In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher

I'm sure columnists and editors throughout the world will be saying all that needs to be said (and a great deal that doesn't) about the life and death of the great Baroness Thatcher, former Prime Minister of England and that nation's leader during the Falklands War.  I won't add my words to theirs, except to make one comment.

Gustave Flaubert famously observed, "You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies".  Mrs. Thatcher made enemies past counting - and didn't give a damn.  She outraged, infuriated and downright pissed off more left-wingers, liberals, progressives, socialists, communists and other varieties of moonbat than almost any other leader, anywhere in the world.  The hatred she engendered among them has endured for decades.  Just two weeks ago, striking staff members of the BBC (who've never forgiven her for her forthright, contemptuous dismissal of socialism) announced that they would suspend their industrial action if South Africa's Nelson Mandela died, but would not commit to doing the same if Mrs. Thatcher died.  Bitterness indeed!  (She didn't make many friends among the less staunchly committed members of her own party, either, referring to them contemptuously as "wets".  They responded by biding their time, then voting her out of office as soon as they could get away with it.)

By Flaubert's standards, with so many enemies, Mrs. Thatcher was clearly worthy indeed.  I suspect her countrymen will live to rue the day they turned aside from the political, social and economic future she carved out for them.

May she rest in the peace she so richly deserves. I daresay Winston Churchill broke out the brandy decanter when he heard she was coming, and invited Marlborough, Pitt the Elder and Younger, and the Iron Duke, to join them.  They'll have much to discuss together.

Peter