Margaret Thatcher death party - Trafalgar Square, London, 13 April 2013
William Godwin | 14.04.2013 01:16 | Public sector cuts | London | World
The Guardian live stream confirms 3,000 attended last night's "official" Thatcher death party in London's Trafalgar Square - which, for those critics who claim this event was "insensitive", to put the moral issues in perspective, is only slightly more people than were murdered by Thatcher's great friend, the monetarist pioneer General Pinochet, and alot less than died of superbug infections after the Tories privatised the cleaning of NHS hospitals! All in all a good turn-out for an event that was conceived 20 years ago by an activist group that doesn't exist any more, and all the more impressive for people making the effort at short notice and in the pouring rain.
At present the BBC and Daily Mail etc are wildly under-estimating attendances and seem to be down-playing the level of confrontation, of anger and of disruption, mindful, no doubt, especially in The Daily Blackshirt's case, of how their hysterical opposition to anti-Thatcher protests helped draw attention to articulate and well-informed criticism of Thatcher's poisonous legacy, thereby seriously damaging the carefully-manufactured spectacle of adulation, which the far-right media hoped they'd be able to manufacture and to retrofit on history (not to mention, again in The Daily Mail's case, helping draw attention to their own track-record of outright Fascism). As the Met Police themselves confirmed on TV, (quoting almost verbatim) the police won't be able to search everyone at Thatcher's funeral, and the "reputational damage" caused by even one protestor with a tin of paint or box of eggs will be massive, but in some senses the metaphorical can of paint has already been thrown.
Despite the fact that most critics of Thatcherism endured and lived through the bullshit from day one, a few (notably BBC) reporters grasp at straws, trying to imply it's somehow odd that younger critics of Thatcherism didn't live through Thatcher's personal reign. The implication that younger people aren't entitled to an opinion about events they're still living with, amounts to an attempt to discourage young people from learning about history (which is, of course, exactly what the right-wing would prefer young people do). However it's now very clear that, as a result of the monetarist politics pursued in both Thatcher's UK and Reagan's USA, de-regulation of the financial sectors and attacks on unionised industry placed employees, taxpayers and ultimately entire economies at the mercy of financial crooks, but Thatcher's legacy also lives on in employment practices that allow for instance the exploitation of interns. Once radicals fought to secure workers a decent living wage, now, as a direct medium-term outcome of Thatcher's attacks on organised labour, many young workers struggle for the right to earn ANY wage! In many cases the same corporations that cheat on taxes are actively subsidised by the ordinary parents who support those interns, and that same legacy also damages the lives of salaried employees, as, day-in-day-out, cowed and hen-pecked staff acquiesce to ever-increasing pressure to neglect their families and work late into yet another evening...
Meanwhile the right-wing media are trying to airbrush history, dishonestly re-packaging a Prime Minister who bitterly opposed the Anti-Apartheid movement, as someone who somehow deserves credit for helping bring down Apartheid.
We care about history because we care about posterity... Keep up the pressure... Fight Back!
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/04/508434.html
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/04/508356.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/apr/13/margaret-thatcher-protests-cuts-live
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/13/dont-upset-margaret-thatcher-mourners
At present the BBC and Daily Mail etc are wildly under-estimating attendances and seem to be down-playing the level of confrontation, of anger and of disruption, mindful, no doubt, especially in The Daily Blackshirt's case, of how their hysterical opposition to anti-Thatcher protests helped draw attention to articulate and well-informed criticism of Thatcher's poisonous legacy, thereby seriously damaging the carefully-manufactured spectacle of adulation, which the far-right media hoped they'd be able to manufacture and to retrofit on history (not to mention, again in The Daily Mail's case, helping draw attention to their own track-record of outright Fascism). As the Met Police themselves confirmed on TV, (quoting almost verbatim) the police won't be able to search everyone at Thatcher's funeral, and the "reputational damage" caused by even one protestor with a tin of paint or box of eggs will be massive, but in some senses the metaphorical can of paint has already been thrown.
Despite the fact that most critics of Thatcherism endured and lived through the bullshit from day one, a few (notably BBC) reporters grasp at straws, trying to imply it's somehow odd that younger critics of Thatcherism didn't live through Thatcher's personal reign. The implication that younger people aren't entitled to an opinion about events they're still living with, amounts to an attempt to discourage young people from learning about history (which is, of course, exactly what the right-wing would prefer young people do). However it's now very clear that, as a result of the monetarist politics pursued in both Thatcher's UK and Reagan's USA, de-regulation of the financial sectors and attacks on unionised industry placed employees, taxpayers and ultimately entire economies at the mercy of financial crooks, but Thatcher's legacy also lives on in employment practices that allow for instance the exploitation of interns. Once radicals fought to secure workers a decent living wage, now, as a direct medium-term outcome of Thatcher's attacks on organised labour, many young workers struggle for the right to earn ANY wage! In many cases the same corporations that cheat on taxes are actively subsidised by the ordinary parents who support those interns, and that same legacy also damages the lives of salaried employees, as, day-in-day-out, cowed and hen-pecked staff acquiesce to ever-increasing pressure to neglect their families and work late into yet another evening...
Meanwhile the right-wing media are trying to airbrush history, dishonestly re-packaging a Prime Minister who bitterly opposed the Anti-Apartheid movement, as someone who somehow deserves credit for helping bring down Apartheid.
We care about history because we care about posterity... Keep up the pressure... Fight Back!
