Judy Garland in the Top Ten

[Beowulf]

This is the way they used to do these things, courtesy of Irving Berlin and Mildred Bailey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJn9oFBgh6Q

When that man is dead and gone
We’ll go dancing down the street
Kissing everyone we meet
When that man is dead and gone

What a day to wake up on
What a way to greet the dawn
...
When they lay him twelve feet deep
I’ll be there to laugh, not weep
When that man is dead and gone

Boy, that song is spooky but kinda like it Course...Irving Berlin, always great. Bailey had a good voice. Glad to have heard that one.

[louisa]

Margaret Thatcher was a terrific stateswoman and Prime Minister. I lived through all of it so I know something about it.

She was respected throughout the world and achieved true greatness. Even her political enemies respected her.

For a woman to succeed in politics, particularly in the sixties, she had to be twice as good as a man in order to get half as far.

It can't have been easy for her but she did what she thought was right for the country. When she came to power Britain's interest rate was around 18%. Mrs. Thatcher reduced this to under 4%.

I do, however, think that her funeral should not be so high profile because it is going to generate the worst in some people. The people who are making most noise are kids who weren't even born while Mrs. Thatcher was in power. Any excuse for a riot and no doubt 'rent-a-mob' will be there as well.

The 'orchestrator' of Wednesday's proposed 'protest' (riot) is a 17 boy who lives with his stockbroker father and mother in a house worth £700,000. As I said, any excuse for a riot.

[Chris]

Margaret Thatcher was a terrific stateswoman and Prime Minister. I lived through all of it so I know something about it.

Rather a lot of us shared that depressing experience. You may speak for her supporters, but please don't presume to speak for the rest of us.

[louisa]

I have no presumption for speaking for anyone but myself.

[Chris]

I have no presumption for speaking for anyone but myself.

You seemed very eager to tell us how much even Thatcher's political enemies respected her.

The point is that it wasn't only Thatcher's policies that inspired opposition. It was also her personality and her personal behaviour, and many people didn't respect her any more than they respected her policies. Many people despised her.

[brummie]

I too lived through those horrendous years and certainly don't have any respect for Thatcher, in fact nothing but contempt,the same contempt she demonstrated for a whole section of British people. No doubt some did very well out of the society of greed and selfishness she promoted but they did so on the backs of the poorest and weakest members of society. Oh sorry I forgot she took great delight in asserting there was no such thing as society and as long as the profits kept rolling for the select few everyone else was on their own.
Don't get me wrong while I certainly won't be shedding any tears I hope there won't be any trouble at the funeral.Cameron and the Bullingdon brigade have done everything they can to try and provoke trouble and it would be crazy to fall into their trap and provide them with ammunition to hurl at the left.I would much rather people took to the streets to oppose the present government continuing her evil works in attacking the working classes.

[Limehouse]

I too lived through those horrendous years and certainly don't have any respect for Thatcher, in fact nothing but contempt,the same contempt she demonstrated for a whole section of British people. No doubt some did very well out of the society of greed and selfishness she promoted but they did so on the backs of the poorest and weakest members of society. Oh sorry I forgot she took great delight in asserting there was no such thing as society and as long as the profits kept rolling for the select few everyone else was on their own.
Don't get me wrong while I certainly won't be shedding any tears I hope there won't be any trouble at the funeral.Cameron and the Bullingdon brigade have done everything they can to try and provoke trouble and it would be crazy to fall into their trap and provide them with ammunition to hurl at the left.I would much rather people took to the streets to oppose the present government continuing her evil works in attacking the working classes.

I'm with you brummie. I can't imagine why anyone believes Thatcher saved the country. As far as I am concerned, she ruined us and we are still feeling the effects. If I was to list all the things I think she did to wreck our society, it would take me so long I would be on my death bed before I finished. The amount of good she achieved could be written on a postage stamp.

I am sickened by the pompishness (is that a word??) of her funeral. She was PAID to do what she did, handsomely. She was well-cared for in her old age and now she is getting a funeral worthy of a princess. If only some of the poor old dears who died cold and alone could have had even a tiny faction of the comfort she had in her last years.

