I much prefer this truth-telling assessment of Margaret Thatcher's applied politics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDtClJYJBj8

Daffy Duck I most certainly agree with you, Glendale Jackson has told Thatcherism as it should be told.
20 million pounds for a funeral is a complete disgrace, there are people starving all over the world, why do the English taxpayer have to fund this extravagance for the benefit of the elite to attend? she in death is no different to any one else.

Because Margaret and her fawning supporters were essentially hostile to the State spending money on useless public causes and/or propagandized events (apart from war-drum-beating "patriotic" wars); that everyone should take full responsibility for their own circumstances; that most Government services should be privatised and put out to competitive tendering, it seems to me that her funeral should be put out to public tender so that the government (that is the people altogether) does not waste any money.

Some cultural groups place corpses out in the open to be consumed by the elements, vultures and other birds of prey. Such would be a very cost effective way of finally getting rid of her. After all she was an early proponent of vulture capitalism, as practiced by Mitt Romney.
Such would be an exercise in perfect symbolic justice.

I would like to see the math that can some how get a cost of 20 million for a few horses, [who don't get paid], towing a gun carriage down a street.

The troops lining the street won't be paid any extra, surely the archbishop doesn't put in a bill for millions, so where's the cost.

Me thinks It must be the grave diggers getting it all, & I want a job like that.

Perhaps slightly off the subject but revelant, I had a phone call this morning requesting money to help the Salvation Army for the needs of the poor, perhaps I should have told them to ring the Thatcher funeral office for some help, but doubt very much if any would have been available for such a cause, pomp and ceremony comes first, we must remember we lesser mortals are not of much importance to the tugging the forelock mob.

By the way I forgot to mention our Julia and hangers on will presumed be winging their way at our expense for the shindig next Wednesday in London.

Actually Mr John Howard has been asked by the
Prime Minister to represent Australia at the
funeral. The Prime Minister felt that it was
appropriate for him to represent the Nation as
Mr Howard had the "deepest connection" to the
former British Prime Minister.

The long essay by Michael Hudson available on Alternet is worth a read. It puts everything about Thatcherism into historical perspective. It is titled Margaret Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer.
Not a pretty picture.

The Aussie representative will be John Howard, to this financially obscene "shindig".
Why is the Queen of Australia QEII attending, as she never attends former UK prime ministers funerals; other than that of Winston Churchill.

Thatcher will be remembered for two things:

1 She was part of a team of conviction politicians and leaders who were instrumental in causing the final collapse of the Soviet Union and western communism. Not only did this free the west from the threat of that expansionist ideology but it gave millions of people in the captive nations of eastern Europe their freedom back.

2. She breathed new life into the decaying carcass that was the British state. In 1979 Britain and its welfare state were in such a mess that most politicians saw their job as merely finding ways to manage the inevitable decline. Thatcher didn't buy that and, almost single-handedly, salvaged hope and prosperity from despair.

For these reasons alone she deserves all the accolades in death that Britain and the world can muster. We will not see her like again, I fear.

Sure there are the naysayers but these are mere hyenas yapping around the lioness.

Thanks Lexi & Kipp for the information regarding John Howard's attendance, same difference though, I am sure many Australians will be blown out of their minds to think of the expense of these shindigs, do we really care what Margaret Thatcher meant to the world,
she managed to kill indirectly many people in the Falklands war, that I presume will give her instant entry to the "Kingdom of Heaven"

As much as I hate to see myself writing this - as a youth of the 70s - we need a Thatcher here in Australia today.

Unfortunately, all we have is a Gillard and a growing sense of foreboding to go with our mounting debt and the sense of entitlement that has created it. A pygmy when we need a titan: a "feisty woman" when we need a thinking person with convictions built on reason and ethics and with the courage to carry them through when the rent-seekers are screaming imprecations and demanding special treatment.

I guess we get the government we deserve.

ojnab, what do you care about what the Brits spend? I couldn't give 2 hoots, personally and I doubt many here could either, with the exception of a possible few who retain British citizenship while enjoying the largesse of Australians.

