Actually I feel sympathy for her

[Mr Creosote]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7579352.stm

Still won't pay for to have a State Funeral though.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Me too. Coping with dementia in the family is dreadful.

It also makes me even more angry with Gordon Brown for his cynical photo op with her.

I still despise her politics but that was then ...

The Skin

[emad]

2. I say it started back in 1979 with the Tory general election.

Dementia is such a broad, generalised medical term for stark raving bonkers.

[non sociopath skin]

5. "Dementia is such a broad, generalised medical term for stark raving bonkers."

That will have given great comfort to those of us who spend our time working with those who suffer from mental illness and those who care for them, emad.

You're all heart.

May it never happen to you or yours, brother.

The Skin

[emad]

9. I was referring specifically to the Thatcher business.

And yes I have relatives who have been ill with dementia and acted as sole carer for many years to one in articular.

And I ain't a brother.

If anything, a sister.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. I feel sympathy for Carol Thatcher

but can't bring myself to feel anything such for her mother.

[Captain Hilts]

11. So, where's the son these days? His exile in the US is over, isn't it?

That's how it was described in "Dear Bill."

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Didn't you hear about the coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea?

He got off lightly, with a please to 'unwitting involvement', which few believe. So now he's living in Spain, like many a British criminal (he's barred from the US because of his criminal record, and divorced from his American wife, on whom he cheated a few times).

An article from this year - great for all lovers of schadenfreude (except the bastard is still filthy rich):

Mark Thatcher: Man on the run

After his ignominious departure from Cape Town, typically protesting that his prosecution was politically inspired and that President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa had never liked his mother, Thatcher was adrift. He stayed with his mother at her house in Chester Square, Belgravia, before looking for a place to live. It was not easy. Monaco, famously described by Somerset Maugham as a “sunny place for shady people”, was his first choice, but he was told his temporary residency card would not be renewed. No explanation was given, but a spokesman for Prince Albert pointed out that the prince intended “morality, honesty and ethics” to be at the centre of life in the principality.

France and Switzerland also failed to extend a warm welcome, which is how Thatcher ended up on the Costa del Sol, renting Casa Flores. Lady Francis Russell, newly separated from her husband, moved in with him in May 2006. Both obtained divorces during 2007 and in March this year they married, quietly, in Gibraltar, in a ceremony attended by only three friends. Notably absent was Thatcher’s twin sister, Carol.
...
Thatcher’s future is uncertain. He recently applied for tax-residency status in Gibraltar, prompting speculation that he intended to make his home on the Rock, but his application is likely to have been turned down.

Adding to his problems, the owner of Casa Flores, a fellow Old Harrovian by the name of Stephen Humberstone, would very much like to evict him. Thatcher has an almost unique ability to rub people up the wrong way, which he has certainly done with Humberstone. “Basically, he just pisses me off. He is always late with the rent. Under Spanish law I have to wait three months before I can take him to court and he presumably knows that and pays up after two months. We were in the same house at school – I can’t believe he is treating me in such a shabby manner.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4066733.ece

There's a fascinating contrast between Mark and Carol Thatcher. Carol has basically always been a 'good egg' - a minor journalist, acknowledging that her mother's name helped get her known, but basically making her own way honestly in the world. She won a celebrity reality TV show, because people actually like her. Mark, on the other hand, has made millions in shady commissions from foreign companies in arms and other dubious areas, which involved the government his mother headed, financed a coup attempt, and cheated multiple times on his wife (I have no idea at all about Carol's love life - which is presumably a good indication it hasn't been awful).

[fedsron2us]

4. Suprisingly, so do I

Back in the 1980's Thatcher had the ability to reduce me to shouting abuse at the TV set every time she appeared. However, after she was ousted from power she seemed to shrink away quite quickly. A personality that once dominated British life for a decade has begun to dissolve to nothing. Now all I feel is pity for her and her daughter.


Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

[Briar]

6. Well said, Mr Creosote

I do too. I've seen too much of dementia to wish it on anyone. Doing so would reduce our humanity.

And no, no state funeral.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. My stepfather just died of Alzheimer's

It was heartbreaking to see an intelligent, gregarious, musically gifted man turn into a silent, motionless creature who couldn't process a rational thought, or, in the last weeks, even stay minimally conscious for more than a few minutes at a time.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Agreed. No-one should suffer through something like that.

I wouldn't wish senile dementia on my worst enemy.

[moggie]

10. I don't want her to have dementia

Harold Wilson suffered from Alzheimer's; after a while, he didn't even know he'd been PM. Very sad. I don't like the thought of Thatcher getting a chance to forget the damage she did and the hate she inspired.