4/16/2013
Margaret Thatcher funeral
I'm no Thatcherite, but I am a little annoyed by all the controversy over the Margaret Thatcher funeral arrangements for tomorrow.
Maggie was Prime Minister for more than a decade. That's longer than any post-World War II president has been in office. She presided over Great Britain through a tumultuous but transformative decade, taking backwards, depressed industrial Britain out of the 1970s and into the 90s, where it became the modern, integrated yet Euroskeptic leading nation of the Old World.
Giving her a state funeral hardly seems out of line. I'm sure when Tony Blair croaks in twenty or thirty years, he's going to be afforded this luxury. John Major might not get such an honor, but being someone who was in office for a few short, forgetful years is well different than someone who unquestionably made their mark on the modern British nation. Giving them a state funeral hardly seems to be out of line.
But, I'm currently away in the US, so I'll miss all of the pomp and circumstance, protests, and inevitable transport disruptions that are the hallmarks of a London event. Not that I'll be complaining, though it would be appropriately British of me to do so.
