Charlie the bikemonger. In English?

it’s poetry Hora..

about how, in Dorset.. a thatcher is someone that fixes roofs..

‘Thatcher’s dead’ they said
Change the barrel then
I thought to myself

that one was by me just then.. 😀

I’m impressed at your mind reading attempts, unfortunately they need some polishing up.

‘Thatcher’s dead’ they said
Could cause a fuss on STW
I thought to myself.

Not quite a haiku, but acceptable.

Meanwhile…Radio 1 are to play only a clip of Ding-Dong – contained in a news item – in the chart show.

Proof that if you sit on the fence you get splinters up your chuff.

I think they made the right decision, they where never going to listen.
Although I don’t listen to radio 1 and find everything they generally play offensive.

Radio 4 have been covering this story and playing the clip at, it seems, every opportunity 🙂

The UK is being plunged into an imposed period of national mourning at the death of the nation’s longest serving and only female Prime Minister. Yesterday we looked at her domestic legacy; today we look at her love affair with despots.

In 1969, President Nixon authorised Operation Menu, the air assault on neutral Cambodia, in secret and contrary to International Law. During one six month period of 1973, the Nixon-Kissinger White House dropped more bombs on Cambodia than it dropped on Japan during World War II; equivalent to five Hiroshimas. More than 600,000 Cambodian civilians were killed by this bombing.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot marched into Phnom Penh on April 1st 1975 thanks in large part to the bombings which he leveraged to create a previously nonexistent popular support for his brand of Maoism. The ensuing genocide would be one of the bloodiest in human history, leaving 2 million Cambodians (a fifth of the entire population) dead.

What is less well known is that the Thatcher government was using the SAS to train Pol Pot’s armed forces to carry out this genocide. When the insidious regime was defeated by the Vietnamese in 1978, the US government (supported by Thatcher from 1979) moved heaven and earth to restore the mass murderer to power.

For more than four years from 1983, the SAS trained Pol Pot’s troops in secret camps on explosives, mine laying and psychological warfare and supplied them with Royal Ordnance with which to slaughter their own people.

The Thatcher government also lied to cover up its role in the genocide. The Foreign Office responded to a Parliamentary question on the matter with the following:

“Britain does not give military aid in any form to the Cambodian factions,”

Thatcher herself, in a written response to Neil Kinnock stated:

“I confirm that there is no British government involvement of any kind in training, equipping or co-operating with Khmer Rouge forces or those allied to them.”

But, by 1991 the Major government admitted the UK’s role in training and equipping one of the worst genocides in history.

On September 11th 1973, Augusto Pinochet was supported by Friedmanite economists and the CIAto conduct a military coup of democratically elected President Salvador Allende to prevent him implementing a programme of nationalisations; specifically the nationalisation of ITT the telecommunications company. By the end of the night Allende would be dead.

The US and UK governments saw a great opportunity in Pinochet. They used his total control of the domestic population to test drive their neoliberal economic theory. They were unable to drive through the extreme free market ideologies at home as the electorate would not stand for the consequences of mass unemployment and so on. Pinochet willingly obliged in return for financial and military support for his regime. Pinochet provided quid pro quo and supported Thatcher’s Falkland’s war.

During a seventeen year brutal dictatorship, the Chilean economy was ripped apart by the economic reforms put forward by Milton Friedman and his Chicago Boys. His efforts to suppress opposition would see the killing of over 40,000 Chilean citizens, according to official figures. The regime will be remembered for the Caravan of Death, Operation Colombo, and turning the nations Football Stadiuminto a prison camp for political prisoners, housing over 40,000 during his rule.

Following his exile from Chile in 1990, Pinochet was an annual visitor to Thatcher, staying with her in London and bestowing her with gifts of flowers and chocolates. They were close personal friends.

In 1998, Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations in Chile by a Spanish prosecutor and arrested in London six days later. He was held under house arrest in a beautiful cottage on a country estate for a year, seemingly in an effort to allow the dictator to die peacefully under house arrest in the UK without ever facing justice for his crimes. During this time, Thatcher came out of retirement to plea on Pinochet’s behalf. She campaigned for his release from house arrest, argued against his indictment and visited him regularly.

