The Great Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s First Female Prime Minister, Dies At The Age Of 87

Margaret Thatcher Dies After Stroke – Sky News

Britain’s first and only female prime minister Baroness Thatcher has died at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke.

Lady Thatcher’s children Mark and Carol said their mother, who suffered bouts of ill health in recent years, died peacefully on Monday morning.

Downing Street, which joined Buckingham Palace in flying its flags at half mast, said the politician would be given a full ceremonial funeral with honours at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Sky sources understand she died at the Ritz in central London where she had been staying since January following a minor operation.

It is believed her Belgravia home was not properly equipped for her recovery and she was invited to stay at the hotel by its owners, David and Frederick Barclay.

.

Prime Minister David Cameron led tributes from around the world, calling the former Tory leader “a great prime minister, a great leader, a great Briton”.

He said: “As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she’ll go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.

“Her legacy will be the fact she served her country so well, she saved our country and that she showed immense courage in doing so and people will be learning about what she did and her achievements in decades, probably centuries to come.”

Mr Cameron was in Spain at the start of a European tour to push for a more flexible EU when the news broke but immediately cut short his trip.

.

It is understood that Lady Thatcher was consulted about details of the funeral arrangements and made clear that she did not want to lie in state.

The streets between Westminster and St Paul’s will be cleared for the procession, the date of which is yet to be decided. The route will be lined with members of Armed Forces.

US President Barack Obama said that America would “never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan” and that she had “with moral conviction” helped to shape history.

He said: “With the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend.

“As a grocer’s daughter who rose to become Britain’s first female prime minister, she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered. As prime minister, she helped restore the confidence and pride that has always been the hallmark of Britain at its best.”

.
…………………

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who was launching his local election campaign on Monday, cancelled the party’s operations as a mark of respect.

He said: “She will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation.

“The Labour Party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.”

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the defining figures in modern British politics.

“Whatever side of the political debate you stand on, no-one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served.”

.

Buckingham Palace added: “The Queen was sad to hear the news of the death of Baroness Thatcher. Her Majesty will be sending a private message of sympathy to the family.”

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair called the ex-PM a “towering political figure” who exercised a huge influence over Britain and the world.

“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,” he said.

He added: “As a person she was kind and generous spirited and was always immensely supportive to me as Prime Minister although we came from opposite sides of politics.

.

“Even if you disagreed with her as I did on certain issues and occasionally strongly, you could not disrespect her character or her contribution to Britain’s national life. She will be sadly missed.”

Former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major described his predecessor as a “true force of nature” and a “political phenomenon”.

He said: “In government, the UK was turned around under – and in large measure because of – her leadership.

“Her reforms of the economy, trades union law, and her recovery of the Falkland Islands elevated her above normal politics, and may not have been achieved under any other leader.”

Lady Thatcher, who made history by becoming Britain’s first female prime minister in 1979, had become increasingly frail over the last decade.

.

She suffered several small strokes in 2002 and was advised not to accept further public speaking engagements.

Her apparent fragility when she did appear in public, especially after the death of husband Denis in 2003, led to frequent bouts of speculation about her health.

But MPs and friends who saw her regularly said she remained alert and interested in politics and she was not known to have deteriorated notably recently.

The former leader was admitted to hospital shortly before Christmas where she underwent an operation to remove a growth from her bladder but was allowed to return home before the New Year.

.

As prime minister from 1979 to 1990, she has been credited with transforming a nation in one decade and putting Britain back among the leading industrial nations of the world.

Loved and loathed in equal measure, she crushed the unions and privatised vast swathes of British industry as she led the Tories to three election victories.

She was nicknamed the Iron Lady by a Russian journalist in 1976 for her opposition to Soviet communism.

The moniker stuck and privately she was thought to enjoy it. It also became the title of the 2011 biopic for which Meryl Streep won an Oscar.

“To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable,” Streep said.

.

Lady Thatcher was also memorably described by the then French president Francois Mitterrand with the back-handed compliment that she had the “eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe”.

But perhaps the defining moment of her career will be the decision to send a taskforce to the Falklands on April 2, 1982 after Argentina invaded.

Despite her toughness, few will forget the pictures of Lady Thatcher leaving Downing Street for the last time with her husband, Sir Denis – tears in her eyes.

A woman who believed in hard work, she was the daughter of grocer Alfred Roberts and gained a degree in Chemistry at Oxford University, where she became president of the university’s Conservative Association.

.

Her first job was as a research chemist but in February 1951 she was adopted as Conservative candidate for Dartford and at a dinner that day she met the wealthy and divorced businessman, Denis Thatcher. They married later that year.

