RM launches prime minister stamp set featuring Thatcher

[Chimps_tea_party]

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... royal-mail" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Margaret Thatcher famously opposed the sale of the Royal Mail, insisting that she was "not prepared to have the Queen's head privatised".

So it is something of an irony that less than a year after the coalition government controversially sold off the venerable institution, the Royal Mail has decided to put Baroness Thatcher's head on a stamp for the first time. Thatcher is one of eight British prime ministers to feature on a set of stamps produced to mark the 200th anniversary of the office.

Though some of the leaders have appeared before (notably Winston Churchill, who has twice been honoured with his own set) this will be the first time a whole series of stamps has been dedicated to prime ministers.

The Thatcher stamp shows the "iron lady" in relaxed mode in a pale blue outfit gazing out towards the viewer on a first class stamp. Other 20th century PMs whose faces appear on the first class stamps include Churchill, splendid in spotted bow tie, and – providing political balance – the Labour leaders Clement Attlee and a pipe-smoking Harold Wilson.

On the 97p stamps (for small items of airmail to Europe) are portraits of leaders from the 18th and 19th centuries: William Pitt the Younger, Charles Grey, Robert Peel and William Gladstone.

Andrew Hammond, a spokesman for Royal Mail, said: "As the UK is one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world, it is fitting that we mark eight individuals who have held the role over the centuries."

Paul Lay, the editor of History Today magazine, said the selection was "intriguing". "Some like Winston Churchill and William Gladstone need little introduction. Yet figures such as Charles Grey, though little known today, played crucial roles in some of British history's most important events, including the great reform act of 1832, which set the country on the path to mass democracy, and the abolition of slavery."

He argued it was right, too, that Thatcher was honoured. "Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson were major figures in important times and, whatever one's political views, deserve their place in the selection."

Thatcher, who privatised British Gas, British Airways, British Telecom and dozens of other state-owned institutions in the 1980s, refused to countenance a sale of Royal Mail.

The postal workers union CWU, which strongly opposed privatisation of the Royal Mail, politely declined to comment on whether its members would be happy delivering letters adorned by an image of Thatcher.

Choosing who appears on stamps is a painstaking process. For almost 50 years, Royal Mail's special stamp programme has commemorated and celebrated events and anniversaries pertinent to UK heritage and life.

It receives many hundreds of requests for subjects for its stamps every year from the public, collectors and organisations. In addition it tries to commemorate any major anniversaries and events.

Royal Mail says it collates all the subjects and then carries out careful and extensive research to arrive at the final list of stamp subjects. The Queen approves all UK stamp designs before they are printed. The prime ministerial stamps will be available from 14 October. They can be bought individually or as a set in a presentation pack.


Thatcher? I think I'm going to be sick.

[Lounge Lizard]

Can we refuse to deliver them, like BNP election leaflets ?

[Chimps_tea_party]

I'll be sticking my stamps upside down.

[baldrick]

I won't be buying any Thatcher stamps.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I won't be buying any Thatcher stamps.

I will, cant afford to travel to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, so I will bury and use the stamp in my promised commemoration of her passing next year

[blackadder]

i find it hard to see how maggie is so loathed when blair and brown did a lot worse to this country

[TrueBlueTerrier]

i find it hard to see how maggie is so loathed when blair and brown did a lot worse to this country

Just because people loathe Maggie - it doesn't mean they agree with, or hate any less Brown or Blair. But in certain parts of the country it felt as though Maggie made it personal and that's the biggest difference.

Maggie damaged whole communities in her own country out of nothing except spite.

Some say the whole Miners Dispute and Maggies desire to destroy the NUM can be traced back to the 1974 strike that led to power cuts, a three-day week and election defeat for Edward Heath’s Conservatives, who went to the country under the slogan ‘Who governs Britain?’

John Prescott said it best quoting her speech as she went in to no 10 in 1979

“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.”

Thanks to her failed economic policies, Britain went through two recessions and unemployment was deliberately allowed to skyrocket above three million. Under her, crime went up 79 per cent. Her reign started with riots in Brixton and Toxteth and ended with civil disobedience and more riots against the Poll Tax, a regressive taxation that hit the poor the hardest.

“Where there is error, may we bring truth.”

Tell that to the families of the 96 football fans who died at Hillsborough. Her Government and South Yorkshire Police conspired with Murdoch’s Sun to smear the victims as drunks and louts, then covered up the truth for years.

“Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.”

Thatcher never had faith in society. She claimed it didn’t exist. Her belief in the individual led to selling off council homes and refusing to build new ones, leading to record waiting lists for social housing and homelessness.

She also showed no faith to Nelson Mandela, whom she branded a terrorist, but called Chilean fascist dictator General Pinochet a “staunch true friend”.

“Where there is despair, may we bring hope.”

She destroyed mining communities, setting family against family and short-sightedly closed pits that were still economically viable. As many as 200,000 miners lost their jobs just to show she could prove who was boss. Since then, the price of coal rose from $30 a ton in 1987 to $130 in 2008. Forty per cent of our electricity is powered by coal, and we import the vast majority!

It made no economic sense. It was a cold-hearted political decision.

I loath Blair because he was a war monger, and a political snake oil salesman who was either a Pink Tory or Blue Labour PM, take you pick. I dislike Brown because he was politically and financially inept. Thatcher like most politicians had many sides, good and bad, you have to judge them by their legacy and hers is bigger than theirs, mainly because they came about as a direct result of her politics and their wish to emulate her in some way.

[DB1100]

Blair and Bush are responsible for the genocide in Iraq at the moment,possibly the greatest war crime ever,making Pol pot look like a choir boy.

