In the week they took hundreds of pounds from people in severe poverty, MPs and Lords claim up to £3,750 each to return from their luxury holidays to spout off in honour of Margaret Thatcher. Meantime the media are busy classifying any potential protest or expression of opinion at the taxpayer funded funeral jamboree as “potential terrorism”.
Whether protest at the funeral is tasteful or not is a fair question. But there is no question it is perfectly lawful. There is virtually no understanding of the very notion of civil liberty in the mainstream media.
Two people watching the funeral in Leeds –
https://twitter.com/IanWhiteNews/status/324469527922495489/photo/1
Neither Edinburgh nor Liverpool is screening this. Can’t think why not.
Re moderation, or lack thereof
Habbabkuk reminded us just recently, that most visits to Mr M’s blog appear (presumably from wordpress admin reports) to be for his main post only and not the subsequent commentary.
Pretty disappointing then that millions of potential fans have clicked off from the numerous engaging, passionate, insightful, loving, intelligent, mildly ironic, rarely controversial, never hostile or sarcastic, always well researched, unfunny but frequently slipdilious comments that we all post.
Although, I did once receive, from an avid reader, a high resolution self-portrait of a bearded 57yo Polish “plumber” named Borys, lounging back in a club chair, totally nekked, one leg slung over the arm to provide an unobstructed view of his impressively long serpentine naval tattoo, sans mane, commending me on my posts and inviting me to share some of my own portraits. So we do have some readers and fans, if that makes any difference.
Despite the press-ganged lilliputian dignitaries, there seemed little by way of support from the masses, apart from curious tourists and the usual aproned obsessives you get at these events. I’d say it was a very dissapointingly damp squib.
The only comfort her supporters might take from this event is that thankfully the old dear wasn’t around to witness it.
https://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/4/17/1366184907564/0e014f6a-8fb0-4e87-9f9d-1414be74246d-620×391.jpeg
From the sermon by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral today:
“After the storm of a life lived in the heat of political controversy, there is a great calm.
One thing that everyone has noted is the courtesy and personal kindness which she showed to those who worked for her, as well as her capacity to reach out to the young, and often also to those who were not, in the world’s eyes, “important”.
The letter from a young boy early on in her time as Prime Minister is a typical example. Nine year old David wrote to say, “Last night when we were saying prayers, my daddy said everyone has done wrong things except Jesus. I said I don’t think you have done bad things because you are the Prime Minister. Am I right or is my daddy?”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the PM replied in her own hand in a very straightforward letter which took the question seriously.
Continue reading the main story “Start QuoteHer upbringing was in the Methodism to which this country owes a huge debt”
End Quote Richard Chartres Bishop of London
“However good we try to be, we can never be as kind, gentle and wise as Jesus. There will be times when we do or say something we wish we hadn’t done and we shall be sorry and try not to do it again…If you and I were to paint a picture, it wouldn’t be as good as the picture of great artists. So our lives can’t be as good as the life of Jesus.”
Her upbringing was in the Methodism to which this country owes a huge debt. When it was time to challenge the political and economic status quo in nineteenth century Britain, it was so often the Methodists who took the lead. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, for example, were led not by proto-Marxists but by Methodist lay preachers.
She applied herself to her work with formidable energy and passion. But she continued to reflect on how faith and politics related to one another.
In the Lawrence Jewry lecture she said that, “Christianity offers no easy solutions to political and economic issues. It teaches us that there is some evil in everyone and that it cannot be banished by sound policies and institutional reforms…We cannot achieve a compassionate society simply by passing new laws and appointing more staff to administer them.”
She was very aware that there are prior dispositions which are needed to make market economics and democratic institutions function well: the habits of truth-telling, mutual sympathy, and the capacity to co-operate. These dispositions are incubated and given power by our relationships. In her words, “the basic ties of the family are at the heart of our society and are the very nursery of civic virtue”. Such moral and spiritual capital is accumulated over generations but can be easily eroded.
What, in the end, makes our lives seem valuable after the storm and stress has passed and there is a great calm? The questions most frequently asked at such a time concern us all. How loving have I been? how faithful in personal relationships? Have I found joy within myself, or am I still looking for it in externals outside myself?
