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Thatcher state funeral to be privatisedResponsible department: Cabinet OfficeIn keeping with the great lady's legacy, Margaret Thatcher's state funeral should be funded and managed by the private sector to offer the best value and choice for end users and other stakeholders. The undersigned believe that the legacy of the former PM deserves nothing less and that offering this unique opportunity is an ideal way to cut government expense and further prove the merits of liberalised economics Baroness Thatcher spearheaded.28,641 signatures so far.Sign up on the No. 10 petition website now.

Vanessa Smith ● 4949d46 Comments

It's true that many retailers took advantage.  I was only ten at the time but I remember it very well.

Phil Andrews ● 4940d

Well obviously Phil you did not do the shopping at that time, because the price of food DOUBLED overnight, I know we had 3 little children to feed.

Dawn Hardy ● 4940d

Er yes, correct, but you do rather make it sound as though the pound was massively devalued.  In fact the new pennies were worth more than the old pennies.  2.4 times more to be precise, hence there being 100 to the pound as opposed to 240.

Phil Andrews ● 4940d

You really are a RUDE INDIVIDUAL are you not!!!

Dawn Hardy ● 4940d

Key Money was the norm Vanessa, Council Housing was few and far between in the Old Days, private landlords were the thing of the day. Apologies will not be forth coming!!!

Dawn Hardy ● 4940d

10 bob was worth 120 pennies the pound was 240 pennies and then in one night in '73 was dropped by 140 pennies to metric 100 pence=£1.00.

Dawn Hardy ● 4940d

No chance, the old cow would want a rebate!

Vanessa Smith ● 4944d

"How Vanessa can argue against council tenants buying there council houses to LIVE in not to sell to make a profit I really do not know, that's the pot calling the kettle black."You really are thick - please do show me where I suggested anything of the sort, I look forward to your apology. Also as I recall 'key money' was illegal...........

Vanessa Smith ● 4944d

"Trust you to take something nostalgic and turn it into a political issue!"Hey you're the politico here Dawn, not me.  You won't hear me banging on ad infinitum about how one political party is all good and the other is all bad, I cottoned on a long time ago to the fact that whichever of the Toxic Twins one votes for the government always gets in.Ten bob was 50p btw, not 25p.  It was a brown banknote - worth four weeks' pocket money in my household.

Phil Andrews ● 4944d

Trust you to take something nostalgic and turn it into a political issue!Vanessa suggested that we have had housing issues since WW11, not true, my parents like many others rented our house from the local coal man at 10 bob a week which was not on the Syon Estate! to you youngsters 25 new pence since in 1973 we lost 140 pennies from our pound.In the old days you paid £100 key money and moved into your house, you had bought your house no contracts no fees just a transaction.Whole families lived in one street.The old council many many moons ago knocked down several hundred terraced houses at Ealing Road destroying a community to build 6 monstrous blocks of flats that no one in those terraced houses would move into, consequently an awful lot of people outside the district moved into Brentford. How Vanessa can argue against council tenants buying there council houses to LIVE in not to sell to make a profit I really do not know, that's the pot calling the kettle black.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

My mother (who is considerably older than you but grew up on your estate) recounts a similar experience.  I'm not sure how that makes the guy responsible for the housing crisis though.

Phil Andrews ● 4945d

Vanessa,You and I are of the same age group and I can remember seeing my first Black man at the age of 10, no disrespect I was amazed and ran up to touch him for luck.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

No it's not - as usual you have got the wrong end of the stick, successive governments since WW11, we've had a problem ever since I cam remember and it has just got worse.

Vanessa Smith ● 4945d

In the first paragraph you say the housing shortage has nothing whatever to do with immigration and yet in the next paragraph you say that it is the fault of successive governments for not having a massive building programme.I am sure that you will correct me, however how many migrants have we admitted to the UK in the last 15 years a guess I would say approx 2 Million or more, now how on earth were they housed, by councils all over the UK at the cost of our own people who desperately need to be  housed.This is not being either racist or discriminative it is purely telling how it is.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

Such a programme would also have the added advantage of reducing unemployment and stimulating the economy.

Phil Andrews ● 4945d

The housing shortage has bugger all to do with immigration either non European or from the EEC. It is the failure of successive governments to allow and encourage a massive public building programme, or to bring back all the empty properties back into use.

Vanessa Smith ● 4945d

Then let's be sensible and only allow people in that can both support themselves and their families. If a Census was done showing just how many council houses were occupied by non indigenous people then you would understand why we have so few now.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

You insult all ex-council house owners who were lucky enough to buy.If you remember Labour allowed Mass Immigration that was for votes certainly not for workers which as a by product has put a massive stress on the housing situation in itself.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

When you consider that we have 750,000 Europeans taking advantage of our Benefits System perhaps you should think again as to why we have a housing shortage.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

Did she die,I had not heard.

Dawn Hardy ● 4945d

Personally I couldn't give a monkey's who people vote for, the issue here is surely the available of homes to people who are in need of them.

Phil Andrews ● 4946d

Even when the funds were eventually released for new building, they were still only half the market value of the houses sold; meanwhile, the Council had also lost the rental income.Speaking as someone who will benefit from my parents having bought their council house (assuming it doesn't all go on Mum's care-home fees), I think it was a rotten idea all round.

Susan Kelly ● 4946d

And the Labour Party campaigned for just this but Thatcher wasnt interested in helping people without homes just in bribing people with discounted homes to buy and hopefully they would then vote for her.  As someone who spent a lot of time canvassing at this time, I think she was spot on in her assessment.  Obviously not all people buying the council homes were so easily swayed but a significant (in voting terms) peopel were.

