Observations on today's funeral of Margaret Thatcher, THE most-important woman of the 20th Century, and for years, THE most-famous person. Period. History will remember her forever even as some of her political opponents and their professional social misfit allies are still rehashing the same feeble arguments that were thoroughly rejected three times by the British public when it counted -on Election Day; watch the funeral at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22151589

pressassociation·YouTube Channel video: Prime Minister David Cameron pays respects to Baroness Thatcher following the 87-year-old's death following a stroke. 

http://youtu.be/7lYolV88nLQ

UKParliament YouTube Channel: Tributes to Baroness Thatcher in the House of Commons Chamber. The House of Commons was recalled from the Easter Recess on Wednesday 10 April, to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher via a general debate on the motion 'That this House has considered the matter of tributes to the Rt Hon Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven LG OM'. This excerpt consists of remarks by Prime Minister David Cameron and Opposition Leader Ed Milliband. Uploaded April 10, 2013.  http://youtu.be/KsTdIECilSs

Observations on today's funeral of Margaret Thatcher, THE most-important woman of the 20th Century, and for years, THE most-famous person. Period. History will remember her forever even as some of her political opponents and their professional social misfit allies are still rehashing the same feeble arguments that were thoroughly rejected three times by the British public when it counted -on Election Day; watch the funeral at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22151589

2:00 a.m.

I've got so very much to say about Margaret Thatcher that I've decided, rather reluctantly, and very much against my original plans from the weekend, to wait a few more days to posit it all at one time.

I did however want to share three columns -and some videos- that, to my way of thinking, offer the most spot-on assessments that have appeared in print or online since the news of Lady Thatcher's death last week, since they deal principally with the continuing power of her ideas and her ideals for making Great Britain strong and relevant again -Thatcherism.

I'm going to be watching the funeral at St. Paul's starting in a few hours, about 6 a.m. Eastern, via BBC News , which I'm watching right now as I type this.
You can watch it online now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22151589

Wales Online

“She inspired love in her admirers, hatred in her foes and fear in her ministers. She dominated her Government and the nation like no other British leader since 1945.”

By Robert Llewellyn-Jones

14 Apr 2013 10:32

As a young reporter Sir Max Hastings felt like he had been hit by a "10-ton truck" after interviewing Mrs Thatcher when she was Secretary of State for Education in the 1970s

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/business/business-news/sir-max-hastings-late-margaret-2594155

The Guardian

The Iron Lady is dead but Thatcherism lives on

In death Margaret Thatcher has caused further division. 

The left has failed to convince enough people of the alternatives

By Gary Younge

11 April 2013 16.00 EDT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/iron-lady-dead-thatcherism-lives?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Reason magazine
How Thatcher Liberated Western Europe
Even while saying "No. No. No," the famous Euro-skeptic helped the continent say yes to much-needed reforms
By Matt Welch
April 9, 2013
http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/09/how-thatcher-liberated-western-europe

For more information, see http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/lady-thatcher-1925-2013/

Channel 4 video: The Great British Property Scandal series starts Wednesday; host George Clarke pines for days of pre-Thatcher nationalized housing

Channel 4 video: Architect and campaigner George Clarke invites you to join the campaign to fill Britain's empty homes.

http://youtu.be/GnGo_C7sDY0

Newer longer video at: http://youtu.be/GnGo_C7sDY0

The Great British Property Scandal | George Clarke | Channel 4

http://youtu.be/e82xiYVHLzQ

While I can understand how, in the face of lots of seeming misery, it's easy for the host to throw stones and pine for the days of pre-Thatcher nationalized housing, that's hardly the answer now, anymore than simply allowing squatters in the U.S. to "occupy" expensive homes in Cambridge, Chevy Chase or Santa Monica that have been foreclosed, but which still have value, is the answer here for inadequate housing for some.

Thatcher's efforts, while frequently knocked and reviled now among the professional Left, would NOT have been possible without her and the Conservative Party having had something positive and tangible to offer by way of a public policy that the majority of the British people believed was long overdue

And what was that you ask?

Yes, the 'legal right' to buy the council homes they lived in.

How normal.

But THAT is what the Labour Party was vehemently opposed to.

Think about the ethical contortions you have to bend yourself into in order to justify that sort of anti-social policy.

Telegraph TV video: Prime Minister David Cameron -pictured here alongside coalition partner Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems- discusses the government's £400m investment in housing, 95% mortgages, and principles of home ownership. November 21, 2011.

http://youtu.be/XDU5RFp0VoQ

My own experience in living in different parts of the U.S. -with often very different norms and customs- is that the one constant in this country regardless of where you are in the social order is that most people who are given something for nothing -or almost nothing- rarely fully appreciate it or properly maintain what they are given as long or as well as people who actually earned it.

And the same with their kids.

The Telegraph

The Great British Property Scandal, episode one, Channel 4, review

Andrew Marszal reviews the opening episode of The Great British Property Scandal, part of Channel 4's week-long focus on the nation's housing shortage.

By Andrew Marszal

10:00PM GMT 05 Dec 2011

Margaret Thatcher’s time in office left many enduring legacies – crippled unions, privatised industry, even a pop at a third Oscar for Meryl Streep. But few can be as divisive as her “right-to-buy” policy of selling off government-owned council houses, which is now being revamped for the twenty-first century by David Cameron.

Read the rest of the review at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8936067/The-Great-British-Property-Scandal-episode-one-Channel-4-review.html

George Clarke's official website, full of more info about this effort, is at:

http://georgeclarke.com/

This website should be working soon: www.channel4.com/propertyscandal

I've already alerted my stealthy covert affairs team members in Chelsea and Notting Hill to record the show and try to get it to me in fairly short order, though I strongly suspect that some vids of it may start appearing on YouTube within the week before they are pulled off for copyright violations.

As always, if members of the team are captured, the secretary will disavow all knowledge of their actions.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/telegraphtv