Tag Archives: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

News, Politics, Government

Britain's Iron Lady to be buried with full pomp

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Britain’s Iron Lady is being laid to rest with a level of pomp and protest reflecting her status as a commanding, polarizing political figure.

World leaders and dignitaries from 170 countries are attending the funeral of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday, an elaborate affair with full military honors that will culminate in a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip will be among the mourners, who include 11 prime ministers from around the world, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Dozens of people camped out overnight near the 17th-century cathedral in hopes of catching a glimpse of Thatcher’s flag-draped coffin and its military escort, and hundreds had arrived hours before the funeral was due to start.

“I came to commemorate the greatest hero of our modern age,” said 25-year-old Anthony Boutall, clutching a blue rose. “She took a nation on its knees and breathed new life into it.”

Flags on government buildings were lowered to half-staff across the country ahead of the service, but not all Britons were joining in the mourning.

Hundreds of political opponents said they would stage a silent protest by turning their backs as the coffin goes by.

“Like anyone else she deserves a decent funeral, but not at the expense of the taxpayer,” said protester Patricia Welsh, 69.

A coffin bearing the former leader’s body will travel by hearse from the Houses of Parliament to the church of St. Clement Danes, before being borne on a gun carriage drawn by six black horses to the cathedral, where 2,300 invited guests await.

More than 700 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel will line the route and around 4,000 police officers will be on duty as part of a major security operation, stepped up after Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 170.

Parliament’s Big Ben bell will be silenced for the funeral service, which will include hymns and passages from the Bible read by Prime Minister David Cameron and the late premier’s granddaughter, Amanda Thatcher.

The woman

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/ESMqI0vQT-I/

Articles of Interest

Margaret Thatcher Funeral: Britain’s Iron Lady To Be Buried With Full Pomp

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

LONDON — The Iron Lady is being laid to rest – yet even in death, she remains a divisive figure.

World leaders and dignitaries from 170 countries were to attend the funeral of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday, an elaborate affair with full military honors that will culminate with a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

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From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/margaret-thatcher-funeral_n_3097418.html

News, Politics, Government

Britain to bid farewell to its Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher

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The Iron Lady is being laid to rest — yet even in death, she remains a divisive figure.

World leaders and dignitaries from 170 countries were to attend the funeral of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday, an elaborate affair with full military honors that will culminate with a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

A coffin bearing the former leader’s body will travel by hearse to the church of St. Clement Danes, before being borne on a horse-drawn gun carriage to the cathedral, where 2,300 invited guests will await.

More than 700 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel will line the route and around 4,000 police officers will be on duty as part of a major security operation, stepped up after Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded over 170.

The woman nicknamed “the Iron Lady” transformed Britain during her 11-year tenure from 1979 to 1990, and died on April 8 at age 87.

Thatcher is being given a ceremonial funeral — not officially a state funeral, which requires a vote in Parliament. Still, the proceedings will feature the same level of pomp and honor afforded Princess Diana in 1997 and the Queen Mother Elizabeth in 2002.

That has raised the ire of some Britons, those who view her legacy as a socially and economically divided nation. Scotland Yard says it is working with a “small number of people planning to protest” peacefully Wednesday.

Those attending the Thatcher funeral include Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip, 11 prime ministers from around the world, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Some high profile guests sent their regrets: Former First Lady Nancy Reagan — whose husband Ronald had a close relationship with Thatcher — will not be able to attend; nor will former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who shared key moments in history with the late prime minister. Germany’s Angela Merkel was sending her foreign minister, while the American political power families the Clintons and the Bushes declined to attend.

Alicia Castro, Argentina‘s ambassador to the U.K., is not going, since Thatcher was in power in 1982 when Britain defended the Falkland Islands from being taken over by Argentina.

Parliament’s Big Ben bell will be silenced for the funeral service, which will include hymns and passages from the Bible read by Prime Minister David Cameron and the late premier’s granddaughter, Amanda Thatcher.

On Tuesday, Thatcher’s body was taken to the Houses of Parliament in London. Her coffin, draped in a red, white and blue Union flag, was driven to the Palace of Westminster and carried into the crypt chapel of St. Mary Undercroft, where about 100 family members, colleagues and senior politicians attended a private service.

The medieval chapel remained open overnight so lawmakers and parliamentary staff could pay their respects to the former leader.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/M72xeSGhrVw/

News, Politics, Government

Anti-Thatcher protest in London's Trafalgar Square

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Hundreds of opponents of late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have gathered in London‘s Trafalgar Square to celebrate her death.

Thatcher’s most strident critics had long vowed to hold a party in central London on the Saturday following the former leader’s passing.

Photographs and video footage appeared to show a few hundred people clutching their umbrellas in the rain between Nelson’s Column and London‘s National Gallery.