Care to comment on the billions being wasted by our own Government in the name of edifice-building?

mhaze

Thatcher will also be remembered for getting clean away with one of the biggest propaganda lies in history - i.e. that there was 'no alternative' to neo-liberalism to save a nation decimated by an inflationary spiral set off by powerful union demands and wasteful welfare spending.

The truth was that, in 1973, the oil producing countries started demanding a fair price for their oil, which sent the economies of the Western world into an inflationary spiral as the cost of living soared and unions fought to keep wages on parity.

In the 1970s, the UK’s political and business class knew that, once the fledgling North Sea oil exploration came into full production by the early 80s, the inefficiencies of the British coal industry would be offset by oil revenues – enough to allow the economy and workforce a smooth transition from coal to oil. Instead, once in power, Thatcher sold off the nation’s oil to private industry, smashed the unions and closed down the coal industry, destroying thousands of lives.

In 1979, UK unemployment was 4%; by 1983, four years into MT’s reign, it was 12%. In 1979, the UK’s debt was 45% of GDP; today, after 30 years of neoliberal Thatcherism (continued by Blair), it’s 138%.

Yet the mainstream narrative still credits Thatcher as being the ‘saviour’ of the British economy, despite the fact that it’s in an infinitely more pitiable state today than it ever was in 1979.

Killarney,

As I said, hyenas snapping at the ankles of a lioness. The attitude is to dig around and find anything that might put her in a bad light, assert that that is the sum total of her contribution to Britain and the west and then proclaim victory. In your case it even involves simply fabricating 'evidence' to make the case, which I'm sure in Killarney-world is fine since its done in the service of a virtuous cause.

You wrote:"In 1979, UK unemployment was 4%; by 1983, four years into MT’s reign, it was 12%. In 1979, the UK’s debt was 45% of GDP; today, after 30 years of neoliberal Thatcherism (continued by Blair), it’s 138%."

Well in truth, unemployment when she took over was closer to 6% and rising and, while it did tip 13%, by the time she left office it was back to the levels of 1979. Just mentioning the highest point without context simply demonstrates irrational bias I'm afraid. As to debt, while it was around 45% in 1979, it isn't even close to 138% now. And when she left office it was below 30% (but we mustn't anything favourable to her, should we?)

Anyone who says that Britain is in a worse spot now than in 1979 simply doesn't understand the dire state of the UK economy in 1979. If you look at per capita GDP it was in free fall when she took over and by the late 80s was bounding along at over 5% pa.

Remember she never lost an election. Perhaps the Britains of the time had a higher appreciation of what she did for their country than the ideological snipers 30yrs hence.

MHaze, the British media as Australian media do today, sold the "Reds under the beds" yarn; against the Britsh Labour party.
I had the misfortune to have lived under the Thather years, and she not only sold off the family silver, but tried to sell off the souls of the British public.
Your support for this woman is admiral, though she made sure she lived and died in comfort, unlike many in the UK.
Interesting that she departed this life, being carried feet first out her luxury suite at the Ritz Hotel!!

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mhaze

You can be forgiven for not having encountered the 138% (or 137.6% to be exact) debt figure as it’s not bandied about too much. The figure however is published in the 2012-13 UK Office of National Statistics report, but buried away on page 31.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_302960.pdf

The debt level before financial interventions are taken into account stands at £1,161.5bn, or 75% of GDP (page 4). After the effects of financial interventions are added, the debt is £2,174 bn, or 137.6% (page 31).

‘…by the time she left office unemployment was back to the levels of 1979’

Interesting that you are using 1979 as a benchmark for a ‘positive’ Thatcher achievement. Wasn’t 1979 the year those incompetent socialists got thrown out office for ‘wrecking’ the economy that Thatcher was destined to ‘save’? Also, for what it’s worth, unemployment shot back up again the year after Thatcher’s political demise as the effects of the second recession she presided over finally took effect.