Margaret Thatcher had a sense of this, which she expressed in her address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: “I leave you with the earnest hope that may we all come nearer to that other country whose ‘ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace’.”
Rest eternal grant unto her, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her.”
@ Herbie: The police and the Daily Hate will report 14,567,000 tearful mourners lining the streets and wailing, while 20 evil benefit scroungers, righteously kettled in Acton, represent the sum total of dissent on the day. And Photoshop will prove it.
This obituary reads as very ideologically slanted to me:
This presupposes that “prior dispositions” exist which have or could have made “market economics and democratic institutions” (two very distinct concepts) function well.
The required habits chosen avoid anything approaching charity. The attribution of essential “family ties” suits class distinction and avoids “community ties”. –Many families are insufficient to themselves through bad fortune and smallness. This talk over “virtue” is high highfaluting prose that is noticeably deficient in egality and charity.
To think Methodist -Jesus did never preached of limited family ties, Jesus disciples were not cousins. By Jesus we are all Gods children.
Guano
Your version of islam, what you say you’ve become, is one where what a person thinks or does is not important, the measure of their worth or merit is their religious purity, with you alone as the main arbiter of who is true or otherwise, according to your own arbitrary and contrarian standard. It is a religio-centric viewpoint that repels both non-muslims and I would think most enlightened muslims, if such exist; but you seem to think clueless mercenary hotheads playing with boys toys under the influence of a cocktail of performance enhancing drugs -those engaged in killing innocent Syrians for example, en-masse, are those ‘true’ ones, due your credit and approval, demonstrating their non-extremist credentials by mindless, barbarous extremism, so as to buck broad-brush stereotyping. A binary, absolute matter denoting value to human life and worth from the narrowest criteria. Like all religions then, irrational, largely absurd, sick and sad, but fortunately well advanced in their long slow utter decline; with so little to differentiate people, biologically, genetically, culturally excluding warped religious influence on culture – we are all at least 25% daffodil – religion steps in to create division and separation and conflict where none exists in nature. At one with zionism and other religious supremacism. Affecting to possess religious beliefs, and/or expounding them, is all by itself an extremist position.
On the day the BBC reached a new low of cloying, nauseating obsequiosness to the criminal power elite, there an antidote, which is to bring her ideological successors down and to reassert functional democracy. Anyone kidding themselves that Thatcher didn’t deserve to end her days wriggling, purple-tongued on the end of a rope, better waken up.
“the night they drove old Maggie down
and all the bells were ringing, the night they drove old Maggie down, and all the people were singing …”
Yes, Komodo. And so scripture is written.
With all the 80s themes her death resurrected, it was nice to see that at least one of the muppets was able to make an appearance:
https://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/4/17/1366192927176/9e16b01e-fca5-452d-ae75-b6edb3727f4b-320×480.jpeg
Herbie reports :
“Despite the press-ganged lilliputian dignitaries, there seemed little by way of support from the masses, apart from curious tourists and the usual aproned obsessives you get at these events. I’d say it was a very dissapointingly damp squib.”
Can’t get over the fact that there were no riots, can you (perhaps you remember Mary assuring us – twice – that there would be). Don’t be a bad loser.
No, everything went very well with dignity and respect.
And if I were you, I would confine the use of the word ‘lilliputian” to describe your own brain.
@ Komodo :
@ Herbie: The police and the Daily Hate will report 14,567,000 tearful mourners lining the streets and wailing, while 20 evil benefit scroungers, righteously kettled in Acton, represent the sum total of dissent on the day. And Photoshop will prove it.
——
Ah….the sour smell of disappointment! Delicious!
“the habits of truth-telling, mutual sympathy, and the capacity to co-operate”
So prominently practised by governments of all shades, but most notably by her acolyte Blair’s.
“That idea of hbk being capable of moderating is one of the most absurd ever.”
——-
On the contrary, dear boy, it would do this blog no end of good.
Of course, some of you would have your wings clipped a little.
If Craig asked me I would be prepared to give the request serious consideration.
Just back from Maggie’s funeral. I stood to the south of St Clement’s. I turned my back as the gun carriage began its journey and passed; two others near me did likewise. Someone was clapping so close to me that I could feel puffs of air on my face; I estimate that less than half of the people present clapped, less than a quarter near where I stood. One man appeared to be quite emotional and had a runny nose. But mostly, people were taking photos and videos. There were lots of people and teams with largish to enormous cameras.