In her many salutations of the merciless dictator, Thatcher thanked him publicly ‘for bringing democracy to Chile’. A more stinging insult could not be delivered to the hundreds of thousands of Chileans forced into exile, and those grieving the tens of thousands killed by his regime.

One of the anecdotes supporting the myth of the Iron Lady involves Thatcher coaxing George Bush Snr into a bellicose response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the launch of the first Gulf War. She actually created this narrative herself, stating in interviews that she told the nervous US President “look George, this is no time to go wobbly”.

Thatcher spoke less about the £1bn of taxpayer money her government spent propping up the Hussein dictatorship throughout the 1980’s. The House of Commons had voted to support a position of neutrality in the Iran-Iraq War and signed up to the United Nations arms embargo. The Scott Inquiry of 1996 found that the Thatcher government had operated in secret to ignore the United Nations arms embargo and supply military support to Iraq (the aggressor in the war). Official misconduct included shredding documents to cover the smuggling of British Chieftain Tank Hulls into Iraq and abusing credit lines meant for civilian trade development in Iraq to buy munitions.

This eight year war cost over a million Iranian lives, and up to half a million Iraqis. In the run up and aftermath of the most recent Iraq war, supports of the war were often found saying ‘this is a man who used gas on his own people’. This refers to the chemical gas attack on Halabja in 1988, which killed thousands of Kurdish civilians. It is important to note that this attack was carried out in the dying months of the Iran-Iraq war, while Thatcher’s government were providing military support to his regime.

On hearing of Thatcher’s death, US President Barack Obama celebrated her as “one of the great champions of freedom and liberty”.

There is a particular irony in this choice of words, given her role in championing some of the world’s worst despots.

Just days before, Obama had spoken as Nelson Mandela lay prone in hospital:

“When you think of a single individual that embodies the kind of leadership qualities that I think we all aspire to, the first name that comes up is Nelson Mandela.”

Thatcher disagreed. In stark contrast to her public praise of Pinochet, she showed utter contempt and hostility toward Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress while they opposed the racist South African apartheid state. Speaking in 1987, while Mandela was still serving his life sentence she stated:

“The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation … Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land”.

Mandela himself refused the invitation to visit Thatcher on a trip to the UK in the early 90’s.

It is often said that one can best judge a person by the company they keep. Margaret Thatcher kept the most despicable company. She gifted her friendship, together with the military and financial support of the nation, to the service of some of the 20th Century’s most tyrannical regimes. She condemned freedom fighters like Mandela as terrorists in the same breath. To describe such a person as a champion of freedom and liberty is to rewrite history itself, making a hero of the oppressor and demons of the oppressed.

Again. Wheres your source? Bedroom blog or the likes of the Economist etc?

Makes a difference. Post credible sources only.

Well said mudmonster, or at least “well copy n’ pasted” for those folk who think we should respect her in death, i say **** her, i’ll be celebrating wi a drink next wednesday along wi many others in the pub.

edit :
Hora, what mudmonster posted is old but genuine news.

Post credible sources only.

Are you going to mark peoples work?

Again. Wheres your source?

You have never heard that Thatcher supported Pinochet and Pol Pot whilst denouncing Mandela as a terrorist ?

You need to pay more attention to current affairs hora, specially if want to lecture people on what a great lady Thatcher was.

Rust in Piss

Hora is like the awkward kid in class that just says ‘so’ …..

were he not the same over that Lance fellow……

Oh nice pic Yunki– where is that fine work of street art?

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member
binners – Member
They said that it was in case it upset family members. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I doubt Sir Mark Thatcher listens to Radio 1

you have no, abso$%^*kinglutely no idea how f**king offensive I find that.

Me too, it’s the Honourable Sir Mark Thatcher, if you;re going to be outraged, be properly outraged. And he can pass that on to his offspring ad nauseum.

A genuine’ blog verbatim. 😆

Rudebwoy – I might be wrong.. being a Devonshire Dumpling and never venturing North of err Devon..

but that looks to me like Lambeth’s Leake Street in that there Londinium

Mudmonsters quote looks like Pilger.

Tis many decades since i left that place, nice to see that its inner city dwellers have perspective….

what is your point Hora ?–

http://www.newstatesman.com/node/137397

Credible?

for hora

Thatcher stands by Pinochet

Lady Thatcher has campaigned for his release ever since his arrest in London.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/world/americas/11pinochet.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

during his rule, more than 3,200 people were executed or disappeared, and scores of thousands more were detained and tortured or exiled.