[Limehouse]

[QUOTE=louisa;258033]
For a woman to succeed in politics, particularly in the sixties, she had to be twice as good as a man in order to get half as far.
QUOTE]

I keep hearing this but I think that is was actually much more of an achievement for someone like, say, Keir Hardie to reach parliament than it was for Thatcher.

[Limehouse]

You seemed very eager to tell us how much even Thatcher's political enemies respected her.

The point is that it wasn't only Thatcher's policies that inspired opposition. It was also her personality and her personal behaviour, and many people didn't respect her any more than they respected her policies. Many people despised her.

Bravo Chris.

[Chris]

If anyone is tempted to believe that Thatcher was somehow universally respected, it's also worth remembering that she was the only prime minister to be forced out of office by her own party in the last 70 years.

[queenofrandom]

So the BBC has gone into censorship mode and announced that in the chart rundown at the weekend, which always plays the chart songs, only a short clip od 'Ding Dong' of 'up to 5 seconds' will be played as part of a news item.In so doing the BBC has managed to come up with a compromise that pleases niether the anti Thatcher campaigb who see it as censorship and a whitewash nor her supporters who thought it should be ignored altogether and not played at all.
Of course the thatcher accolytes have launched there own chart campaign with a song supporting her ,it remains to be seen if the BBC will only play 5 seconds of that if they manage to force it into the charts.

All (as far as I am aware) chart shows in the UK used the same approach, not just the BBC. Even student radio didn't play it!

I am a 90's kid, didn't live through the Thatcher years, and know only what I have heard in our appalling media and what my family has told me. I don't particularly care for her political ideals, however respect for the dead should outweigh any of that.

If people want to protest, then do so against the government in power now who are currently destroying the country.

[brummie]

I was out on Sunday and in any case lost interest in the kind of commercial production line pap that fills the charts many years ago, but according to reports the BBC played the pro-Thatcher worship song in full while reducing the opposite opinion to a few seconds, clearly displaying its right wing political bias. Apparently BBC now stands for British Broadcasting Conservatives and is the media arm of the Tory party.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Can't believe those fools do not see the greatness of Margaret Thatcher, or the mindless idiocy of celebrating the death of a Prime Minister...er, well, I do live in the U.S. so...yeah, maybe I can believe it.

and Judy was great.

That's the left for you, Beowulf.

The caring, sharing, equality crowd who just want everyone to trust them because they're gonna take care of us all. I mean, they're so charitable they celebrate the death of an old girl because she didn't agree with them.

If anyone was in any doubt as to what the left are really about then this should shake one or two heads.

[brummie]

People tend to get the respect they earn and respect they give out in equal measure. Thatcher had nothing but contempt for large sections of the populations so its hardly surprising they react to her in the same way.

[Fleetwood Mac]

People tend to get the respect they earn and respect they give out in equal measure. Thatcher had nothing but contempt for large sections of the populations so its hardly surprising they react to her in the same way.

Nonsense.

Brummie, I'm from a mining village in County Durham. I was 12 during the miner's strike.

I'm not some home counties surburbanite who goes to Outer Mongolia once in a while, comes back with a band on his/her wrist and pontificates about being with the poor from the secluded, leafy suburbs of the home counties.

Thatcher had a vision for the country. She'd watched the unions hold the country to ransom on more than one occasion. An unelected, numerically small group of individuals were running the country and attempting to bully the government into submission. I still can't believe how short-sighted they were: they could win the odd battle now and again, e.g. Ted Heath, but that was a war they simply could not win.

The unions were wielding disproportionate power and it was bringing the country to its knees. If ever there is a pratical example of the notion 'power corrupts' then this was it. Thatcher, being a conservative, felt that the country was being held back due to power being far from equally distributed. So, she set out to smash the unions. Not her idea by the way, the conservatives had studied the problem in the '70s and beyond; she was merely the figurehead.

And, she was right.