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| Mrs. Thatcher in great old age. |
Former prime minister Baroness Thatcher dies peacefully
in her suite at the Ritz
after suffering a massive stroke at 87
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| Mrs. Thatcher in her prime |
• The Iron Lady became Britain's first and only female Prime Minister
• Baroness Thatcher had suffered from poor health over the past decade
• Mrs Thatcher had been staying at the Ritz hotel up until her death
• Politician will have a ceremonial funeral at St Paul's Cathedral next week
• Last politician to be afforded that honour was Winston Churchill in 1965
• David Cameron: 'We've lost a great leader and a great Briton'
• Queen 'sad' and sends private message of sympathy to her family
• President Barack Obama: 'She stands as an example to our daughters'
• Family asks well-wishers for donations to Royal Hospital Chelsea
• MPs to return from recess early to pay tribute to former PM in Commons
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| During her days as Britain's prime minister |
By MARTIN ROBINSON and SIMON TOMLINSON
View complete article:
Was there a specific reason that she was staying at a hotel instead of living at home? Proximity to the hospital, perhaps?
ReplyDeletenice big lifts, stuff like that I guess. She probably liked the service & discretion.
ReplyDeleteThe answer to my own question above: five-bedroom, six-floor residence. See the photo in the link. I'm guessing that the stairways are quite narrow.
ReplyDeleteFT,
Remember THIS? Bygone days of elegance!
Mrs. Thatcher had been in poor health for most of the past decade. Her six-storey townhouse in Belgravia is very beautiful. Absolutely the best looking carpets I've ever seen, but I deplore the modern custom of dotting the ceilings with recessed lighting.
ReplyDeleteWithout the charm and glow of beautiful lamps the rooms look cold -- even austere -- despite the elegant, beautifully crafted antiques and gorgeous oriental carpets.
From the look of the place, except the master bedroom, it's hard to believe anyone ever really lived in those rooms.
Some potted plants, abundant reading material, a family photos -- and a pussy cat or two -- would do a great deal to add warmth to the establishment.
I've priced real estate in Britain and Europe. A place of that quality -- assuming it was even available -- would cost many millions of U.S. Dollars.
It's a crime that the average person today has no love and no respect for anything that might be considered high class.
There would have been no problem to have had an elevator installed on the premises in Belgravia, and I'm sure abundant funds were available to hire as much staff as Mrs. Thatcher might have needed to make her comfortable in her own home, so I have no idea why she chose to live at the Ritz.
ReplyDeleteMaybe living in an hotel was more stimulating. Lots of life about at all times.
Interesting question.
I'm sorry she's gone, but in truth like Mr. Reagan, whom she so greatly admired, she had already been gone for a very long time. Britain seems much the poorer for her absence.
We are witnessing The Twilight of the Gods.
From the bit that I've read about Mrs. Thatcher's condition in her later years, I doubt that she was much concerned about what we term "creature comforts."
ReplyDeleteBefore her December 2012 surgery, she always went back home to Belgravia. There must have been a particular reason that she was staying in a hotel instead of going home.
Brits being particularly careful of telling too many personal details, it is likely we will never know exactly why she ended her time on this earth in that hotel. Just now, I'm wondering if that hotel held particular and comforting memories for her.
The Guardian puts it in perspective
ReplyDeleteIn your list of accomplishments you forgot support for Robert Mugabe, apartheid and Pinochet.
But her carpets were beautiful.
lol! Like the Left has NEVER EVER supported a strongman...
ReplyDeleteGood one, ducky!
So much for realpolitiks
I absolutely adored Mrs. Thatcher. The closest American woman that I can think of was Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick. She is quite a lady, too. :)
Pardon me. Was quite a Lady.
ReplyDeleteFunny how when great conservatives die, there never seems to be much news coverage...
I was a huge fan of Margaret Thatcher even from the time she was first elected. Over the years maybe the slow drip, drip, drip of toxic leftist barbs have caused me to look more objectively at her. I detest some to the people that she might have considered to be "friends" such as Mikhail Gorbachev, still a sleezy and slimy snake working to advance the cause of globalist world tyranny, so, by association I think today that Margaret Thatcher may have been not quite the icon of virtue and western liberty that she had been portrayed to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat's up with the huge number of people dropping dead after suffering from Alzheimer's for many years, both Reagan and now Thatcher? It seems to be the disease that is diagnosed more frequently in recent years.
