was raised.

I try to keep up, I really do, but it's getting harder and harder.

on next month's cover?

From this month's edition.

"They've languished in the Hall of Shame.....they've suffered enough!"

Shaky, maybe. Oldfield, go on then. Hucknall, fine. But Thatcher?Oh, I think not.

but I have just gone to DefCon3.

Thatcher is not cool. Just no way. Ever. Nor is Hucknall but then we've been there on these pages before. The rest were sort of alright.

Hitler. A
Stalin. J
Tse-Tung. M
Thatcher. M.
Mugabe. R.
Hussein. S.
Pinochet. A.
Mandela N.
Il-sung K.
Tymoshenko Y. (We don't know about anything about the policies of the Prime Minister of the Ukraine but how bad can she be?)

Thatcher is less 'evil' than Hitler, Mao, Stalin etc doesn't mean she's suddenly lovely and in need of rehabilitation.

I'm not one of those people who will smile when she dies, or throw a street party (death of old woman who has lost her marbles is neither newsworthy nor joyous), but neither am I going to suddenly forget the damage she did to a great many people and communities in this country, not because of some percieved greater good, but because she and the Tory party were smarting from the kicking the miners gave them in the 70s and wanted revenge.

One can argue that the strength of the unions needed to be broken to allow the UK to develop a competitive, service based economy; that's politics, and I can see two sides to that.

Destroying communities because of a petty grudge..? No.

...she was a fashion icon, according to that revisionist BBC show the other night.

I've never really understood the verging-on-Hindley-level hatred that she manages to provoke in so many middle-class men.

but I still buy each issue. Apparently I needn't rush out to get the current one. I know hate is a VERY negative emotion and shouldn't be encouraged but I bow to no one in my hatred of that woman. Sorry FraserM, but I AM one of those people who will be dancing in the street come that beautiful day. Sorry if I've offended anyone but you reap what you sow and she may be old and infirm now but there was a time when she knew EXACTLY what she was doing and for that I'm with Weller!

From The Guardian, March 18, 2008

When I mention his residual feelings about the long years of Thatcherism, however, out it all comes. "I think they were absolute fucking scum - especially Thatcher, who I think should be shot as a traitor to the people. I still think that, and nothing will ever change my opinion. We're still feeling the effects of what they did to the country now, and probably always will: the whole breakdown of communities, trade unions, the working class - the dismantling of lots of things."

Well, she did give us Ghost Town..... and er, Red Wedge.

It's too divisive, and it'll spoil things. Unless I was hallucinating (entirely possible, given the appallingly shite Microsoft product I'm fighting with here) someone with Godlike powers quickly pulled a politically biased posting from these pages yesterday. I was glad to see the posting vanish as rapidly as it did, as it has no place here, IMHO. There are plenty of places to vent off about politics.

I'm sure some will disagree, but personally I don't come in here every day to talk politics. I come in here to escape from bloody politics.

Best ever political songs?

Politics drives most of the artists we discuss on this forum. Next you'll be asking us to believe there's no such thing as society!!

A Change Is Gonna Come -Sam Cooke
If There's A Hell Below - Curtis Mayfield
Fight The Power - Public Enemy

by the lovely Marvin Gaye

Please take her away !! She wreaked havock in a lot of lives including my Dad's. She has spawned the Tony Blairs of this world and now we have to read the pundits tell us its time for reappraisal etc., I'll pass, thank you very much!!!

Maybe Vulpes is right we come on here to escape that crap.

There aren't many, if any good political songs they're like most comedy once you have heard the joke, it's not funny anymore.

than it was in the 70's.

No 3 day weeks, no rationing of electricity, no bodies piling up becuase the gravediggers were on strike, no bully boy miner or docker unions. widespread (relative) prosperity.

mrs t may just have been the reason for that....

i'm not sure she warrants the level of bile from some of the posts above - and comparing what she did to hitler etc is puerile.

Maybe in other countries Vaclav Havel, Sarkosy - of course it's superficial. Choosing Thatcher - not a bright idea.

Politicians aren't cool, and when they try to be they look desperate, viz:

1) Neil Kinnock and Red Wedge

2) Kenny Everett and Mrs T ("let's bomb Russia!")

3) Blair and Noel Gallagher

4) Harold W and the Beatles

Major and Heath knew they weren't cool and avoided this kind of nonsense for sailing and cricket (which is very, very cool actually)

Give me strength

JFK - MIxed up in Mafia

pitt the younger

tony benn - cool as ice - HERO

& enoch powell UNCOOL racist
nye bevin

dennis healey - silly billy

portillo & abbott MEET THE MUMMY

...please tell me why she is deemed to be cool. I can't think of one thing about her that was cool.

david hepworth told me to write that!!

There are many many thousands of people in the UK sitting on many many thousands of pounds worth of equity in their homes thanks to Mrs Thatcher's monetarist policies.

