shove her in a mine shaft oh no sorry thanks to her there isnt any                                                                                                                                                                              

I don,t really do politics , but she was voted in 3 times unlike the present goverment or the previous labour prime minister . Someone must have liked her                                                                                                                                                                             

yeah because she shifted all the local elections boundaries..... there was no way of getting her out!!!!!!   and the voting was different in those days too if i remember rightly.... so yes some people of course liked her.......   and so you will get teh split camp..... some hated her... some loved her.....   what is it they say... never talk about politics or religion                                                                                                                                                                                   

to pick up on Ragnar's point about Tony Blair having a state funeral I think he should, just so long as its also next Wednesday and we can bung 'em both in the same hole together (and if he's still alive at the time then even better), or even better than that cremate them both and 'encourage' Cherri Blair to leap onto the funeral pyre in best grieving widow style                                                                                                                                                                              

  I'm just glad my dear departed Mum wasn't a politician, I  couldn't stand all the cruel things others say                                                                                                                                                                              

i thank you for your observations/comments,we now know who to shoot come the revolution.......lol....xx jinx57                                                                                                                                                                             

Well after hearing all the rigmarole of what's going to happen in the funeral ... In my opinion this IS a State burial without the title. To compare her to Mr Churchill is an absolute insult. I'm not saying for one minute we should be throwing street parties I think this would be wrong but her legacy is still on show where I'm from .... Communities ripped apart and will never be mended in my life time or my children's I'm afraid.

Even the polls are showing that the public don't want this to be paid for by 'us'.

But let's face it, it's a typical government thing (no matter what side they play for), "We're going to use public money, you can't do anything about it, so tough".

Let's be honest here, 'voting' is like a fart in the wind, it doesn't matter as the government will always do what 'they' want to , and you don't become a politician to help others, only what you can get out of the job!

If I had children and they came to me and said they wanted to become a traffic warden, or they are gay, or wanted to simply be a road sweeper I'd still love them at the end of the day.  However, if they said they wanted to become a politician, I'd kick the out of them and say "your mother and I didn't bring you up to be such a selfish, lying little .  You get out there and get a proper job where you get 'real respect'.

Right I'm going to take my blood pressure now and calm down!
                                                                                                                                                                             

Youre dead on of course Neo! id kick the shite outta my kids too - I just brought them up better....and I worked in politics for 10 years of my life...not really as a politician I might add (although if I had been id hardly admit to it now!)

im astounded that the government cannot see that popular opinion is not just divided but absolutely resolute one way or the other...theres no middle ground here! my absolute disgust is reserved for those that think Thatcher did anything for the UK. if it hadn't been for that clown Galtieri invading the Falklands she wouldnt have got a 2nd term let alone 3!! Gawd help us if shes the best we can hold up as "British"! How far we have come.....NOT!

How about a local government send off, down the civic amenity. I am sure Westminster council could oblige.                                                                                                                                                                             

Like her or hate her, she at least had a back bone and bigger balls than anyone since.....I was brought up labour but even my Dad who hates Tories says you got to give her respect for what she did achieve, even he says the unions forced the hand back then they were holding the country to ransom, garbage in the streets, power cuts every week, shortages because transport and rail on strike........ I have read a lot of the posts and I think some of the facts are missing on a lot of points, if you look at something objectively you have to look at both sides of the story..... ....I don't think she should get an 8 million pound funeral....but she should be acknowledged for her sheer grit and determination and bringing the country back from the brink financially it was a healthy economy that Blair to took over....pity they fucked it up!

We are heading for an even bigger f*ck now with this coalition led by tory policies. But as they say, "never discuss politics and religion".   This it not necessarily about politics, it's about unequal treatment. She should not have a funeral that is any different to other priministers. Maggie was not a patch on Churchill. Also she requested that she was not given a big send off. So why are the government doing it, especially when they are making major cuts across the board, because they say we are supposedly skint.   I don't vote according to my own personal needs, however as it happens, the best years I have ever had with my business was under Labour. Now things have become borderline.                                                                                                                                                                             

David, i think and based on what I have read and experienced, the last lot were patching holes everywhere by borrowing and spending money we didnt have, now it kept things afloat for a while but it was just delaying things..... its easy to say this lot is worse or the last lot, it is well known that it takes at least two terms for any government to implement policy to change and well we saw what happened after 3 terms of New labour.... it was held together with sticky tape....and I just think that it really has gone too far down hill to stop it.....I do recall the nineties and i have to say I was far better off then and felt that people were prospering, buying there own houses etc....now i am feeling the pinch as well and I am reasonably well of but then again i work abroad......

the problem now is vast....if you watch despatches and panorama things like that you see the depth of the trouble the countries in...all the talk in the world wont help....we have so many rules and regulations topped of with human rights and EU legislation so the things that need to be done cant be done..... 

for instance immigration..... we accept 10's of thousands of students to bogus education institutions  that were never audited and just allowed to issue student visa's ....should they not have been vetted in the first place and monitored...a simple walk in check during teaching hours would be enough but it is never done....would save a lot of pissing around..... if an illegal is found they are registered and released to appeal.... the longer they stay the harder to deport.... that is just the top of the iceberg.....

we have too many rules to help the guilty and not enough clear instruction to support the rules..... it is not helped by judges that are completely out of touch with reality.....supported by bleading hearts who never have to live in a cut of section of society where it is felt the most and label anyone who isnt agreeing a racist or anti this or anti that......... try asking someone who lives in these crime ridden areas or in the middle of an area where they are a minority in their own country....we have criminals who are never put away, terrorists living free on the state who we cant deport and to top it of, MP's who abuse the system and get away scot free (Remember the recent scandals, how many got charged? oh we made a mass mistake and sorry we will pay it back...if that was you or I we would go to prision for fraud!   Its a sad state and most people feel the same way but it is not politically correct to even say it....

ok totally highjacking the topic so I'll wind my neck in now as Im veering off topic my apologies....                                                                                                                                                                              

Johnny   I suppose we all have our own views and maybe in a different forum we could go further.   I think now we should let the old girl go to rest.                                                                                                                                                                             

Aye, it's all in the past now, and we should all focus on the future...as the Japanese say don't look for back to blame concentrate on fixing what's wrong.....the shame of the failure is enough ( well in Japanese culture anyway, in ours they are just happy they got away with it lol) it is just a pity that all politicians don't get together and do the right thing for the country now to get us fixed instead of trying to undermine each other for cheap political shots....

Mixed emotions about Maggie. I do think maybe the unions were too powerful, but it's gone too far the other way now, in that workers seem to have virtually no rights. I do think that Arthur Scargill also shafted the miners, I know many of them turned on him.  I think  poll tax and privatisation were Thatcher's downfall, however I don't agree with most of her policies, but I do have a respect for her, in that she knew her own mind, and I admire her tenacity, the present lot just U-turn their way out of things. I'm not a great Thatcher fan, but I watched  the prog "The Long Road To Finchley" and I loved her quips to some of the old school Conservative men.  If she was PM now I don't think Abu Quatada would be here, as he'd habe been on the first available flight to Jordan, and rightly so!!!