THE THATCHER LEGACY

"The findings, based on an analysis of the World Health Organisation’s World Mortality Database, and published in The Lancet medical journal, add to recent evidence that the UK’s child mortality rate is the second-worst in western Europe.
"Both studies identified higher levels of child poverty and economic inequality in the UK as key factors behind its declining performance.
"The new study, carried out by experts at University College London, also highlighted that problems in the UK’s healthcare system may be a factor – a reference to longstanding concerns that the NHS performs poorly in terms of caring for patients with long-term health conditions."

(Charlie Cooper, The Independent, 12.6.14)

"DING DONG, the witch is dead"
and history is already being rewritten. Some clown (English of course) claimed on al-Jazeera that Thatcher was opposed to Apartheid. I'm grateful to Martin Deane of the Green Party (Hull) for the following quote from her:
"Those who believe South Africa will one day be ruled by the ANC are living in cloud cuckoo land."

It will not be clear in the next few days how much this individual was hated by the British people. All the media will be singing her praises; the media that are owned by her friends, her admirers, those who knew how to play on her prejudices for their own ends. The BBC, voice of the establishment, will play its allotted role, feeding bullshit to the masses.
Sometime in the future a there will be a reassessment of her "legacy". In the meantime we'll have to make do with the occasional "controversial".
There is a petition online demanding that the old bat's funeral be privatised, in line with her beliefs.

Let's acknowledge the services here of Sir Tim Bell, "friend of the family" (EURGH!), who made public the demise of the Queen of the Night.
I guess old Tim has mended his ways and is no longer the cokehead he was when lying for the party. Let us pray that he has also abandoned his penchant for indecent exposure and exhibitionistic self-abuse, so unbecoming a knight of the realm.

Kettle them
Baton them
Dragoon them
RADICALISE THEM.

The self-styled 'children of Thatcher' have wasted no time in bringing Thatcher-style confrontation back to the streets. They must have been longing for the good old days of cracked skulls and bloodied heads. Wrestling kids to the ground and kneeling on them, softer targets than miners.
Soon 'Broken Britain' will be fragmented Britain and we'll be forced to listen to endless tirades about 'thuggery'. The BBC will keep its cameras on the fallen coppers, and the evidence of police thuggery will filter out via the internet.
Yesterday the police acted with "commendable restraint", according to the police.

I was consoling myself with the thought that twenty percent of the ruling class's barmy army will find themselves on the dole soon. But obviously they will be recruited into private militias hired to do the same job of making our streets unsafe for kids and the elderly. Still they'll be doing the same dirty work for shit wages, lousy conditions and no job security.

"Off with their heads!" How quaint.

So Milk Snatcher mark ii has been forced into a rapid volte-face, good exercise for a hubristic reactionary. That was a Thatcherite step too far.
The way things are going with this Fred Karno inspired government a reshuffle cannot be far away. The only problem with that corrective is that the dismissals would have to start at the top. Tweedlecam seems incapable of addressing an audience without making a ricket of breathtaking proportions. His sidekick, Tweedleclegg has informed the world that his colleagues were cheerleaders of an illegal war ('Politician Tells Truth Shock'). That must have given old Hague a jolt as he sat beside the Lib-Dem peacenik. The Gove puppet claims that over a thousand schools are clamouring to become academies post-haste, so rush the legislation through. Then it's "Hang on, slight miscalculation", and it turns out that thirty-six schools have said "Maybe".
Then there was the early bath for somebody whose name I've already forgotten, who was on the fiddle.
It's not going well, is it?

A couple of things I read recently that resonate -

"Between seventy and eighty, one is prey to a hundred diseases." Po Chü'i (or Bai Juyi) Chinese poet, 772-846, "On Being Sixty" (tr. Arthur Waley).
Don't I know it, Chü'i, old bean.

"Most of the Saatchi-type art actually is a form of self-advertisement by the second-rate." Roger Scruton.
I find myself in agreement with the mad professor; dangerous territory. Scruton versus Saatchi, divergent approaches to the undermining of civilised society.

David Cameron pronounces on the SS Quangocrat -

"Recently the NHS brought a yacht and moored it in a Hull marina," he said, adding he thought it was a "completely crazy decision".
"If this extravagance had been published for all to see, the people who made this decision would either have had to justify it or scrap it."

Three points:
NHS Hull, not the NHS, bought the yacht.
The extravagance WAS published for all to see. The people of Hull protested vociferously. Nothing was done.
NHS Hull is a quango, and not answerable to us as voters, as taxpayers, or as the people they probably call "customers".

NHS quangos were set up by Thatcher as a step towards the privatisation of the health service. Cameron has declared his commitment to the National Health Service - don't they all? Any politician who was a genuine supporter of the NHS would set on record the intention to return the NHS to public accountability. Cameron won't do this, nor will Brown, or any of the others who fancy their chances as next leader of the Labour (sic) Party. The NHS is not safe in the hands of any politician or party.

Meanwhile Dave - does he still prefer the familiar form, or was that a passing phase? - has accepted a £1 million donation to his party from a certain David Rowland, UK citizen, non-UK taxpayer, non-UK resident (officially). This patriot is worried about "the economic future of Britain", or to put it another way, the possibility of "non-domiciles" having to pay UK tax. I think he has ensured that they won't under a Cameron-led government.

"The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that," (Stella Rimington, blackmailer, perverter of the course of justice, and spy)
Doesn't need to, Stella, the Yanks are happy to do it for our secret police.
Does this stance coincide with Conservative Party policy? Is SR the Tory spokesperson on the surveillance state? She was certainly happy to commit felonies on behalf of Thatcher. Now, under a Labour government, she has developed a social conscience.

Cameron is going to free local government from the shackles of centralised bureacracy; those shackles forged by his patron saint, Lady Gaga. Ah! The Thatcher legacy, it rears its ugly head once more. Now, under a Labour government, it's all wrong.

THE THATCHER LEGACY

A reality TV show about a woman dying of cancer.

850 workers sacked at an hour's notice. Some of them have worked for the firm for five years, but will, I suspect, receive nothing in the way of redundancy payment.

I'm sick of right wing commentators and truth twisters blaming all the ills of our society (for such an entity exists) on the "permissive sixties" or liberal do-gooders. Credit where credit's due. If it's down to the old witch and her coven don't try to pass the buck. Let's record the results of her mad career.
That last word is open to interpretation.