I know people who have (and wear) ‘I still hate Thatcher’ t-shirts. I haven’t one myself but I always understood what they meant. What baffles me are the people who think she was a great leader.
She replaced a crippled Britain with one where greed and selfishness were dominant. Remember ‘Loadsamoney’? You got it. She destroyed not just the livelihood of thousands of British workers but the very communities in which they lived. She made decisions which resulted in policemen on horseback charging down striking miners. She claimed some windswept islands thousands of miles away as British and gave orders for the deaths of all on board the Belgrano to reinforce her point. She spoke of the Long Kesh hunger strike as the last sting of a dying IRA wasp and in the cause of giving them the label ‘criminal’, allowed ten men to die. She told people that there was no such thing as society, only people and their families.
So apart from the fact that all the men in her cabinet were scared shitless of her, where’s the greatness? I hope God shows greater mercy to her than she showed to others.
What ever happened to the old saying "Nihil de mortuis nisi bonum"?Is it not a bit early to dance on her grave?
ReplyDeleteThe classic answer is "De mortuis nil nisi verum."
DeleteOne should not, of course, say anything negative about the dead that one would not have said while they were around to reply. But if one had--and expressed--a negative opinion of a person before that person died, I see no reason to change it or suppress it because that person has died, whether recently or not. (This is quite apart from the merits or otherwise of Baroness Thatcher, a matter on which I express no opinion here.)
I think it is legitimate to pass comment on her policies and decisions without straying into personal vitriol.
DeleteSo fair comment from Jude in my opinion.
Not so sure about how she 'allowed ten men to die'. There are those who feel it was the IRA leadership who allowed the hunger strikers to die.
The hunger strikers were criminals, Jude. That's why they were in gaol.
ReplyDeleteTo bad she didn’t put the state sponsored criminals in goal.
DeleteBut of course she couldn’t really do that because most of the criminals were in her own government.
Of course there’s two types of justice, one for the unwashed, and one for thoses who have the power.
She was an evil bloodthirsty woman and I hope she gets what she deserves when she meet her maker.
By the way, I think it’s gutless of you to hide behind that moniker Anonymous 13:51
The hunger-strikers, unlike war-criminal Thatcher, were widely supported in Ireland. On this day 32 years ago the people of Fermanagh/ S. Tyrone elected Bobby Sands as their MP with more votes than Thatcher ever got.
DeleteMy mommy once told me that if you haven't anything good to say about someone, say 'nothing,' so in regards to Margaret Thatcher...nothing
ReplyDeleteThe hunger strikers were not criminals. The hunger strikers were ordinary people who refused to accept the corrupt and evil injustice which was the British presence in Ireland and the misrule of an Orange State. Wasn't so long ago that Nelson Mandela was a so called criminal.Bobby Sands as a magnificent human being who was proud to stand up and be counted. He didn't hide behind anonymity, like yourself, you waste of space.
ReplyDeleteI know this is totally unrelated, but would it be possible for you to do a blog post about the A5 Aughnacloy to Derry dual carriageway being turned down, and the wider implications, for people in the the west of the north?
ReplyDeleteI note your "new best friend" (Eoghan Harris) in today's Sindo reckons that Thatcher "deserved respect for courage in the face of adversity ".He makes the point that it was not Thatcher but. the Provo leadership which prolonged the hunger strikes.In support of this.he cites Fr Denis Faul,Richard O'Rawe and Denis Bradley.What's your view on all this?Presume you may not agree with Eoghan !
ReplyDeleteAny comments,Jude on what Anonymous 14 10 above has posted?I doubt whether you are biggest fan of the Sunday Independent .
ReplyDelete