Britons remain deeply divided over Thatcher, who died Monday aged 87, and the debate over her legacy has aroused strong feelings here.

Widely respected on the right for reviving Britain’s economic fortunes and besting Argentina in a war over the Falkland Islands, Thatcher is reviled by some on the left for her anti-union stance and perceived indifference to the country’s working class.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/IwL-HFQ9ylE/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Thatcher's Death Renews Debate Over 1980s Economic Policies

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By The Associated Press

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Howard L. Sachs/AP/DPA U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher speaks after visiting U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the White House in July 1987. Thatcher’s death Monday has renewed debate about the economic policies pursued by both leaders.

By ADAM GELLER

Believers hailed its reduced tax rates and deregulation as springboards for economic miracles under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Critics dismissed the very same ideas as so much trickle-down hocus-pocus and voodoo.

It’s been most of three decades since debate over “supply-side” economic policies was at the center of U.S. politics. But for the moment, talk of conservative economic ideas that were as central to the story of the 1980s as Michael Jackson‘s moonwalk and the first MacIntosh personal computer is back. Why? A pair of its leading proponents have returned to the headlines.

Memories of economic days gone by were rekindled last week when David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director, unleashed a scathing attack on years of decision-making by U.S. leaders, including his former boss. It continued this week, when Thatcher’s death on Monday prompted recollections — some fond, others not so much — of how the Iron Lady imposed her will on a long-stagnant British economy.

‘Time Machine’

The confluence of events got economists waxing about what the past means for today, although there’s disagreement on how much supply-side’s ideas have been abandoned in the U.S. or are just awaiting their moment of return. In the meantime, there was Arthur Laffer, the U.S. economist often called the father of supply-side, back on television three times Monday, recalling a warm friendship with Thatcher that highlighted a time when prevailing wisdom on taxes, deficits, and the roles of government and individuals was very different.

“We’re back in the time machine,” said Yoram Bauman, a Seattle economist who makes a living doing stand-up comedy about the dismal science — and who has long opened with a joke or two about supply-side to test the depth and endurance of his audience’s knowledge.

Supply-side economists argued that reducing taxes through lower rates would encourage work, saving and investment. Early supply-side theory promised that the reduced tax rates could pay for themselves by raising tax revenues. Under Reagan, the government lowered tax rates and reduced government regulation as the Federal Reserve worked to rein in inflation. The administration’s focus on lowering tax rates for the wealthy, labeled “trickle-down economics,” reflected the belief that these gains would encourage the rich to spend and invest more to create jobs for others.

Now that theory — and Bauman’s comic material, for that matter — may have found its moment, but it’s not clear how long it will last.

‘Destruction of Fiscal Rectitude’

It began last week when Stockman wrote a lengthy opinion piece in The New York Times, followed by interviews, to …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

World mourns Thatcher, 'a great Briton'

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Global leaders expressed praise and admiration Monday for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as news spread of her death. Today’s British leader, David Cameron, summed up the consensus from friend and foe alike that the Iron Lady was “a great Briton.”

“As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds,” Cameron said in Madrid as he cut short a trip to Spain and canceled a visit to France to return home to lead funeral preparations for the longtime leader of his Conservative Party.

“The real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country,” Cameron said, “and I believe she’ll go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.”

As flags across the United Kingdom were lowered to half mast, Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth II would send a private message of sympathy to the Thatcher family.

Across Europe and the world, leaders lauded Thatcher for her steely determination to modernize Britain’s industrial landscape — even at the cost of violent strikes and riots — and to stand beside the United States as the west triumphed in the Cold War versus the Soviet Union.

In Poland, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said his country should erect a statue of the British leader. In a tweet he praised Thatcher as “a fearless champion of liberty, stood up for captive nations, helped free world win the Cold War.”

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who ousted the Conservatives from power seven years after Thatcher’s resignation, conceded that Thatcher had been right to challenge labor union power — the traditional bedrock for Blair’s own Labour Party.

“Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast,” said Blair, who credited Thatcher with being “immensely supportive” despite their opposing views on many issues.

“You could not disrespect her character or her contribution to Britain’s national life,” Blair said.

Discordant notes came from Northern Ireland and Argentina, where Thatcher’s reputation for unbending determination received early tests — when breaking an Irish Republican Army prison hunger strike in 1981, then leading Britain into a 1982 war to reclaim the Falkland Islands from Argentine invaders.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

Margaret Thatcher, Iron Lady, dead at 87

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Ex-spokesman Tim Bell says that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has died. She was 87.

Bell said the woman known to friends and foes as “the Iron Lady” passed away Monday morning.

During 11 bruising years as prime minister, Thatcher found a fellow believer in former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, transformed her country by a ruthless dedication to free markets and infuriated European allies.

Thatcher retired from public engagements in 2002 following a series of small strokes, and was only occasionally seen in public since then.

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