Patricia Nicholas ● 4946d

Yes, they should have been, but they weren't.

Susan Kelly ● 4947d

If council house sales were to be permitted receipts should have been made available to local authorities to enable them to build more homes, and properties should have been released on a drip-feed basis as and when they had been replaced.

Phil Andrews ● 4947d

The main result of the sale of council houses is a shortage of council housing.

Susan Kelly ● 4947d

I wonder if the EEC will put in a bid?

Keith Iddon ● 4947d

"Thatcher state funeral to be privatisedResponsible department: Cabinet Office"Perhaps the Chinese will fund the coffin with the opportunity for advertising slogans on the side of the hearse.

Sarah Felstead ● 4947d

For God's sake get over yourself, you are more than welcome to pay for the old bat's funeral if you want to - me and mine don't.

Vanessa Smith ● 4947d

You do tend to forget that it was Lady Thatcher who introduced the right to buy Council Properties of which many of us have gained by, isn't this right Vanessa.By the way this piece of smut surpasses anything that you have previously written.

Dawn Hardy ● 4947d

Because Britain is far too London-centric as we muted on a recent thread.If you use London as a yardstick you have to say it is not only Wales,Scotland and Northern Ireland that are denied this dispensation, but also other big cities such as Birmingham(which probably has nigh on the population of Wales in its catchment),Manchester and the liks of Liverpool and Newcastle.I would wager that as much or more tax revenue is raised in London than in Scotland,N Ireland and Wales combined.Go figure.

Keith Iddon ● 4947d

But why should Doris Johnson have discretion on how much he spends and the Scots, Welsh and Irish not have?

John Connelly ● 4948d

It is mostly English taxpayers who fund the budget.Why not?

Keith Iddon ● 4948d

Is it appropriate that the Scottish budget level is set by mainly English MP's while a local council - London - is free to set its own budget level?

John Connelly ● 4948d

I'm kind of assuming that if Scotland gets independence there will no longer be any Scottish constituencies in the UK parliament.  This is one of the reasons why independence makes more sense from both points of view than devolution.

Phil Andrews ● 4948d

No more inappropriate than Scots mp's who represent Scottish voters voting on English matters.

Keith Iddon ● 4948d

42% Keith. As the pandas live in Edinburgh and are not MP's it would be inappropriate for them to be able to vote on English issues.

John Connelly ● 4948d

The newspaper article that prompted this petition was actually published a few weeks ago.  I suspect it was written slightly tongue-in-cheek, but many true things are said in jest.  Surely if the ideals that inspired Thatcher are to be carried to their logical conclusion then it would make perfect sense for her funeral to be privatised, maybe sponsored by some soulless multi-national and exclusive TV rights to be sold to the highest bidder?  Possibly she could have a big McDonald's logo on the side of her coffin, and strategically placed billboards lining the route?If anyone thinks I am being facetious then I am absolutely not.  Whether one loves or loathes the ideals that inspired her during her days as Prime Minister it would surely be a fitting tribute to everything she stood for if her funeral could turn a handsome profit for the already rich rather than being a burden on the long-suffering taxpayer?

Phil Andrews ● 4948d

Never mind should the Pandas vote - how about voting for them? They really couldn't be any worse than some of the specimens we have now. And they are so much more photogenic than Salmond.

Vanessa Smith ● 4948d

What % vote do the Labour party get in Scotland John? Do you think those pandas should be able to vote on issues that only affect England?

Keith Iddon ● 4948d

Thatcher was responsible for the disintegration of the social solidarity that existed in many communities. She devastated Britain's industry in a callous manner, and the fact that the break up of Britain is even on the agenda is down to revulsion with Thatcher reducing the Tories to the 4th party in Scotland. (In the 1955 General Election the Tories polled over 50% in Scotland. They struggle to get into double figures today, and it is a fact that there are more giant pandas in Scotland today than Tory MP's.)

John Connelly ● 4948d

Things were very bad in the 70s and something had to change but Thatcher seems to have presided over the period when capitalism went 'rogue', leading eventually to the mess we're in now.

Susan Kelly ● 4948d

I suppose it depends on where you are coming from. Personally I think she was the biggest disaster to hit this country since WWII. We still live with the legacy today, privatised utility companies owned by foreign companies that rip us all off. A railway and public transport system fractured, expensive and inefficient. Communities ripped apart, industries vanished, no manufacturing base to speak of, an over reliance on the financial sector, and a sod you Jack pull the ladder up national mind set. Whatever was wrong and I agree we had a few problems, the price we paid was and is far too high. No-one in this house will shed any tears at her demise, she was a consummate politician but a heartless and arrogant human being. State funeral? - Adding insult to injury to expect the hard working people of this country to pay once again - I don't think so!

Vanessa Smith ● 4948d

Better in what way John ? What other politicians at the time had a grip on Britain's problems (massively high inflation, huge unemployment,high interest rates,strikes at the drop of a hat,low productivity and poor standards of manufactured goods(particularly cars) to name some.I am no fan of hers as such but we needed someone to get rid of the ditherers,muddlers and apologists for incompetence of both the Labour and Tory parties who had let things slide into the chaos that was the 70's in order that they get elected.

Keith Iddon ● 4949d

A much better ond. Pity we can't backdate the funeral to 1978.

John Connelly ● 4949d

I wonder what sort of country we would have had if she hadn't come along ?

Keith Iddon ● 4949d