He supported her during her unsuccessful campaigns for the seat and during her studies to become a barrister. She qualified in 1953, the same year she gave birth to twins Mark and Carol.

Click HERE For Rest Of Story

.

Of course you know THIS means war!

The other McCain is keeping ABREAST of a breaking story out of the UK!

Since 1970, Britain’s largest-selling newspaper, The Sun tabloid, has been famous — or, as some would say, notorious — for publishing photos of topless models on page 3, so that the “Page Three Girls” have become something of a national institution. Yet now, radical feminists have mounted a campaign to ban these buxom beauties:

The campaign to have the infamous ‘Page 3’ of The Sun Newspaper stopped, banned or otherwise censored has reached incredible feats over the past few months. There is no doubt that when it comes to orchestrating a campaign, Lucy-Anne Holmes and her sidekicks are no fools.
From high-profile news stories to political buy-in, from university blanket bans to a petition now signed by 85,000 people, the anti-boob campaigners are allowing their censorious and illiberal tendencies to shine through.

That’s from Raheem Kassam of The Commentator, who points out that the argument made by feminists is that — wait for it — celebrating beautiful women hurts the feelings of less-beautiful women:

Holmes declared her selfish and self-hating motivations in an interview with The Guardian in September 2012.

She said, “It took me until I was 35 to go, ‘why have I hated my boobs?’… Oh, because I’ve been comparing them to this image in the paper that is purely for the gratification of men. I have never really owned this part of my body.”

Does Holmes’s insecurity seem like a good reason to stop other, secure women from using their bodies in a way they choose to, and in a way that drives the sales of the most popular newspaper in Britain?

Ah the Feminuts cannot stand to see men enjoy themselves can they? Well, as I said THIS MEANS WAR!

Bugs is right! So, in solidarity with my brothers in the UK, I offer you this. NSFW! 

 

What happens when cheap sex replaces love?

Everything has a price, and yes, the hook up culture has had a price. It is costing us things like romance, love, real intimacy, and made dating, and being single much more difficult than it should be. It has cheapened, male/female relations, and twisted how we think about sex, traditional gender roles, marriage, and I believe has robbed us of a beautiful thing. Hey, as The Other McCain points out messing with nature has consequences and yes, quoting Jimmy Buffet helps prove the point

I really do appreciate the fact you’re sitting here.
Your voice sounds so wonderful,
But you face don’t look too clear.
So bar maid bring a pitcher, another round of brew.
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw?

Is this what they’re teaching in Women’s Studies classes nowadays? Evidently so, according to one young British feminist:

The idea that my generation are unhappy and sexually unfulfilled because, thanks to the dwindling of traditional gender roles, we’ve been able to have sex on our own terms, makes absolutely no sense to me. Especially as in Britain, we never really had a dating culture to begin with. Americans are complaining because “dinner and a movie” has been replaced with “hanging out”, when on this side of the Atlantic people have been flinging themselves at one another outside the pub following last orders since time immemorial, and it’s worked fine. Likewise, while the Americans see the classic “are u out?” fishing text as evidence of shallow promiscuity, we see it as a convenient way of minimising social embarrassment by ensuring both parties are too drunk to attempt a conversation capable of, let’s face it, shattering the illusion whose maintenance is so essential for successful coitus.

OK, so if getting “too drunk to attempt a conversation . . . is so essential for successful coitus,” how is this a triumph for women? Is this what being “able to have sex on our own terms” means?

Or does it mean, you’re getting played?

Making the bar/club/party scene your native habitat makes you a potential prey for the practicioners of “game.” And if he’s good at it, you won’t realize you’ve been played until it’s too late. Ladies, if want to know what the players really think of you, you should read their blogs:

What is a bar? It’s a social venue where women can receive attention from men at predictably constant rates. Every approach performed will increase her worth. Every hot stud who lays pipe inside her via a one-night stand will reinforce in her mind that she deserves Mr. Perfect. These men feed her ego like an IV bag nourishes a surgery patient.
The effect of all this is cumulative so that a 30 year old woman who is well past her prime will put out attitude multiple times higher than a hot 18 year old who just started going to clubs. Since the older woman simply can’t forget all those men who have approached her and wanted to take her home, she won’t receive your approach unless you’re nearly the best of what has attempted to f–k her in the past, even though the number of guys willing to wife her up has decreased exponentially. Nightlife venues give average women near unlimited choice and attention, causing a sharp degradation in her attitude, warmth, and even her appearance. . . .