[savo]

Brown and Blair fcuked over the whole country, not just parts of it, Maggie was an amateur compared to them..

[baldrick]

When asked what her greatest achievement was, Thatcher was reputed to have said "New Labour".
Blair and Brown are regarded as Thatcher's sons. They continued her neo-liberal monetarist policies.

[mailman71]

Thatcher detested trade unions and we were one of her pet hates.

[Lounge Lizard]

The unveiling of a statue of Thatcher in the Falkland Islands was on the news today 8000 miles away being about the only chance of it not being vandalised or wrecked.

[Lounge Lizard]

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... royal-mail


Margaret Thatcher famously opposed the sale of the Royal Mail, insisting that she was "not prepared to have the Queen's head privatised".

So it is something of an irony that less than a year after the coalition government controversially sold off the venerable institution, the Royal Mail has decided to put Baroness Thatcher's head on a stamp for the first time. Thatcher is one of eight British prime ministers to feature on a set of stamps produced to mark the 200th anniversary of the office.

Though some of the leaders have appeared before (notably Winston Churchill, who has twice been honoured with his own set) this will be the first time a whole series of stamps has been dedicated to prime ministers.

The Thatcher stamp shows the "iron lady" in relaxed mode in a pale blue outfit gazing out towards the viewer on a first class stamp. Other 20th century PMs whose faces appear on the first class stamps include Churchill, splendid in spotted bow tie, and – providing political balance – the Labour leaders Clement Attlee and a pipe-smoking Harold Wilson.

On the 97p stamps (for small items of airmail to Europe) are portraits of leaders from the 18th and 19th centuries: William Pitt the Younger, Charles Grey, Robert Peel and William Gladstone.

Andrew Hammond, a spokesman for Royal Mail, said: "As the UK is one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world, it is fitting that we mark eight individuals who have held the role over the centuries."

Paul Lay, the editor of History Today magazine, said the selection was "intriguing". "Some like Winston Churchill and William Gladstone need little introduction. Yet figures such as Charles Grey, though little known today, played crucial roles in some of British history's most important events, including the great reform act of 1832, which set the country on the path to mass democracy, and the abolition of slavery."

He argued it was right, too, that Thatcher was honoured. "Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson were major figures in important times and, whatever one's political views, deserve their place in the selection."

Thatcher, who privatised British Gas, British Airways, British Telecom and dozens of other state-owned institutions in the 1980s, refused to countenance a sale of Royal Mail.

The postal workers union CWU, which strongly opposed privatisation of the Royal Mail, politely declined to comment on whether its members would be happy delivering letters adorned by an image of Thatcher.

Choosing who appears on stamps is a painstaking process. For almost 50 years, Royal Mail's special stamp programme has commemorated and celebrated events and anniversaries pertinent to UK heritage and life.

It receives many hundreds of requests for subjects for its stamps every year from the public, collectors and organisations. In addition it tries to commemorate any major anniversaries and events.

Royal Mail says it collates all the subjects and then carries out careful and extensive research to arrive at the final list of stamp subjects. The Queen approves all UK stamp designs before they are printed. The prime ministerial stamps will be available from 14 October. They can be bought individually or as a set in a presentation pack.


Thatcher? I think I'm going to be sick.

"The postal workers union CWU, which strongly opposed privatisation of the Royal Mail, politely declined to comment on whether its members would be happy delivering letters adorned by an image of Thatcher."
We don't pay £3 a week for the CWU to be "polite".

[fishtank]

Blair and Bush are responsible for the genocide in Iraq at the moment,possibly the greatest war crime ever,making Pol pot look like a choir boy.

I don't mind a bit of vitriol but try to think a little harder, Blair and Bush are/were just puppets, elected officials but completely without any real power, the Iraqi war continued long after both were gone and would have happened no matter who was in power. It's the guys pulling the puppet strings you have to beware and secondly on a factual level roughly 150,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2003 and conservative estimates put the number of deaths Pol Pot was responsible for at something like 1,700,000 so the "genocide" in Iraq isn't even close to that figure...or any of the following who could argue for the dubious title of "worst genocide of the 20th/21st century..never mind ever".



Ze-Dong Mao (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) 49-78,000,000
Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians deliberately killed in WWII plus 3 million Russian POWs left to die)
Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000
Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) 7,000,000 (the gulags plus the purges plus Ukraine's famine)
Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians in WWII)
Ismail Enver (Ottoman Turkey, 1915-20) 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20)
Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000
Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) 1.6 million (purges and concentration camps)
Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000
Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000
Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000
Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1980) 570,000
Suharto/Soeharto (Indonesian communists 1965-66) 500,000
Fumimaro Konoe (Japan, 1937-39) 500,000? (Chinese civilians)
Jonas Savimbi - but disputed by recent studies (Angola, 1975-2002) 400,000
Mullah Omar - Taliban (Afghanistan, 1986-2001) 400,000
Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000
Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1970-71) 300,000 (Bangladesh)
Ante Pavelic (Croatia, 1941-45) 359,000 (30,000 Jews, 29,000 Gipsies, 300,000 Serbs)
Benito Mussolini (Ethiopia, 1936; Libya, 1934-45; Yugoslavia, WWII) 300,000
Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) ?
Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 220,000
Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, 1991-2000) 200,000
Suharto (Aceh, East Timor, New Guinea, 1975-98) 200,000
Ho Chi Min (Vietnam, 1953-56) 200,000

Of course history loves a "winner" and in a lot of these cases it's possible to point the finger at both sides, Japan didn't drop the atom bomb on its own people so who was responsible for that war crime?

[clashcityrocker]

Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1980) 570,000

Behave.