I'm no apologist for her and never voted for her but some of the anti-Thatch bile above is pure Elton.

fill as quick as this. I guess history will tell us she was a fatally flawed individual, naive to the faultlessness of her own bombast, yet able to drag a minority of the nation to the majority of power, thereby allowing the rose tinted spectacles of hindsight to replace Nelsons telescope at the blinded eye, as engaged by herself for much of her career, with crumbs of second sight flashing out to deceive the doubters.
BTW, Robert Plant is too old to have that awful longhair goatee combination. One or the other must go.

Nicey

By the way - did anyone see the excruciatingly naff advert for the (very good) LP Raising Sand, with Mr Plant skipping like a schoolgirl. Horrible.

but i also found this excellent picture as it's tea time. (ps is it a famous snap?)

Putting the politics aside for one moment,however much fun we are all having, the discussion above has made me stop & think about the word "cool". I'm a bit unclear whether we all mean the same thing when we use the term.

Does "cool" have a moral context? Can somebody only be "cool" if they think & behave in what we consider "the right way"... When some people decided who was cool or not in some of the posts above, their choice seemed largely based upon ideology or morality (ie benn = cool, powell = uncool: the reason seemd to be because benn is approved of for his politics but not powell).

Or is "cool" an essential characteristic that some people have or dont have and it exists outside of morality - eg Having watched powell on video, he appears mesmerising, interesting, thought-provoking ...and very different. He's outside the normal. Above the normal actually in terms of intelligence. To my eyes he is charismatic and, well,....cool. Now that doesnt mean I agree with his politics (if anybody cares, I dont) - but I do see and react to his charisma & "coolness"

I think the question I'm stumbling towards is - does cool require a moral context to exist or does it inhabit a world that is outside of morality?

If the former - then cool is difficult to agree on because we all (clearly) have diferent moral/ideological/political views - and to some people mrs t can simply never be (allowed to be) cool.

Whereas if we simply remove the morality and look at the things that make up charisma & otherness & ability to inspire and be admired which together add up to "cool" - we may think that mrs t does have those things and is "cool" and that the recent bbc4 programmes are beginning to highlight those characteristics.

What do you think? Have I lost the plot?

Phil Collins, Cliff Richard and Bev Bevan.
Um, that about it, but I guess Johnny Ramone would have, had Mrs T opened up the vote to ex-colonies as well, being of archly right wing sentiment.
gOING HOME NOW, IS THE DISCO STILL ON?

going to post re this when I got my *subscribed* copy, but thought anything I wrote was either overtly flippant or sanctimonious piffle. All I can say is I lived in Scunthorpe during her reign, and I saw the steel indusrty and families destroyed by that harridan's bonkers adherence to Friedman and Hayek's weirdo free-market economics and will neither forgive or forget. When she dies I shall be applying for an entertainment licence for her grave - so I can dance on it. The Watusi, in case yer interested.

ps sigh, I know Stalin, Pinochet, Mugabe and all the other right-wing brutes were vile bloodthirsty tyrants far worse than even the ghastly Grantham gargoyle. But it doesn't absolve her. It's like saying Harold Shipman was worse than Fred West, which somehow makes the latter somehow less odious.

pps What's the difference between Bush and Hitler? Hitler was elected......

so have only just come to this thread. Havent read every comment on here but the woman was simply appalling and a murderer to boot. The sinking of the Belgrano was unnecessary but so was the Falklands war - if the islands were properly looked after it wouldnt have happened. Funny how they became important to us after the Argentines put up a flag on South Georgia but we didnt give a fuck about them beforehand. It was a grimy war to keep a grimy politician in power and i for one would like to poke her in the eye with a pointed stick.

Ok, this might sound like a rant from a Daily Mail reader but bear with it. Today's society is less tolerant than say 30 years ago. People are not willing to wait for something until they can afford it instead, they buy it and get into debt. People are struggling to get onto the property ladder etc etc etc. The effects of Thatcherism all those years ago are now coming home to roost. She promoted anI'm alright Jack society and that now shows in the demise of this country. She is praised for selling council homes to 'the poor', but what did her and her party do with the money? It should have been used to build more council homes for the next lot of 'poor people' instead it propped up her useless economic policies. She privatised everything this country had, selling the family silver. People bought shares and immediately sold them making profits but what of these industries now. Owned by foreign corporations. Service no better and prices rapidly rising. And what of general intolerance toward fellow human beings? She promoted a 'have it now' society and this shows in the lack of patience and politeness shown generally around the UK.
I am not a Daily Mail reader. I am a 52 year old ex hippy who still has social values and good old fashioned manners and as far as I am concerned, I will join Elvis Costello when she dies and dance on her grave, if the queue isn't too long. She was not as evil as some on a previous list globally, but in some ways whe was worse in that she presented herself as a friend of the ordinary man, using papers like The Sun to spread her propoganda to the working man in a tits out for the lads way but destroying everything that would benefit the ordinary man in a cycnical and egotistical way. The problem was at the time, there were no credible alternatives to her as Prime Minister which doesn't make it right that she was in power, but does provide some explanation as to why she was elected 3 times.

she wasn't cool.

