Parliament Debates Thatcher Legacy, as Vitriol Flows Online and in Streets

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/world/europe/british-lawmakers-margaret-thatcher-legacy.html



LONDON — If Margaret Thatcher stirred deep divisions in her political life, death changed almost nothing.

For three days since she died in a London hotel suite at the age of 87, an outpouring of sympathy, respect and reverence from those who have hailed Mrs. Thatcher as Britain’s greatest peacetime prime minister has been accompanied by a parallel, and deeply antagonistic, critique.

Her death has been received in many quarters with a vituperation that was notably absent in the United States with the passing of former President Ronald Reagan, her ideological counterpart and cold-war wingman, and much of that criticism has played out on Britain’s streets. “Death parties” have been held in cities including London, Belfast and Glasgow, with banners reading “Rejoice, Rejoice,” graffiti declaring “Rot in Hell, Maggie” and celebrants “dancing on the grave” of the former prime minister.

Nor has the vitriol been confined to the streets. An arch-advocate of modernizing Britain, Mrs. Thatcher has effectively been put into the stocks of the Internet age, with a blizzard of hostile Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, blogs on leftist Web sites and comments on online newspaper articles about her death.

A Facebook campaign was under way to drive the street protesters’ anthem, “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” to No. 1 in Britain’s popular music charts.