Pity she frittered away all that North Sea oil money on benefits for her rich benefactors to ensure that nice things would always be said about her in the msm. Had she put it into a sovereign wealth fund, as did Norway, she wouldn’t have had to resort to desperate measures like a poll tax when her luck ran out, and today’s Tories might not need to be ‘taxing’ the bedrooms of welfare recipients to stay afloat.

Spot on, Killarney!!

Thatcher presided over the downfall of communism?
What?
Regan did that with an arms race the soviet union simply could not afford!
Neither could the US, with a huge debt blow out under Regan! A debt burden that was simply rolled over and further blown out by other administrations.
The Vietnam war added to it, as did the Gulf war, and the action in Afghanistan, the latter two gobbling up more than a billion per!
Thatcher privatised the oil industry!
Madness in light of the revenue it has generated since.
She presided over a housing bubble created by the privatisation of council flats, which responded by going from 40,000 pounds, averaged, to 150,000 in just a few years.
Consequently, in today's Britain, while the average wage is just 25,000 pounds, the average rent 12,000 pounds!
Further compounded by things like a congestion tax, a bedroom tax, fuel well over a two AUD per litre and a massive VAT on the already seriously expensive staples of life.
Yea sure some people are still doing okay! But that is a minority and a shrinking one at that! Yes, the Brits were suffering under the British disease, which killed the motor industry and British shipbuilding.
Something had to be done to rein in the excessive and extremely harmful power of highly militant unions!
Say what you will, Maggie was up to the job! Ditto when Argentina tried to annex the Falklands, against the expressed wishes of the overwhelming bulk of the population/society!
Basically, because there were reasonable prospects of significant oil discoveries. No oil, no Argentinean interest!
We will become a society once again, if ever we confront another hostile enemy in another world war, and the rich and privileged need the common man to sacrifice everything, to protect the assets and interests of the privileged.
Naturally, we wouldn't expect the rich and privileged to take up the cudgels on their own behalf, but say at home, beavering away, "safe" in "essential" industries!
Well no; given in any future war, the safest place will be the front line!
Rhrosty.

Of course only a minority of Brits are doing well Rhrosty. They got rid of Maggy, & they've had almost 20 years of Labor since.

What the hell else would you expect, other than bankruptcy?

"Well no; given in any future war, the safest place will be the front line!"
Rhrosty.

Given the advent of drones and ballistic missiles and nukes, in any
future war there will be no place that is safe and, most likely, no front line.

My advice is to buy a disused mine somewhere in outback Australia but not where atomic bombs were tested.

Deep within the mine could be the safest place as long as you don't breathe or drink any water!

Wow Killarney, thanks for demonstrating my point. I wrote earlier.." The attitude is to dig around and find anything that might put her in a bad light, assert that that is the sum total of her contribution to Britain and the west and then proclaim victory."

Here you are quoting debt figures from 1979 which use one set of criteria and then figures using completely different criteria from 2013 and pretending they show something(or don't you understand the difference?). The 138% you quote is not in the slightest comparable to the 45% you use for 1979. Its just laughable. Tell the truth...what you did was find a really high number, opine that it was a good one to make a silly point and hope no one noticed. To be fair, you should have used the same criteria for your 1979 number. But wait, you couldn't because it didn't exist. Why? Because, it only started in the mid 2000's to calculate the monies spent on so-called financial interventions...interventions that Thatcher probably would have opposed.

So to recap, you've used two entirely different numbers to make a silly point, one of which relates to policies that Thatcher would find abhorrent. To draw a simple analogy, you've taken the minimum temperatures figures for one year, compared them with the temperatures inside the local sauna for another and declared that you've proven global warming. See that thing flying out the window...its your credibility.

By the way, I noticed you didn't bother trying to defend your employment number errors.

Hyenas snapping at the ankles of a lioness.

How about returning to England mhaze, we won't miss you here, to the land of curtsy and forelock tugging.

mhaze, Killarney,

Here's a collection of data sets giving a good idea of comparative fortunes between Thatcher's time and recent history...(the unemployment graph is telling)....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/datablog/2013/apr/08/britain-changed-margaret-thatcher-charts

What's "telling" about it, Poirot?