When, and in whose eyes exactly, were Earth, Wind & Fire ever “naff”. I suppose the bible of rock’n’roll cool at the time was the NME; and I seem to remember Danny Baker in those pages banging on about how they were the greatest group in the world.

As far as hating Thatcher goes I remember reading a piece in The Spectator a few years ago (her 80th birthday or something) which argued that the reason Margaret Thatcher has become such an iconic hate figure for those of the left-wing persuasion is because they have the nagging suspicion, which they fight furiously to suppress, that she she may have been right. Can’t say I ever voted for her but it’s an interesting theory.

He'll know

I said, "I haven't read the magazine YET"... but I have now. I don't agree that Thatcher is in any way cool, but that's just an opinion.

...because to a fair portion of the country, largely based in the SE of England, she held something close to heroine status for a long time.

The further north you travel the more that status is turned on its head. Tories can still barely win a seat here in Scotland, something which is almost entirely due to the Thatcher effect from the 80s.

But trying to say we should now regard her as cool would surely seem strange even to the most `loadsamoney' loaded cityboy.

So there...

going to be interesting to re-visit this particular discussion in ten or fifteen years time when, having failed to do anything remotely close to resolving the Middle-East question and in failing health, the UK populace begins its, by now, obligatory historical revisionism of Mr. Blair.

As someone who voted for him but doesn't put his Prime Ministers on a pedestal (they are, after all, only human), my gut instinct tells me all those on this thread who took a particular dislike to Thatch and her bumbling group of cronies will do exactly the same to Tony. In fact, why not just insert the name of any Prime Minister for the next foreseeable; it's not the person they don't like, its the fact that a) they don't generally like or are able to cope with change and b) 'it's not like it used to be'.

Nothing is. Ho hum.

As for even trying to justify her inclusion on a list of megolamaniacs and despots, a little perspective is required, no?

of one around here but it was morally right to get rid of Saddam Hussain - We were morally wrong to take a decade and a half to do it. The man was a monster by any yardstick and to have our own politicians defend him as in the case of George Galloway just shows that we have our own fair share of crackpots.
Of course the war was wrong but not everyone either side of the Atlantic was against it until the bodybags increased almost at the same rate as the expenditure. Unfortunately the media is very adept at showing us scale models of how to win a war in a week and other assorted crap.We get the politicians we deserve because of our own inertia.

Thought we might get this back to music. Apparently her favourite pop song was Telstar.

Anyway, she got tongues and pens wagging....

1) Blue by Fine Young Cannibals

2) Stand down Margaret by the Beat

3) How does it feel to be the mother of a thousand dead? by Crass

4) I'm in love with Margaret Thatcher by the Notsensibles

5) Tramp the dirt down by Elvis Costello

6) Margaret on the guillotine by Morrissey

7) The day that Thatcher dies by Hefner

8) Blue rinse haggard robot by the Inner City Unit

9) Maggie by the Exploited -"Maggie you c*%t, Maggie Maggie you c*%t, Maggie Maggie Maggie you f*^£!*g c*%t!"

10) Free World by Kirsty MacColl.

11) The Blow Monkeys She Was Only A Grocer's Daughter?

And, lest we forget, the following from Billy Ellliot the (ahem) musical:

So merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher
May God's love be with you
We all sing together in one breath
Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher
We all celebrate today
'Cause it's one day closer to your death

And, if you really need a break: http://www.milksnatcher.com/

gets my vote as probable all time best protest song. Subject matter is close to my heart because she is the figure in the public eye that I have disliked no despised the most.Sorry if that sounds harsh but its from the heart.
Funnily enough my job frequently takes me to USA and they remember her in a completely different light over there.The problem for our leaders is that we are so closely linked to the usa economically, culturally and in every other way that it is virtually impossible to avoid dragging along on their shirt tails. No so bad when you have a pragmatist like Clinton in power but when you have an idealogist in power like GWB its a problem.

... I encountered a stone wall-carving depicting Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden of Eden. The serpent had the head of Margaret Thatcher.

I am eagerly awaiting to download 'Maggie Thatcher's Death anthem' from the Maggie Thatcher Experience with the lyrics "She's dead, Yahoo, let's dance" and 'The Lady's not for Burning (Piss Anthem)' with the lyrics "The LAdy's not for Turning, gonna Piss on her grave, the lady's not for Burning, gonna Shit on her grave!"
It has become a flash mob group to download the songs the week she dies at http://www.FlashMobDeath.tk and is available on iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=29061338...

( Via http://www.maggiethatcher.com )