No, that’s your BO, H. Easy mistake to make.
Good on you Clark! No “sheilds” required then 😀
Who said banging your head against a brick wall wasn’t funny?
Conspiracy Road Trip –
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/abc2/201304/programs/ZX8834A004D2013-04-17T203042.htm
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/04/12/simply-the-wierdest-letter-margaret-thatcher-ever-got/
Weirdest, actually. But still fun.
Our current moral dilema by some on this blog are ridiculous.
English Knight you are definately not.
Chrristian morality is virtualy extinct and I doubt you are either English, Christian or a Knight.
This is a blog for Liberals so we need to maintain such.
Why did liberalism dissappear from convential politics?
Osborne in tears (knowing he won’t get funeral like it), his wife got out of bed the wrong side, Cameron smirking. Cameron’s wife is the only one out there enjoying the occasion, dressed for ladies day at Ascot. Classic photo!
https://twitter.com/richwilliamssky/status/324469934866432000/photo/1
Having camped out all night in a sweaty and garishly aproned sleeping bag, Habbakuk harrumphs:
“Can’t get over the fact that there were no riots”
It’s true that Thatcher and riots were synonymous in her day, but as Proust observed, there is no feeling now, not love nor hate, or anything in between, just nothing.
“As God once said and I think he was right”!! One of the deceased’s many self deluded comments. Was ever a so called house of god filled with so many war criminals at one time,what a freak show,Kissinger,Bliar,Bomber Brown et al.Go to my website http://www.freedomlite.org for 8ft by 6ft oil on canvass to see Thatcher,Bliar Kissinger & Suharto in “Batting for Britain” and “Taming the Timor” A minor genocide that only went on for 25 years and eliminated a third of the population, life for the East Timorese was far from “La Vita e Bella”.
Dissenting from the Daily Hate:
http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/analysis/105329/in-her-fury-i-saw-values-alien-us
Plus boffo pic.
It’s a good website Michael (Culver) and the ‘Bomber’ Harris quote just shows the type of people, attracted to, or moulded by, the military. What a disgusting creature! And there’s a statue to the abomination, as there will be for Thatcher.
Komodo, I thought Schindler summed her up quite well.
Surely the best website ever?
http://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/
Anon wrote:
“Your comments are illegal under UK Law. If the mods do not take action I will be contacting the police and formally reporting your post on this blog.”
Which law would that be then?
An Israeli joke by Sergeant Major Avi Ben Chamo:
An Arab asks a Jew on Memorial Day eve: ‘Why do you stand [at attention] at the sound of the siren?’ The Jew answers: ‘We stand silently [at attention] to remember the Jewish soldiers that were killed in Israeli wars.’ The Arab asks: ‘What about our dead?’ The Jew answers, ‘Ah, that we celebrate tomorrow…’
Ira Glunts explains: “To understand the hook of this vile “joke,” which met with mostly praise, laughter and a number of other repugnant “Arab jokes” among the over 700 reader comments, one must know that the day after Memorial Day is Independence Day, the day on which Israel celebrates its victory in its 1948 War of Independence. For the Palestinians, this is a day of sorrowful remembrance for their war dead and the exile of over 700,000 indigenous residents.”
The man behind the campaign to promote anti-Margaret Thatcher song Ding Dong! the Witch is Dead has complained that he has received “shocking” death threats.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9995093/Man-behind-Ding-Dong-Thatcher-campaign-cannot-believe-he-has-received-death-threats.html
Yonatan,
I presume you are not from the UK? This one for starters for most of GB.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_and_Religious_Hatred_Act_2006
Legislation on racial and religious hatred also in force in Scotland.
Need the group’s keen analytical skills for a minute.
Take a look at these pics (specifically the damaged backpack.)
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/21996004/exclusive-photos-boston-marathon-bomb
Now look at these and remember the bomb in Boston was a pressure-cooker type which would be heavy to carry in a backpack
Keep in mind that the Arab national was ruled out.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BICVI8YCMAIff7i.jpg:large