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/04/508434.html
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/04/508356.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/apr/13/margaret-thatcher-protests-cuts-live
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/13/dont-upset-margaret-thatcher-mourners
William Godwin
Comments
Hide the following 13 comments
Only 25% of people think the hater's funeral should be paid for by the taxpayer
14.04.2013 01:36
A survey by market research agency ComRes found that 25 per cent of people thought the funeral should be paid for out of public funds while 60 per cent were opposed.
God
Good turn out
14.04.2013 12:13
Fuck the tories
couple of vids from yesterday's party
14.04.2013 12:20
Tory Funerals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYbpmJcfawI&list=FLNPLs-JqJOOBMhrOUcDFThQ&index=1
scout
Thatcher's "funeral" is nothing but a political rally
14.04.2013 12:28
This isn't a funeral, the actual funeral's being held separately (and the general public aren't invited) - Thatcher's "funeral" is a massive stage-managed right-wing media spectacle and right-wing political rally
Adam Smith
Thank you.
14.04.2013 12:40
That aside, most other news broadcasters, even Russia today, have clearly steered away from reporting this clearly and without an agenda so we can see that what Thatcher repesented clearly does have a legacy in the Oligarchal, privateering world of the modern media. Oddly, that has brought forward a contradictory problem in that that same media are unable to report on the very object that they most adore! How the hell did that happen?
Thank you to everybody that turned up in the rain last night to show the heirarchy that their ways are no longer the ways of the people. Thank you for that, and thank you for keeping your dignity in the face of this dreadful face-spitting that passes for reporting these days among the global "mongrel" classes. As you assembled in Trafalgar Square last night, Tory party central office broadcast a documentary on one of their TV channels that set about the business of manufacturing the lie that is their party political machine. Predictably, they used halfwit tabloid editors, oddball economists and a few party extremists to put the party machines pointed view across liberally sprinkled with some face-spitting at so-called Labour "lefties" just to even things out. It was truly unconvincing in a way that is truly disturbing. A few people will take it up and run with it, you know, members of the EDL and National Front, but on the whole it was filled to the brim with innacuracies the most disturbing of which is the idea that Thatcher was a revolutionary and that the tory party represent the working class.
Wonders never cease...Parliament's only quality at the moment seems to be that it has the capacity to be a ceaseless wonder.
anonymous
I got a bad feeling about the funeral...
14.04.2013 13:00
maybe her coffin will be full up with guns, and she faked her death and her son will whip open the coffin and pull out a couple of ak47 passing them out to child soldier/mercinary/choir boys, they will then line up all the world leaders etc and execute a few of the ones they dont like Clinton etc.
then they will take over the world.
chaz n dave
Margaret Thatcher Party - Trafalgar Square PACKED - Panoramic Photo!
14.04.2013 13:05
Margaret Thatcher Party 13/4/13 - Trafalgar Square PACKED end-to-end
Click on the panorama to enlarge
Paul Dacre
Liverpool fans join Margaret Thatcher party!!!!!!
14.04.2013 13:35
Margaret Thatcher - you picked on the wrong city
Margaret Thatcher - you didn't care when you lied
Margaret Thatcher - the witch is dead
Margaret Thatcher - we're gonna have a party
Margaret Thatcher - a stroke of good luck
Margaret Thatcher - flowers for the victims
Dean
Young Tories pretending to be Millwall fans
14.04.2013 15:00
After a couple of hours in Trafalgar Square we nipped off for some scram, and got a tweet saying there'd been a fight with Millwall in a pub on Whitehall. Fearing a mate might get hurt we checked the pubs down Whitehall - no sign of trouble so obviously we missed it. Coming out the Lord Moon of the Mall pub, 3 young & very well-spoken student types in Millwall scarves asked my mate if he knew the way to Soho. I came out a few seconds later while one of these twerps was showing some martial arts moves off to his chums. They caught up with us again at the bottom of Trafalgar Square, were told in no uncertain terms not to start any fights, and scuttled off pleading that (despite the accents and not knowing where Soho is) "we live here". A bit later they were talking to people in the demo, but seemed peaceful so we moved on. Moments after they were running through the crowd past us, offering to have anyone out who thought they were hard enough etc - however one very brief exchange of views was all it took to cause the none-too-impressive sight of these wannabes giving it the big one from behind (I'll say that again, behind) the police lines behind which they sought refuge
To be fair we saw one pissed thug who the police allowed to throw missiles at the demo, who was seen off by other protestors when he broke cover later on (there was no evidence of any football association), but the point is the bulk of the troublemakers were much more like the kind of berks who, back in Thatcher's day, would have been career-wankers in the Federation of Conservative Students, and were most likely to have got this bright idea from reading the Daily Telegraph. Better luck next time
http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/millwall-cup-semi-final-saturday-13-april/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Conservative_Students
Town
From a pub in Liverpool Saturday
14.04.2013 15:36
Real Casuals (not the racist fakes from facebook)
Dorothy Arrested
14.04.2013 16:36
Margaret Thatcher & the BBC
Si
Margaret Thatcher - Liverpool and London
14.04.2013 22:15
Anti-Thatcher crowd-surfing
Liverpool remembers
Thatcher & Pinochet
Folio
Margaret Thatcher Party - London & Liverpool
14.04.2013 22:58
Margaret Thatcher Party - crowd surfing
Margaret Thatcher Party - on the terraces with Liverpool
Margaret Thatcher Party - Thatcher & Pinochet - Friends Reunited
Folio