Margaret Thatcher is dead.

[Krill]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155

Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died at 87 following a stroke, her spokesman has said.

Lord Bell said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning."

Baroness Thatcher was Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

She was the first woman to hold the post. Her family is expected to make a further statement later.

[dannubis]

Whether you agreed with her policies or not, she was an extraordinary woman.

RIP.

[Krill]

I can promise that some people in the north will be going out and buying champagne, even if it is a southern pansies drink.

[dannubis]

Understandable.

[Dinner]

Personally, I think some of her policies were good (privatization of companies), some of them were bad (shutting down the coal mines because she wanted to harm the unions), while others were good in theory but completely botched in execution (like how she killed the British auto industry instead of slowly privatizing it like the French did with their car companies). Still, she deserves to be honored.

[kentonio]

I'm deeply saddened by this.

[Alexander's Horse]

a towering figure, I like people who stand for something, even if I don't agree with them

[The Mad Monk]

RIP, Iron Lady.

[PLATO]

RIP

[Imran Siddiqui]

R.I.P. Lady Thatcher.

[kentonio]

People up and down the country will be buying champagne and celebrating!

I hate virtually everything she stood for, which was a systematic and cynical enrichment of her political base at the expense of everyone else in the country...!

Then again, without her, we wouldn't have liberated the Falklands.

Remember for a second the absolute ruin of a ****hole Britain was beck in the seventies. Perhaps also the millions of working class people who never had the slightest chance of owning a home until Mrs T sold the council house stocks to put those people on the housing ladder and given them a real chance at social mobility.

Mrs Thatcher never gave a damn about her 'political base', like her or hate her she did what she believed was right.

[regexcellent]

RIP. She brought Britain back from the brink.

[Hauldren Collider]

RIP

I don't think Reagan could have won the cold war without her.

[molly bloom]

Perhaps also the millions of working class people who never had the slightest chance of owning a home until Mrs T sold the council house stocks to put those people on the housing ladder and given them a real chance at social mobility.

And being saddled with repairs and maintenance bills they couldn't pay:

This right-to-buy revival may not be the dream maker politicians wish for, housing professionals, academics and government officials are warning. Snapping up cut-price council homes can instead represent one of the costliest forms of homeownership in the long term, especially when your home happens to be a flat in a rundown block - not an entirely uncommon social housing scenario.

The trouble is flat ownership turns tenants into leaseholders, with a commitment to help foot sometimes eye-wateringly large repairs bills of neglected estates. Right-to-buyers can be expected to pay towards common parts repairs, such as lift installations, ventilations systems and carpets running throughout their whole block. Such expense obviously add up.

Leaseholders in the Emanuel House estate in Westminster faced bills of up to around £60,000 after overspends inflated the council's original £2.2m estimate of a major refurbishment scheme. These charges have now been cut dramatically to just £250 each after the Residential Property Tribunal – which adjudicates disputes between landlords and leaseholders – ruled Westminster's consultation process as confusing, flawed and invalid. This lumbers Westminster with the lion's share of the repairs tab, now likely to tip £3m, while leaseholders' collective contribution amounts to less than £10,000.

James Butler, director of Landmark which helped represent some of the leaseholders at the tribunal claims to regularly see "phenomenally" high bills issued by social landlords. "Ex-local authority flats are by far the most dangerous," he adds. A government drive to refurbish social housing under its decent homes programme had "massively exacerbated" leaseholders' plight, Butler says. "Every single case I deal with mentions decent homes."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/housing-network/2012/jul/24/right-to-buy-revival-leaseholders

I bring up Westminster because I used to work there, and it became notorious for housing its homeless in other boroughs- as far away as where I'm living now- while at the same time deliberately keeping empty council houses boarded up at the expense of Westminster ratepayers. It was also a borough favoured by Thatcher's government...

like her or hate her she did what she believed was right.

Yes, like the Poll Tax. Being unwilling to listen to good advice and ploughing on regardless is not always an admirable trait.

[kentonio]

How old are you? Because I ****ING REMEMBER THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Also old enough to remember.

Thatcher did tighten up many of the excesses of the loony left, but by enriching the well off - or rewarding any rats that could scramble off the sinking ship!

Considering how completely ****ed the economy was prior to her time in office, I don't really remember anyone being particularly well off. i do however remember things like the streets piled up with rubbish because the binmen were on strike, 3 day weeks of electric because the coal miners were on strike and bodies piling up because even the grave diggers had gone on strike.

Those people that bought their council homes? Great, let's make them grateful nouveau-tories by virtually giving away the nation's assets to them at cut price! Let's then prevent the councils from ploughing back the proceeds from those sales back into providing new council homes - Let's start making people homeless because there's nowhere for them to live any more!

Sure, letting people get on the housing ladder is clearly making them 'nouveau-tories'. Far better to let generation after generation have to live on the council lists with no hope of getting anywhere. As for homeless people, you want to make a bet about whether we have more or less homeless now than we did in the seventies?

Let's then hoodwink the people by selling off the country's assets to them that they already own. Those that can afford it (the rich) can buy them and participate in the great sell off gravy train! Those that can't have basically been stolen from! Then the government can take all the proceeds and benefit the rich even more by cutting taxes - which the rich benefit from vastly more than the poor!

Considering the average person is considerably better off today than they were in the seventies, that sounds like pure commie-babble.

Let's also **** all but the richest in the country with the poll tax! My own household of 3 working adults had our rates/poll tax/council tax (notice how poll tax never actually truly went away despite the riots!?) quadruple overnight!!! I still remember my exact poll tax bill to this very day!!! Whereas Mr and Mrs Rich in a well off part of the country had theirs plummet... Don't want to pay, OK but you can't vote! Hence 'poll' tax...

The Poll Tax was a ****ty idea that deserved to die, true. She went a bit mental towards the end.

Go **** yourself, Kentonio!

Better still, go **** Thatcher's still warm corpse seeing as you love her so much!

[/rant over]