Margaret Thatcher's state funeral

I must lay my cards on the table; I don't think that Lady Thatcher should have a state funeral, they should be reserved for royalty although I would have agreed with one for Winston Churchill. However the venom directed by the usual suspects on the left of politics has been pretty disgusting. Here are some of the comments from contributors to The Guardian online:

"I don't care what method people use to celebrate the fact that the bitch is dead. But for most people it will be a celebration. Dancing on her grave? Too bloody right, I will.
yeractual

A 19-GUN salute? Only if they were all aimed at her.
imasmadashell

I rather like the suggestion that whatever happens she is going to be buried at sea, by the time everyone has finished p***ing on her grave...
greymatter

State funeral! She should be burned at the stake!
4danglie

‘The country owes her a 19-gun salute.’ Yeah, but we’re not cruel, she can have a blindfold as well!
BurgermaS

A state funeral would be a farce. But how about nationwide street parties or perhaps auctioning coffin nails? I’d pay good money to hammer the lid down.
Ifweworkers

I'll be there protesting and throwing eggs even if they promise to extraordinarily rendition me. Never. It’d be a crime to honour this self-serving, divisive politician who governed with minority support and who created the s*** we live in today. She did more to destroy ‘the family’ than a hundred Roy Jenkins ever could. No, no, no. Just throw some petrol on the corpse, chuck a match and let the wind do the rest.
bass46

I'd go along with it on three conditions: 1) The son Mark is stripped of his hereditary baronetcy. He has done nothing to deserve it and everything to lose it. 2) We can get it over with as soon as possible. Friday week would be good for me. 3) We do a special offer (Buy One Get One Free) with the current Prime Minister. The fact that both of them are still breathing should be no obstacle.
EastFinchleyite

State funeral? A televised public execution would be far, far too good for her.
RoyalFamily

Why waste money when half the country will be having a party to celebrate her demise, anyway?
NemesistheWarlock"

Lovely people, the "left" are so much nicer than the "nasty party" aren't they?

There have been some equally disgusting remarks on some other "left" forums:

"When Margaret Thatcher was Minister for Education, she took away free milk from schoolchildren. I created the slogan ‘Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher’ and put it on a wanted poster with her picture. When she became prime minister, we wrote to her from the Chiswick Women’s Aid refuge and asked her what she would do for victims of domestic violence. A minion replied on her behalf and said that she was ‘not interested in women’s issues’. A state funeral would be an insult to this nation.
Erin Pizzey, Guardian newspaper."

Do you think Ms Pizzey is missing the point of Margaret Thatcher's comment that she wasn't interested in women’s issues, might she not have meant that she was not a WOMAN PM, she was a Prime Minister who was a woman.

"The headline ‘State funeral planned for Lady Thatcher’ is deeply irresponsible. When it appeared, I honestly thought that the week had got off to the best possible start.
Chris Gibson, Guardian newspaper."

Oh very witty Chris Gibson. Are you happy being on record wishing someone dead?


I see that some other non-Royals have been given State Funerals in the UK:
* Sir Philip Sidney (1586)[citation needed]
* Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (1806)
* Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1852)
* Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1865)
* Charles Darwin (1882)
* The Rt Hon. William Gladstone (1898)
* Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar (1914)
* Edward Carson, Baron Carson (1935)
* The Rt Hon. Sir Winston Churchill (1965)

Looking through the above list, maybe Lady Thatcher should have a State Funeral after all.