Newstatesman eh?, he’ll decry that as leftie propaganda and not to be trusted. 😉

Credible?

I wouldn’t have thought so, not to hora, given his opinion of the Iron Lady.

But no one needs to look to John Pilger for proof of how Thatcher supported Pol Pot. Just Britain’s voting record at the UN where it repeatedly voted that the Khmer Rouge should retain its UN seat, despite no longer being in government, provides all the proof needed that Thatcher supported the Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot, without any need to refer to any possible covert support.

It is all there in the UN records and was fully reported at the time by news providers. When the film ‘The Killing Fields’ was released my guvnor at the time, a Thatcher supporter btw, went to see it. The next day it was clear that he had been shocked by the film in its coverage of Khmer Rouge atrocities, I vividly remember the incredulous look on his face when he said “and we support these people !” ie, as in we the British. British support for the Khmer Rouge was fully known to the British public at the time of Thatcher’s premiership.

I am surprised that someone as well infromed as hora usually is did not know about Maggies support of the KR and Pinochet. Yes, thomvoting record say it all, but you would no doubt be asked to provide evidence

I am surprised that someone as well infromed as hora usually is

😆

but you would no doubt be asked to provide evidence

Well unless you feel that you have a strong obligation to educate hora, I would just ignore him.

Specially when he demands “Post credible sources only”, because he can’t be arsed to do his own homework.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4dHRN2Dug&sns=em[/video]

Out of interest rather than making a point

Well unless you feel that you have a strong obligation to educate hora, I would just ignore him.

good advice 8)

Asset stripping?

In the years leading upto Thatchers government many LOSS making companies were nationalised.

In modern times its companies making massive LOSSES like Northern pissing Rock that were nationalised (thanks again Labour), Bradford & Bingley (their loss making side) thanks again Labour. Then there was RBS. Oh cheers Labour! You are spoiling the taxpayer!
Well, duh. You wouldn’t want to nationalise a profitable business that was operating normally.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-tax-snatcher-mystery-1828441

naughtie maggie

But you could also argue about whether 2.4 million pounds of inheritance tax is fair …

How curious that the undisputed champion of home ownership thought it wiser to rent her own house. From a landlord who seemed to reside inside a PO box in Leichtenstein….

You wouldn’t want to nationalise a profitable business that was operating normally.

Kona, put a “discuss” at the end of that and you have an interesting exam question/point of debate for many in here! The marking scheme would require a range possible answers.

i wonder if we should look to her austere, loveless, parochial upbringing that made her seek out the same environment in the Tory party– dysfunction thrives in its own environment, and her offspring seem to have some of the same issues……

I have thought that too rudebwoy, she did seem to have had a miserable childhood. I feel certain she would have benefited from a more loving, relaxed, and enjoyable upbringing, and that it would have made her a better person.

I’m not sure I agree that her children necessarily had simular experiences to her though. Mark seems to have had it all laid on a plate for him despite failing miserably academically and being a total shirker and sponger, doing as little work as possible for the huge wealth he’s enjoyed. In contrast I’ve always quite liked Carol as she seemed determined to have a job despite not needing to, and I always found her very fair as a journalist given who her mother was, and that her father was even worse. Of course these are only perceptions as information is fairly limited.

@Rudebwoy – MrsCat was asking similar questions the other day, most pertinent was:

“How many cuddles do you think they got when they were younger, not the perfunctory hug but proper sitting under a duvet on the sofa cuddled up reading stories type cuddles?”

Neither of the parents seemed particularly tactile from the pics and info available.

My wife spotted this on her facebook news thingy earlier:

Just watched Return Of The Jedi. Disgusted by the distasteful scenes at the end where everyone is celebrating the death of Emperor Palpatine. He may have been divisive, but he was strong and he made decisions and stuck to them, and I think he should get a bit of respect. He was, after all, a little old man who died, when you remove any other context whatsoever.

Well I laughed anyway…

Channel 13 now

unlucky for some eh

WHat is that is ITV HD on mine with Britains Got talent

Great comment. A horrible job down a mine. Living in a council house for all your working life. Your children then do the same. Expect work given locally thats menial with no improvement.
It was this way for decades.