Thatcher was a political thug who tore Britain in half - I've no doubt those half who benefited from her doing so will mourn her passing; there won't be many miners, steel workers or anybody who once worked in the industries she destroyed, rushing to the "on" button.
Nor will they include many of those who lost their homes when she transformed them from homes into commodities.
She befriended a mass murderer (nice touch by Ken Loach when he described her as "having tea with him").
She described putting Pinochet on trial for his crimes as being "a show trial" claimed Britain was "a police state" because the government of the day held him under house arrest until the matter was decided.
"Lady Thatcher accused the government last night of collaborating in "international lynch law" when she mounted an impassioned defence of the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet......"
"In a speech denounced as obnoxious by Labour MPs, she said she had not spoken at a Conservative conference since being forced out of power in 1990, but she was breaking her self-denying ordinance because of her "outrage at the callous and unjust treatment of Senator Pinochet". She told a packed audience in the ABC cinema, decked out with Chilean flags, that she felt "shame and anger" that a British government had arrested him. "I do not know when or how this tragedy will end but we will fight on for as long as it takes to see Senator Pinochet returned safely to his own country. He had provided essential intelligence information during the Falklands war, and the Labour government chose to repay it by "collaborating in Senator Pinochet's judicial kidnap"......
"At the meeting, billed as Pinochet: Britain's only political prisoner, she was flanked by two Chilean senators, the former Tory chancellor Norman Lamont and the senator's son, Marco Antonio. Plans for a live broadcast to the fringe by Pinochet from his temporary home in Surrey were scrapped. His supporters feared that it might undermine their portrayal of him as an ailing and frail old man who should be allowed to return home on compassionate grounds."
"Lady Thatcher portrayed Pinochet, whose coup in 1973 led to the deaths of at least 3,000 people, as a human rights victim. He had been arrested "by night on his bed of pain, after a spinal operation, in circumstances which would do credit to a police state. We know that he was held first in a tiny room at a clinic under sedation and then in a house where he wasn't even allowed to set foot in the garden."
"She told the fringe: "I never thought in my lifetime to see the honour of Britain and the reputation of British justice so demeaned as in this affair. All those responsible must be shamed and held publicly to account." She claimed that the left was intent on revenge because Pinochet had defeated communism: "What the left can't forgive is that Pinochet undoubtedly saved Chile and helped save South America."
Her take on democracy was to describe Pinochet's massacre of around 4,000 Chileans, mainly young people, and the torture and rape of many more as "bringing freedom and democracy to Chile"; there, but for the grace of ... whoever, went Britain if ever things got too much out of hand.
I can't recall the death of any politician – or anybody at all for that matter – brining so much pleasure to so many people - mind you, I'm not quite old enough to remember yer man in the Berlin bunker popping his clogs.
She did manage to bring me one little glimmer of pleasure - the sight of her being driven away from Downing Street for the last time in tears, for all the world like a spoilt child having her favourite toy taken away - thanks for that Maggie.
It's just been announced on the radio that the Wizard of Oz song 'Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead' has been sent "racing up the charts"
Jim Carroll