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She's dead

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Rumours are circulating that Danny Boyle will be directing Margaret Thatcher's funeral at St Paul's Cathedral, after plans were leaked to Huffington Post UK Comedy.
According to the running order we have obtained, the funeral - or 'closing ceremony', as some are calling it - will open with Kenneth Branagh reciting the prayer of St Francis of Assis ("Where there is discord, may we bring harmony"), after which the Queen will arrive at the cathedral by parachute.
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The Queen arriving at St Paul's Cathedral

The staged numbers will include hundreds of coal mines being erected only to be dismantled, and a million candles being lit to finally reveal the word 'GOTCHA'.
Tightly choreographed dance routines, meanwhile, will see hundreds of private hospital nurses dancing on the grave of the NHS, a thousand bankers jumping up and down on piles of cash, and a re-enactment of the poll tax riots set to Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'.
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Members of the public will be able to view the funeral on big screens outside the cathedral

It is thought that Emeli Sande will sing at least 50 times - opening with 'Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead' and ending with a medley of '80s protest songs. The ceremony will then close with Sir Paul McCartney leading the audience in a singalong version of 'Maggie Mae'.
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Inside St Paul's Cathedral: an artist's impression

"We think there's something for everyone - pomp and circumstance for the Thatcherites and subversive messages for the lefties," a St Paul's insider told us. "It will be a celebration of all that made Britain great. And terrible."
 
This explains why she was OK with Jimmy Savile

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/thatchers-dad-mayor-preacher-groper-1257249.html

Alderman Alfred Roberts, revered father of Margaret Thatcher and inspirer of her Victorian values, sexually harassed young female assistants working in the grocer's shop where she grew up, according to the distinguished political biographer Professor Bernard Crick.
Writing in the satirical magazine Punch, the political theorist, commentator and biographer of George Orwell recounts claims from contemporaries of the one-time Methodist preacher, pillar of society and Mayor of Grantham, Lincolnshire, that he "was a notorious toucher-up".
The assaults supposedly took place about 60 years ago, behind the counter of the shop, next to the "splendid mahogany spice drawers with sparkling brass handles (and) large, black, lacquered tea canisters", recalled in her autobiography by Baroness Thatcher, whose decisive endorsement of William Hague as Conservative leader last week has renewed her influence with the Tory right.
"Older teachers," Professor Crick was told by a Grantham friend, "all remembered their difficulty in trying, good women, to steer girls away from taking jobs at his shop.
"They were frightened to hint at the real reason: for he was a figure of real power in the town."
Crick, emeritus professor of the University of London, said that he learnt of the allegations in the mid-1980s, when the then Prime Minister was promoting the Victorian values of thrift and self-reliance that she had admired in her Rotarian father.
Her comments made the left-wing academic realise that he held the seeds of a story that could damage the Conservatives. Before the 1987 general election, he said, he gave the story to a friendly Daily Mirror journalist, who then declined to alert his newsdesk, fearing the wrath of owner Robert Maxwell, should it create too much controversy.
The story remained a secret until it appeared in Punch last week, although he had tried to persuade the magazine to publish it before this year's election.
Lady Thatcher's office said that the former Prime Minister had no comment.
However, although tales of her father's alleged sexual misconduct might not have been known nationally, they have been common currency in Grantham for years, it was clear last week.
Peter Hadlow, 76, lived next-door-but-one to the Robertses, and overheard many conversations about the scandal when working as an apprentice electrician. "Quite a broad spectrum of people said it. It was all over Grantham virtually," he said. "I would hear the boss talking about it. My ears were flapping - that sounds juicy, I thought.
"These stories were bandied about, and eventually you begin to believe there was some truth in them. But he was an Alderman and so that sort of thing got hushed up. It was a question of who do you believe - a teenage girl, or Mr Roberts?"
Mr Hadlow still lives in the same area of the town and added: "Funnily enough, when he gave up running the shop, he changed into a really nice bloke".
More significant still were the comments of a 74-year-old woman from Grantham, who told the Independent on Sunday that she had been molested on frequent occasions by Alderman Roberts, when she worked in his shop, aged just 15.
She said: "He was a bad one. He came round and put his arms around me, feeling my breasts. He used to put his tongue in my mouth.
"I got quite frightened. I didn't like it and I'd push him away. He'd say nothing and go, but then he would come back again. He used to chase other girls round the counter." She worked at the shop for six months until she told her parents what was happening. Her father told her she should not return.
The woman, who does not wish to be named, was then a chorister at the Methodist chapel where Alderman Roberts was a lay preacher. "One Sunday, I got up and walked out. I couldn't stand him standing up there and preaching," she said.
It was only then, when her parents challenged her to explain her behaviour, that she told them about the harassment she had suffered at the hands of the Alderman.
Professor Crick said that his piece was "written in the spirit of good- humoured satiric rage".
He said he had wanted it to be published before the general election. "I was so angry at the Conservative Party using all that family values stuff. To use it for political purposes is really quite off. It debases politics and in the end, you get caught out. It's a great offence to exploit and mythologise the past for political purposes."
Punch also sent a reporter to Grantham, who found pensioners willing to recount lurid tales about the grocer. One elderly resident claimed that she had two cousins working at the shop. "He was forever pinching their bums when they bent over - and looking up their skirts."
Journalist Richard Creasy wrote: "Memories of Alderman Alf raise a smirk amongst the pensioners who remember him far from fondly."
Paul Spike, editor of Punch, said: "People have been talking about this, but no one has been willing to run this until now. Crick has been talking about it for decades - he's a known responsible figure.
"We're not saying this has been established in a court of law. We thought we should check it out further. That's as much as we could get."
The rumours about Alderman Roberts took on fictional form in a novel about Thirties Grantham, Rotten Borough, written by local journalist Oliver Anderson and published in 1937. It featured a councillor who ran a corner grocery shop and was given to frolicking with his female assistants. At one point he is caught in flagrante beside the pork pies and polony sausages when a faulty light is switched on and passers-by see him, trousers down, through the shop window.
Rotten Borough was withdrawn from sale after just three weeks following threats from the Grantham establishment, including an earl and MP, of legal action. In 1989 it was republished by Fourth Estate. Its author died last year.
 
