o.k......now running for cover behind my Tiger900...right...in the interests of free speech and expression,would the money to cover a state funeral for margaret thatcher (something she publicly stated she did NOT want...),be better spent on other things?? your suggestions would be interesting reading ,methinks....                                                                                                                                                                             

b.t.w.....my way of thinking is along the lines of hospitals,worthy causes,suchlike...not mass free drinks...sorry...x jinx 57                                                                                                                                                                             

NO maggie thatcher should not have a state send off......   she sold all the british industry... and what happened to that money??   she crippled communities, she promoted a "im alright jack" society with no care for those worse off than yourself and then called people less better off "moaning minnies"   she was a totally cold faced beeeeeeeaaatch who only cared for people who were prepared to stand on others to make money....   she wanted to disband and cripple the nhs when she was in ... oh and look what cameron is doing now.......   she stopped the building of new council houses..... the list goes on...   can anyone put here what she did good?? id be please do hear the counter-argument for her?                                                                                                                                                                                 

No she shouldn't get a state burial .. I'm sure plenty of Ex miners (as am I ) would dig the hole for her to save the tax payer another fortune.                                                                                                                                                                              

The only good thing she did was the Falklands shame she wasn't here to deal with the fighting now but she was still a bitch. No she didn't won't it even she said it was a waste of money                                                                                                                                                                              

  I liked her, she had b***s and didn't take crap off anyone, regardless of her policies.   She should have a normal funeral though as she was only human like the rest of us (despite some thinking she wasn't)   And no I ain't making any counter argument for her, I don't need to, I liked her courage and thats it.                                                                                                                                                                             

I admired her strength and personality but even though I'm a multimillionaire and benefited from her policies . I thought they were callous and unchristian .
State funeral ? No , I don't think that's necessary .
Dusty x                                                                                                                                                                              

Looking back from 20 years it is easy to remember the headline grabbing incidents that occurred during her premiership but she didn't get elected 3 times without being popular.

She was lucky in the enemies she had. Galtieri was a massively unpopular dictator who launched an ill conceived and poorly executed invasion of the Falkland Islands in a desperate attempt to boost his popularity. Scargill was an uncharasmatic power crazed despot whose failure to follow democratic principles ensured that he had little popular support among the general populace and led to the breaking of the unions.

Her enemies constantly underestimated her strength of will - they didn't call her the Iron Lady for nothing but ultimately it was her stubbornness that led to divisions within her party and her loss of the leadership.

During her premiership the economy of the country recovered, immigration was curbed and Britain's world standing was re-established. Looking at the bigger picture there were certainly plus points.

So am I a Thatcherite? No, I 'm just trying to be subjective. Personally I think that ultimately her policies on privatisation and the closing of the coal mines will eventually prove disastrous for this country.

Cold hearted? Yes, but show me a warm hearted politician and I'll show you one preparing to stab you in the back. At least she wore her heart on her sleeve, however cold it may have been!

So does she deserve a state funeral? I don't think so, but neither does she deserve street parties celebrating her death. In the end she was just another elderly lady suffering the ravages of dementia and it sickens me to see teenagers who weren't even born when she was in power celebrating her demise.

Wow, that went on a bit didn't it!?                                                                                                                                                                             

pmsl electric badger.... i didnt quite get that  and lmfao at Dusty the millionnaire   nah that is interesting factoids there EB... its good to hear counter argument..... and you put all your points well... like it   she aint having a state funeral.... bt on the radio today they say she is having a military send off at st pauls i think it is....... and i notice she was stayin in teh feckin Ritz hotel when she died too.... FFS, where will teh miners be when they are dieing.....   i still think she was nasty... and i dont care if she was seen to be courageous or not... nasty and bitchy is nasty at the end of the day... and i prefer a warm caring heart any day... even if it dont win wars, .... bt that jus my opinion and we all got one which is cool   then again i wouldnt mind her bein soo nasty and the "iron lady" if she had actually given two fecks about the people in her own country... yeah its good to be "hard and heartless" dealing with the enemy bt why not show compassion to the people in this country... that is teh bit i just cannot forgive...                                                                                                                                                                             

