One of my most cherished possessions is an inscribed miniature brass miner's lamp presented to me by the Notts NUM as a thank you for the work I and a few friends did during the strike. We would collect groceries donated by people in supermarket car parks and run them down to miner's clubs to be shared out amongst the striker's families. I made that trip three times a week for over six months and was glad to do it. There was real hardship among the mining communities and it just seemed like the right thing to do. You could safely say that I was no fan of Thatcher then and my opinion hasn't changed that much since. She was dismissive of all opposition and altogether too strident for my taste.

But she was an elected leader of a democratic country who kept on being elected and so must have had the support of a sizeable proportion of the electorate. Comparisons to Pinochet and other dictators are childish and unworthy of those who make them, and diminish the experience of those who suffered under real dictatorships.

And now she is dead. Whilst I cannot say that I will mourn her, the reaction of many on this thread is shameful. I have rarely seen such mean spirited bile masquerading as legitimate comment.

Number 6 in the iTunes chart now.

Supporting apartheid

Her handling of Northern Ireland

Her reaction to Hillsborough

Her attitude to Liverpool during and after the 1981 riots

etc etc etc

No problem with that but to have The Sun criticising peoples reaction reeks of double standards and whilst on subject of Thatcher the "Gotcha" headline was hardly tactful and respectful of the dead. Add in how they handled recent deaths of Saddam, Gaddafi, Bin Ladden and others and closer to home their edition after Hillsborough means that however vile peoples reactions might be they will never sink as low as our biggest selling national paper has done.

This is interesting. Coincidentally the man who wrote the song (ding dong the witch is dead) - Oscar Award-winning Yip Harburg - was born on 8 April, the same day that Thatcher died. Its an intresting world

After the déjà vous of another Labour clusterflip term in office, my God do we need her now. Imagine 40 Bob Crow's and 13% on the dole queue.

13% on the dole....when exactly was that unemployment was far higher under her than pre-the 1979 election (though to be fair the figures are manipulated so much these days no one even those in government has a clue what the true unemployment figures are in this country without even factoring in under-employment).

WTF are you talking about now?
At least my "cherries" were factual, I have no idea where you are plucking these stream-of-consciousness gobbets from.

In which force did you serve and receive your wounds?

Yeh, right mate, do one!

You made the claim.

Im just interested in how you served queen and country and got your wounds. It seems strange that you took such offence to a pretty simple question. Almost as if you had made it up and didn’t want to be asked any more details.

Spot sir no tears will be shed by me,many a drink will be had over the next week or so. I just wish my dear dad was still here to join in the celebrations.

Well done for so amply demonstrating that you never actually experienced the period of Labour government in the 70's. If you had, you would know that it bore absolutely zero relation to the 13 years of New Labour.

Some of us lived through both and are able to make an informed comparison.

Predictable. And not something I would ever share with a hide under the stairs type like you.