Eric,

You took the words out of my mouth. I can only add, it is my belief that without parliament to hold her back, she would have emerged in her true colours as one of the most callous tyrants in history. Right up there with Hitler, Stalin, Amin, Ceacescau and, yes, Pinochet.

Here's a small and, compared to most of the evils that woman perpetrated, extremely trivial homily. I worked for Cheshire County Council throughout the period of Thatcher's tenure, and for several years afterwards. I watched helpless as her policies slowly and remorselessly crippled and bankrupted local government; as the endless round of cuts and closures and redundancies took their toll of social services, education, old people's homes, libraries. Everything which brought a little dignity to and improved the standards of life of, the people who paid her salary, and in some misguided cases voted for her. Everything in fact except the armed forces and the police.

After Thatcher left office, she published her memoirs, and then went on a tour of the UK to promote same. That means sales royalties to you and me. One of her venues was Chester Gateway Theatre, which backs on to the town's main car park. On the day she visited Chester, the car park was closed and surrounded by armed police. She was flown in by helicopter, addressed the party faithful, sold a whole pile of books, and was then flown straight out afterwards, leaving Cheshire County Council to pick up the tab of £100,000. This at a time when the authority was practically bleeding to death, and we were on the knife edge of being rate capped by this bloody woman's policies.

Yes, compared to what she did to the miners, the unions and the NHS, that is a very small incident. But I look foward to the day when I can either dance on the bitch's grave or piss on her ashes.

(Apologies for the vitriolic nature of this post. I don't normally believe in using Mudcat for launching attacks against anyone. But once in a while an exception comes along which cannot be ignored.)