NO NO NO def not she sold off all the elect/gas power + rail and lots more we no longer build anything in our countries and we are still dealing with the fallout from the sale of council homes (no new ones built) and all the greed from the city started by her.it was her that put miners on the sick to get them off the unemployment figures because it was 3 million and going up

I'm just going to answer Jinx qustion and say no
If we give her a state funeral some people will say blair should have one. so where does it stop.   The next state funeral should be for the Queen.                                                                                                                                                                             

I have never been a fan or supporter of her or her party. The Tory's have never  represented the working person and never will. Being referred to as the iron lady etc, could be seen as simply stubborn. It seemed that she was not prepared to negotiate or give way on any issue. The only one I recall is the turn around on the pole tax, that was out of necessity for her and the Tory party's survival, due to the level of riots around the UK. She had to give in or resign. She gave in and along came council tax.   It is argued that the decision to go to war in order to liberate the Falklands was her crowning glory. However I think that any British prime minister would have done that, regardless of political persuasion.   British industry has never been the same since her time in power. Where Britain was a major world manufacturer, we are now a country of service industries.  We don't make much any more every thing, but I think the negatives out weighed the positive in the things that she did.   During this period of very unsettled times many things happened and I can go into much more.   We should not forget what she did, good or bad and that she died an old frail lady and should be respected in her death.   She should be given the same send off as any other prime minister.                                                                                                                                                                             

I`m with both david above (she was a frail old lady in the end, who has a family)and lulu and regadless of her chosen career (politics) was in fact a strong willed and honest role model for a generation of women (look at when she came to power, as the ONLY woman)
her party messed up a fair bit, but look at the muppets we have now?
same idiots different heads.

however , I can never forgive her, for when I had only just progressed to "milk monitor"
she abolished school milk.
I loved milk.

  ...we are still dealing with the fallout from the sale of council homes (no new ones built)   Where I live the council have built TWO new small plots of flats, some for the disabled, and are just finishing off a third plot.                                                                                                                                                                                  

good riddance to the owd hag! state funeral? if she could afford to spend her old age living in the Ritz im sure her family can pay for her funeral!

She did nothing for the average joe in this country....just created a yuppy culture where everyone is out for what they can get for themselves - the only thing to celebrate is she's finally dead!

  Lol Yeti, yes I hated it when they took the milk away too, 'Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher' was my parents' name for her then   I never got to be milk monitor tho......                                                                                                                                                                             

Thatcher’s political career was dedicated to the same class interests of big business and society’s wealthy elite championed by Cameron and his conservative coalition.
She never faltered in her determination to ride roughshod over working people, their organisations and the public services on which they depended to make the rich richer still.
Her easy recourse to tears when her idiot playboy son lost himself in the Sahara during a car race or when she was knifed by her Tory Party MPs in the wake of the poll tax debacle was at odds with her failure to shed a drop for her millions of victims.
But it was her attitude to Britain’s organised working class, describing its members as the “enemy within,” that marked her out as a nasty piece of work, even compared with other Tory prime ministers.
Her single-minded readiness to mobilise all the resources of the state, egged on by the Tory lynch-mob media, contrasted with the inability of labour movement leaders to understand what they were facing.
Thatcher’s government was able to confront train drivers, print workers, seafarers and miners in their turn and to defeat them.
While TUC leaders vowed to remain law-abiding, the police, justifiably dubbed “Thatcher’s bootboys,” were given free rein to run riot on picket lines, infringe people’s free movement and other rights to smash the trade union movement.
She stood alongside apartheid President PW Botha in his obdurate rejection of democracy in South Africa, terming Nelson Mandela a “communist terrorist.”
Thatcher’s famous dictum that there is no such thing as society is contradicted by her funeral arrangements, which will be covered by the public purse rather than her family’s extensive wealth.

@ Lulu,

yes mine too (milk snatcher)
though its only because I was clever enough to be born a few years before you that I managed to pinch all the extra milk,
I mean distribute it wisely ha ha                                                                                                                                                                              

LOL Yeti  milk has never tasted quite the same since then has it? And Ive never seen those wee dinky bottles again too.....