Conrad Black the former newspaper magnate wrote the best tribute to Margaret Thatcher that I've seen yet today.
ReplyDelete"It has been a disservice to her great achievements that Margaret Thatcher has been torn down by the left, ungratefully deserted by her own party, and had her privacy violated by vulgar snobbery and snide cinematography (even if somewhat redeemed by the thespian artistry of Meryl Streep). Not too much should be read into the confused defection of the Conservative Party from the legacy of the only person in 180 years who has led them to three consecutive full-term election victories. The British Conservatives leave the selection and retention of leaders to the parliamentary party, and have knifed every leader they have had since Stanley Baldwin, who took a good look at the Nazis and retired in 1937, except those who retired before they could be disembarked. Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold MacMillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and Iain Duncan-Smith were pushed out, and Alec Douglas Home, John Major, William Hague and Michael Howard retired before that indignity could be inflicted on them. Sharper by far than a serpent’s tooth is a British Conservative MP’s ingratitude."
Overlooked, conveniently for the left, I guess, is the recollection of the economic mess which she inherited when elected Prime Minister in 1979. Black does indeed cite that terrible time, which one should keep in mind when recognizing what Margaret Thatcher really did accomplish ...
"When Margaret Thatcher was narrowly elected prime minister in 1979 over James Callaghan, the United Kingdom was on daily audit from the International Monetary Fund; currency controls prevented the removal of more than a few hundred pounds from the country, top corporate and personal income tax rates were 80 and 98%, and those who had the temerity and persistence to enjoy a capital gain (which was hard to come by in Britain in that economic climate) were apt to enjoy the exaltation of soul generated by an effective tax rate of more than 100%. The entire economy was in the hands of an intellectually corrupt, Luddite trade union confederation, which chose most of the delegates to any conference of the governing Labour Party, and whose shop stewards and craft unit heads could shut down an entire industry in mid-contract for any reason, from an individual work grievance to the sour grapes generated by a poor round of darts in his local pub (on working hours)."
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/04/08/conrad-black-margaret-thatcher-was-a-reformer-who-changed-her-country-for-the-better/
@Farmer -- lol! Like the Left has NEVER EVER supported a strongman...
ReplyDelete------
That your best game? Kind of weak ass off speed down the heart of the plate.
Of course the left has been responsible for horrors.
Difference is, we know it and struggle with it.
You worship someone like Thatcher with no awareness of the harm she caused(or you ignore it since it didn't effect you). You just toss around some of that all purpose phony freedom dust you use to sugar coat the truth and keep on with your myth building. He cares if she got on her knees to Saddam Hussein.
... but she had lovely carpets.
Of course the left has been responsible for horrors.
ReplyDeleteDifference is, we know it and struggle with it.
What a crock of shit. Yeah, the left struggles with it by idolizing Chairman Mao and wearing t-shirts with campesino murdering Che Guevara.
There isn't a communist murderer or socialist kleptocrat the left hasn't fallen in love with.
Even incorrectly identifying Hitler as "the right," the toll of death and destruction wracked up by leftists world wide dwarfs any so-called "damage" done by Reagan and Thatcher.
I do find it amusing that you think anyone besides you and your red rabble would believe the bullshit propaganda you spew.
How dare you sully my good name by associating it with that contemptible Quacker? Try it again and I may sue.
ReplyDeleteVery truly yours,
A. Crocker Schitt, Esq.
Difference is, we know it and struggle with it.
ReplyDeleteNope. Worse. You believe there to be a CURE for it.
Human nature, the disease, is "incurable." There is but ONE BAD remedy. Separation and counterbalancing of powers. AND even it only holds for a short, SHORT while.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure.
...and this "farmer" thinks its' about time he broke out his "spreader."
-Thomas Jefferson
Semen est sanguis Christianorum
ReplyDelete-Tertullian
She was voted in twice in a liberal country which appreciated her having dropped unemployment so far...
ReplyDeleteMan, what a woman.
Any dope can slam her with the typical ideological CRAP we hear from the left, but if you're wise and even as a liberal who could appreciate a winner, you liked her, admired her and voted for her (again).
wonderful...I wish we had one like her now.
Oh, by the way...that must be the same Guardian article a high school senior laughed at today: They have dates and conjectures and information about her having screwed things up when she wasn't remotely involved!
ReplyDeleteWonderful to see Ducky sucking it up!!!
No offense, Ducky, but do you realize what a punk and what a sheep you truly are?