More at the link. I am no Puritan, never will be. I am not condemning pre-marital sex either.What I am saying is that society has lowered its standards for women and their behavior. And that has resulted in too many women lowering their standards for themselves, both in who they date, and how they conduct themselves. And this really bad for men, and even worse for women. If you are happily married you might not notice, but, if like me, you are single, and dating, trust me you have noticed.

Do you notice that the Left always categorizes “gun crime” as different than “other” violent crimes?

It might seem odd that the Left always wants to talk about gun crimes, gun murders, gun deaths as if putting a gun into the equation makes a violent crime less violent somehow. Personally, I do not wish to get shot, nor do I wish to  be stabbed, or beaten with a bat, or hammer, or to be jumped by a gang of thugs, a gang of NFL cheerleaders is a different story but that is a another matter altogether. The point here is that the Left cannot win the debate over guns by sticking with legitimate stats. So they use emotional appeals, or cooked statistics that are meant to make us believe that gun violence is  a raging epidemic, and that America is awash in gun deaths. Of late their tactic seems to be to segregate crimes, committed with a gun from other violent crimes committed with other weapons. Zion’s Trumpet links to Mark Steyn who explains that while the Left loves to hold the UK up as a shining example of the glorious bliss that are gun bans, the truth is that the UK is a lot more violent than America.

Between the introduction of pistol permits in 1903 and the banning of handguns after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, Britain has had a century of incremental gun control—“sensible measures that all reasonable people can agree on.” And what’s the result? Even when you factor in America’s nutcake jurisdictions with the crackhead mayors, the overall crime rate in England and Wales is higher than in all 50 states, even though over there they have more policemen per capita than in the U.S., on vastly higher rates of pay installing more video surveillance cameras than anywhere else in the Western world. Robbery, sex crimes, and violence against the person are higher in England and Wales; property crime is twice as high; vehicle theft is higher still; the British are 2.3 times more likely than Americans to be assaulted, and three times more likely to be violently assaulted. Between 1973 and 1992, burglary rates in the U.S. fell by half. In Britain, not even the Home Office’s disreputable reporting methods (if a burglar steals from 15 different apartments in one building, it counts as a single crime) can conceal the remorseless rise: Britons are now more than twice as likely as Americans to be mugged; two-thirds will have their property broken into at some time in their lives. Even more revealing is the divergent character between U.K. and U.S. property crime: In America, just over 10 percent of all burglaries are “hot burglaries”—committed while the owners are present; in Britain, it’s over half. Because of insurance-required alarm systems, the average thief increasingly concludes that it’s easier to break in while you’re on the premises. Your home-security system may conceivably make your home more safe, but it makes you less so.

Conversely, up here in the New Hampshire second congressional district, there are few laser security systems and lots of guns. Our murder rate is much lower than Britain’s and our property crime is virtually insignificant. Anyone want to make a connection? Villains are expert calculators of risk, and the likelihood of walking away uninjured with an $80 television set is too remote. In New Hampshire, a citizen’s right to defend himself deters crime; in Britain, the state-inflicted impotence of the homeowner actively encourages it. Just as becoming a drug baron is a rational career move in Colombia, so too is becoming a violent burglar in the United Kingdom. The chances that the state will seriously impede your progress are insignificant.

Now I’m Canadian, so, as you might expect, the Second Amendment doesn’t mean much to me. I think it’s more basic than that. Privately owned firearms symbolize the essential difference between your great republic and the countries you left behind. In the U.S., power resides with “we, the people” and is leased ever more sparingly up through town, county, state, and federal government. In Britain and Canada, power resides with the Crown and is graciously devolved down in limited doses. To a north country Yankee it’s self-evident that, when a burglar breaks into your home, you should have the right to shoot him—indeed, not just the right, but the responsibility, as a freeborn citizen, to uphold the integrity of your property. But in Britain and most other parts of the Western world, the state reserves that right to itself, even though at the time the ne’er-do-well shows up in your bedroom you’re on the scene and Constable Plod isn’t: He’s some miles distant, asleep in his bed, and with his answering machine on referring you to central dispatch God knows where.

Yes, I know, Liberals will screech that this piece was written over a decade ago, but, as recent stats show, the UK is still a lot more violent than America. The murder rate, burglary rate, robbery rate and stabbing rate are all much higher in the UK. Yes, I understand the Left will ignore those facts. In fact, I have heard more than one Liberal say that somehow a gun makes every crime worse. Not sure how that happens, but we are dealing with Liberals here, their arguments do not have to make sense, they just have to feel like they do to Liberals. Despite the negative impact on the feelings of liberals facts still do matter. And the fact is this. the Left has been pushing gun control for a long time, and they often use the UK as the shining example of how the UK is a more safe nation. This is simply not true

Britain’s violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa – widely considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries.

