick, and I think a long, slow slide into dementure, with the occasional good day to remind her of what she has lost, is just the ticket.
I hope she's a looooooong time passing and (as they kept telling us) it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Ordainarily I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy but.... well... Thatchers decline is an acceptable price to pay for northern jollity.
Yup she did a lot for freedom...
....we learnt the power of a riot and showed that people do (did) have a voice that politicians can't ignore.
Let's save a bit of time, chuck her on the funeral pyre now, although the blinding light from all the matches being lit may obscure the night sky for some time.
When I was a small child
When I was a small child, I genuinely thought "Margaret Thatcher" and "Bitch" meant the same thing!
My dad was a labour supporter I think that's why lol
Aghast
that the comments on here are so disrespectful to one of the greatest PMs ever. You should all be horse whipped.
@Titus Technophobe
"You should all be horse whipped"
There speaks a true Thatcherite.
You miss the point
She would have been the last PM who stood up to the American President when invited to invade a country for no particular reason. I think the phrase at the time was 'Regime change is not a reason for military action' or something like.
Blair and brown have perhaps cast her in a different light?
Define greatest?
I might agree if you said 'had the greatest effect'....
But then there are other contenders...
Heath took us into the EU (then common market) one of the all time worst decisions ever made.
Blair took us into an illegal war which has managed to give an excuse to terrorists everywhere to rattle their sabres and the police to enforce a security regime which wouldn't have been tollerated by Stalin.
But I still think Thatcher wins - she single handledly did more damage to British industry than Hitler managed... well done to her, I mean who would want to make any money, far better to let the Chinese and Germans do that while we shuffle our ever decreasing pot round in ever smaller circles until we are all paupers....
Wonderful woman, couldn't wish for better he says (slightly tongue in cheek).
re: Define greatest?
It wasn't Thatcher who destroyed British Industry; the managers & unions had already done that in the 60’s & 70’s in their ongoing competition to find out just which group was the biggest bunch of (insert expletive of choice).
Thatcher just brought it to a head and took away state support from them pissing up wall. Yes it should have been dealt with in better way (Scargill shares some of the blame for that along with Thatcher and several others) so as cause less damage to social fabric of the nation but it did need to be dealt with and Michael Foot wasn’t going to do it.
The one thing to her credit was when the IRA blew up the government her response to was to go on TV and say that our way of life would go on, Blairs response would have been to round up everyone in the country and lock them up, that’s why she has more balls than Blair and Brown combined.
Can't say I like her that much
But such things as trade union reform were way overdue and I bet every government since would secretly thank her for stamping on some of the most egregious, undemocratic and outrageous industrial actions that unions used to engage in.
Trade Union Reform...
...was only ever wanted by fat cat bosses and those who hated the real working people.
The 'undemocratic' industrial actions you speak of were voted on by the Union members who represented the majority of the workers in their respective fields. That's how the Unions work. No vote to support action, no industrial action. It's a damned sight more democratic than a General Election with the 'first past the post' system any day.
Unions <> Workers
There were a lot of problems with unions. Here are two of the biggest.
1) Closed shop
2) Secondary picketing
A large number of workers were no union members and got pretty upset at the constant striking.
As elsewhere - bad management was around as well.
Tell that...
...to the people who are prepared to tell the truth about what went on at Longbridge.
Whole engines going out in car boots as the management were too cowed to check for such things....workers at the GATE waiting for the 5.00 whistle...theres a LOT more, if you can be bothered to look for it.
Bollocks
People elect a government to run the country, not a bunch of unions. The strikes by unions in the 70s were thoroughly undemocratic. Undemocratic to the country and undemocratic within the union since voting was not by secret ballot and union membership was mandatory in many cases.
In addition unions could and did engage in unofficial strikes, sympathy strikes, and secondary picketing (so called solidarity). All of which had nothing to do with defending their workers and more to do with trying to be an unelected political power bloc.
Trade union reforms were long overdue and Thatcher is to be congratulated for pushing them through as well as other reforms such as privatisation. The country is much better off for it, whether some people care to admit it or not.
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