I really picked the perfect time to go on holiday.

I presume there was ample fawning in the media, which I have to say - being of a somewhat delicate disposition - I'm glad to have missed. Repeated vomiting does terrible things to the teeth
 
Also, this alleged cost of £8 million (which is now morphing into £10 million) is a product of the anti-Thatcher brigade and is greatly exaggerated. There will no doubt be police overtime, but the troops involved would have been paid anyway whether they had been sitting around in the barracks or engaged in manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain. To repeat a point I made some 93 pages back, Thatcher has saved Britain approx. £75 billion in EU contributions through her hard-nosed negotiations with Helmut Kohl and Co.
 
The ultimate reaction / refuge of the labour party to Thatcher was to depoliticise themselves & turn to personality politics with Tony Blert being the biggest personality of all. They came to power & changed nothing of note - the only "radical" thing they did was ban fox hunting, which while a good thing to do should have been at #999 of the 1000 top things to do. Then Blert ran away as soon as he saw the global economy was no longer going to give him an easy ride.

So nothing they put in place surprises me
 
I think you should be grateful to that government as a left winger. They might not have used traditional socialist methods such as high taxes and nationalisation, but they introduced the minimum wage and spent billions and billions on tax credits and public services.
 
tombrown said:
The ultimate reaction / refuge of the labour party to Thatcher was to depoliticise themselves & turn to personality politics with Tony Blert being the biggest personality of all. They came to power & changed nothing of note - the only "radical" thing they did was ban fox hunting, which while a good thing to do should have been at #999 of the 1000 top things to do. Then Blert ran away as soon as he saw the global economy was no longer going to give him an easy ride.

So nothing they put in place surprises me
Click to expand...

The foxhunting bill was introduced by our MP at the time, who won that running of the ballot for Private Members' bills. I was furious with him for wasting such an opportunity on such a marginal issue. He was known for brownnosing the party leadership, though, and I suspect it was they rather than anyone else who made that decision.
 
peterhague said:
I think you should be grateful to that government as a left winger. They might not have used traditional socialist methods such as high taxes and nationalisation, but they introduced the minimum wage and spent billions and billions on tax credits and public services.
Click to expand...

SO grateful I left the country - for one that si just as bad as far as personality politics is concerned.

In my first week here there were local elections on & I got canvassed by the Irish Labour Party - "Vote for Joe, he's married to Mary & has three kids. If that's not enough to win your vote, then consider that his brother, Jim, previously held this seat but died last year"
 
So protestors at the funeral will be arrested for causing "distress" to mourners, but poppy burners are allowed the freedom to express their political beliefs and putting up England flags during a football tournament is deemed too offensive.

What a fantastic set of standards.
 
mark1975 said:
So protestors at the funeral will be arrested for causing "distress" to mourners, but poppy burners are allowed the freedom to express their political beliefs and putting up England flags during a football tournament is deemed too offensive.

What a fantastic set of standards.
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That combined with the bbc stance on the song just proves 'free speech' is nothing but an illusion.
 
I have heard some complaints from feminists that "The Witch is Dead" shows deeply misogynistic attitudes in the people who like to sing it. :eek:
 
Protesting at a funeral is distasteful, IMO.

I don't mind some of the celebrations around the country, that's fine - but a funeral, regardless of it being state-funded or not, is a chance for those who loved her to mourn and say goodbye. All thoughts and considerations should be with them.

Not with a bunch of sad cunts trying to make a point.
 
TheThingIs said:
Protesting at a funeral is distasteful, IMO.

I don't mind some of the celebrations around the country, that's fine - but a funeral, regardless of it being state-funded or not, is a chance for those who loved her to mourn and say goodbye. All thoughts and considerations should be with them.

Not with a bunch of sad cunts trying to make a point.
Click to expand...

Plenty of things people do are distasteful though, & free speech should be just that.

Besides, if they insist on it being a spectacle then that's bound to attract attention when a figure so openly hated by so many is being made the centre of attention.
 
FoxForceFive said:
Plenty of things people do are distasteful though, & free speech should be just that.

Besides, if they insist on it being a spectacle then that's bound to attract attention when a figure so openly hated by so many is being made the centre of attention.
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I don't believe in free speach.
 
Portly said:
Also, this alleged cost of £8 million (which is now morphing into £10 million) is a product of the anti-Thatcher brigade and is greatly exaggerated. There will no doubt be police overtime, but the troops involved would have been paid anyway whether they had been sitting around in the barracks or engaged in manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain. To repeat a point I made some 93 pages back, Thatcher has saved Britain approx. £75 billion in EU contributions through her hard-nosed negotiations with Helmut Kohl and Co.
Click to expand...

I'm glad something good came from her 11 years in office :)
 
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