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Tag: Margaret Thatcher

  • ‘Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead’ Tops UK iTunes Charts Following Thatcher’s Death

    The famous “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” song from The Wizard of Oz has been very popular this week in the UK, as Apple’s iTunes charts for that country show. Here are the top 10 overall songs, with the Judy Garland classic in the top position for the country:

    Ding dong witch is dead

    Ella Fitzgerald’s version of “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” topped the UK jazz chart:

    Ding Dong witch is dead

    Judy Garland’s version of the song also tops the Soundtrack Songs chart:

    Ding Dong Witch Is Dead

    The song has generated a great deal of controversy in the UK, as Politics.co.uk reports:

    MPs are demanding the BBC back down over plans to play the song Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead on the official singles chart this weekend, after a concerted campaign to make it number one.

    The Judy Garland song has been seized on by opponents of Margaret Thatcher to celebrate her death from a stroke earlier this week and it has already sold 20,000 copies since Monday.

    Thatcher’s divisive politics are well known, but obviously many find this all offensive and very disrespectful.

  • Meryl Streep Shares Thoughts On ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher

    Meryl Streep Shares Thoughts On ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher

    Meryl Streep issued a statement to the press today sharing her thoughts on the late Margaret Thatcher. Streep played Thatcher in the film “The Iron Lady,” directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Streep won an academy award for the role.

    Here’s what she had to say about Thatcher (via The Washington Post):

    “Margaret Thatcher was a pioneer, willingly or unwillingly, for the role of women in politics.

    It is hard to imagine a part of our current history that has not been affected by measures she put forward in the UK at the end of the 20th century. Her hard-nosed fiscal measures took a toll on the poor, and her hands-off approach to financial regulation led to great wealth for others. There is an argument that her steadfast, almost emotional loyalty to the pound sterling has helped the UK weather the storms of European monetary uncertainty.

    But to me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit. To have come up, legitimately, through the ranks of the British political system, class bound and gender phobic as it was, in the time that she did and the way that she did, was a formidable achievement. To have won it, not because she inherited position as the daughter of a great man, or the widow of an important man, but by dint of her own striving. To have withstood the special hatred and ridicule, unprecedented in my opinion, leveled in our time at a public figure who was not a mass murderer; and to have managed to keep her convictions attached to fervent ideals and ideas- wrongheaded or misguided as we might see them now-without corruption- I see that as evidence of some kind of greatness, worthy for the argument of history to settle. To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable.

    I was honored to try to imagine her late life journey, after power; but I have only a glancing understanding of what her many struggles were, and how she managed to sail through to the other side. I wish to convey my respectful condolences to her family and many friends.”

    For more thoughts on Thatcher’s passing from the Twitterverse, go here.

  • Margaret Thatcher Dies, Buckingham Palace Issues Statement

    “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher has passed away at the age of 87. The news was announced by her daughter, Carol Thatcher, who said she died peacefully following a stroke on Monday morning.

    Buckingham Palace issued the following statement:

    “The Queen was sad to hear the news of the death of Baroness Thatcher. Her Majesty will be sending a private message of sympathy to the family.”

    Current prime minister David Cameron said:

    “It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.”

    Thatcher was the first female prime minister of Britain, and is often associated here in the U.S. with her work with former president Ronald Reagan in the 80s.

    Here’s a small sample of the conversation in the Twitterverse:

    It goes without saying (as it would for pretty much any politician), the world was divided on Thatchers politics, and that continues to be evident scanning the Twitterverse for reactions to her death. There are plenty of much more disrespectful reactions out there that we’re not going to include here.