While many former and serving politicians seemed to form lines to offer their reaction to her death of a stroke at age 87 on Monday, and radio shows were filled with recordings of her best-known utterances, some isolated protests broke out overnight in London, Bristol and Glasgow reflecting the same social schism between haves and have-nots that characterized the debate over her legacy.
Hundreds of her opponents gathered at the site of violent protests against her policies in the 1980s, with a small crowd in Brixton, in south London — where anti-Thatcher riots broke out in 1981 — chanting “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie — Dead, Dead, Dead.”
The gathering harked back the early days of the Thatcher era when joblessness soared as faltering industries were denied subsidies and a record 10,000 concerns went bankrupt. “Things will get worse before they get better,” she said at the time, depicting the nation’s economic malaise as a legacy of left-wing rule. With riots in Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol as well as Brixton, Mrs. Thatcher later recalled 1981 as the worst of her 11 years in office.
At what was billed as a celebratory street party in the southwestern city of Bristol overnight, around 200 people clashed with police officers trying disperse them early on Tuesday, the police said, and six officers were injured in scuffles. One officer remained in the hospital on Tuesday and one partygoer was arrested for violent disorder.
The venom of the protests recalled policies encouraging private business and crushing labor union power that her admirers depicted on Tuesday as liberating the economy from years in the doldrums and that her foes characterized as ruinous for the poor. Many critics also remembered what was widely seen as a catastrophic political misjudgment toward the end of her third and final term as Britain’s longest-serving prime minister of the 20th century when she sought to impose a so-called community charge, which was widely known as the poll tax, provoking mass public protests.
“Margaret Thatcher broke Britain and replaced what had come before with something crueller, nastier,” said the left-wing Daily Mirror. In the northern city of Sheffield which blamed her for the loss of jobs, the regional newspaper, The Star, said in a headline: “We can never forgive her.”
Several radio shows were devoted to Mrs. Thatcher’s record in crushing the labor union movement after confrontations with miners and printers, among others. But others recalled more popular measures — such as selling off public housing to private buyers at reduced prices — that extended private ownership to citizens along with opportunities for small investors to purchase stakes in privatized state industries.
The liberal-leaning Guardian said: “There should be no dancing on her grave but it is right there is no state funeral either. Her legacy is of public division, private selfishness and a cult of greed, which together shackle far more of the human spirit than they ever set free.”
By contrast, conservative newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail offered enthusiastic praise for what the Mail, echoing Prime Minister David Cameron, called “the woman who saved Britain” and “a giant beside who other peacetime politicians of the 20th and 21st centuries look like mere pygmies.”
On Monday, Mr. Cameron said Parliament would be recalled from a recess to assemble on Wednesday so that lawmakers can offer their views in advance of a ceremonial funeral with military honors next week, during which Mrs. Thatcher’s body will be brought to St. Paul’s Cathedral on a gun carriage — the traditional cortege for royalty and leaders of stature, including Winston Churchill.
While hundreds of dignitaries are expected in London for the occasion, the precise date has not yet been made known.
Her body will not lie in state and the ceremony will not formally be a state funeral, according to the British authorities. But it will be conducted with the trappings of a historic moment with streets cordoned off and military honor guards.
Mrs. Thatcher died in a suite at the Ritz hotel where she had been staying as a guest of the owners since she was released after being hospitalized in December, British news reports said. An ambulance removed the body overnight and took it to an undisclosed destination.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/world/europe/thatcher-death-reaction.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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