The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour. 

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show: 

• The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
• It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
• The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
• It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.

Less guns means less crime? No, it does not. The USA has a violent crime rate of 466 per 100,000 people. Canada, another panacea of strict gun laws has a rate of 935 per 100,000 people. In the UK, which bans guns, the rate is 2,034 per 100,000 people. FIVE TIMES the rate in America. 

This is why the Left talks only of GUN crimes, rather than violent crimes. They are lying by omission. And they KNOW they are lying. So, ask yourself this. Why? If their agenda is not truly reducing crimes, what is it? 

 

Lance Burri: But it’s okay: it’s universal health care

Great headline, from the master of great headlines, but an even more important point!

Now here’s the story:

NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.

Huh. I wonder how they decide which “elderly hospital patients” get that “treatment?” There isn’t a panel involved, is there?

Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.

He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway…

It’s got a name.

… a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country.

It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.

But, as this whistleblower told the media, that simply isn’t always the case.

There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP.

Almost one out of three deaths occur because the hospital means it to.

And notice this: the whistleblower who’s making these accusations isn’t upset that it’s happening. He’s upset that it’s happening too much:

Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an ‘assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway’.

If that does not chill you to the core, you are lacking a soul, or have a show on MSNBS

The war on Christianity is all too real

People in Great Britain are now forced to fight for a very basic right. The right to wear a cross

Imagine how awful it will be for any Christians who fail to escape the rotting remnants of Britain after Muslims have achieved the majority if it’s this bad already:

Britain’s Conservative [sic]-led government plans to argue in a European Court of Human Rights case that employers are entitled to ban the visible wearing of crosses at work because displaying the symbol is not a recognized “requirement” of the Christian faith. …

At the center of the applicants’ case is Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

Moonbattery also has the story of the origin of this fight

The issue has been brought to a head in part by Nadia Eweida:

Eweida, a Coptic Christian and British Airways staffer at Heathrow Airport, was told in 2006 to remove or cover up a small cross she wears around her neck. She refused and was sent home on unpaid leave. Eweida noted that colleagues of other religions, including Muslims and Sikhs, were allowed to wear religious items such as hijabs, turbans and religious bracelets.

So, how long? How long until this fight comes to America? Folks it is a fight that Christians, or anyone that respects basic human rights does not want. But, we have little choice, we must fight this. And even if you are a non-believer, or of a different faith, do not think this fight foes not hold dire implications for you.

Britains Folly

Donald Douglas has the story of how weak the British military has become. While Britain, like much of Europe has been infatuated with social engineering, and multiculturalism, and embracing the tenets of Socialism, its military has been being weakened to the point that it would struggle to defend its holdings

Britain was the world’s supreme power a little over a century ago. Today, it wouldn’t be able to hold onto its territorial possessions if it had to.

At Telegraph UK, “Britain could not reclaim the Falklands if Argentina invades, warns General Sir Michael Jackson“:

The Falklands will be lost forever if Argentina invades again, one of Britain’s senior military figures has warned.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the former head of the army, General Sir Michael Jackson, says defence cuts have made it “impossible” to win the islands back after a successful invasion, in the way the British task force did in 1982.

“What if an Argentinian force was able to secure the Mount Pleasant airfield? Then our ability to recover the islands now would be just about impossible,” says General Jackson, who was Chief of the General Staff until five years ago and led the army into Iraq.
“We are not in a position to take air power by sea since the demise of the Harrier force.”

Britain no longer has an aircraft carrier and the Harrier fleet which performed with such distinction during the Falklands War has been sold to the US Marine Corps.

“Let us hope we do not live to regret that decision,” says General Jackson, responding to what he calls “disagreeable noises coming from Buenos Aires” as the 30th anniversary of the war approaches.

I post this for two reasons. first, it is sad to see Britain, and Europe, voluntarily go down the road to ruin. Europe has forgotten that it still has enemies I guess. Enemies that will not welcome the weakening of Europe as a harbinger to peaceful co-existence. instead, those enemies will take every advantage of that weakness. History ought to have taught Europe that appeasement and scaling down the ability to make war, if necessary, is a fool’s errand.

The second reason I post this is because so many here, in America, wish us to follow Europe down this same path. Just consider the drastic military cuts our president is seeking. God help us, because too few of us are wise enough to help ourselves it seems.