Apologies from the US to the UK

I'm not sure anyone in the UK minded to be honest...

If either Mr or Mrs Obama had accepted the invitation to attend, then they would have cancelled (and rightly so in my opinion) following the ghastly events in Boston anyway. Didn't the US Ambassadors, past and present, attend, isn't that sufficient for a (long) ex-leader? Who from the UK attended Reagan's funeral? I know Thatcher did, but did the serving Britsh PM also? Need they have done, if they did? Does anyone really care?

If it was some Obama snub, which I doubt - look at the planning and security that has to take place whenever he goes anywhere - then it backfired somewhat...

The British are a phlegmatic race by nature.

Resolute when the chips are down, but essentially not hysterical.

The Anglo-American [US] relation is far deeper than one Presidency, or one  HMG. It persists at a far deeper level, and sometimes gets both parties into commitments that they might wish did not exist, but the relationship persists for all that.

Unfortunately elements of the News Media actually would rather cook up a storm in a tea cup, which of course the "people" of both nations soon see through.

Farmer

He also has a lot on his plate after the tragic events in Boston. 

Graham.

Not to mention Benghazi.

As Russ stated maybe "an official representative" would have been courteous and needn't have involved security problems?

President Obama has obviously got better taste and good judgement than to attend the funeral of a disgraced women who has caused and participated in so much division, misery, war mongering shame, corporate greed, etc to the UK [and other countries of the world too].

The people of the USA are indeed very fortunate to have a top guy Obama to lead your nation. Here in the UK we presently have not one worthy leading politician who is worth an ounce of spit.

Debs

 Indeed.

I am sure the perceived snub perpetrated by the right wing US media will not effect the "special relationship"!  To be honest, some of us in the UK, certainly in the North of Britain, don't really care for a provocative 10 million faux state funeral for a very derisive PM.

Graham.

Tony: http://www.mediaite.com/online...st-returned-in-2009/

"On Friday, The British Embassy confirmed to Mediate that they did receive the bust of Churchill which was loaned to the Bush White House in 2009. The bust on display in the White House’s residency is a copy"

Debs: Yes, we in the US have a lot to be thankful for: Soon, very soon indeed our "top guy" will have our economy right back where yours was in 1979. 

Best regards, and reminding all you liberals that ridicule and hatred is OK as long as it is directed at conservatives.  Numerous among your number here in the US have been openly hoping that the Boston bomber is white.  Funny, I thought bigotry and racism was only prevalent among undeserving, white, vicious, uncaring, Republican maggots like me!   Listen to what so many of the adherents of your "top guy" have to say without his ever once condemning their words.

Violence and bombing are also OK as long as they are aimed at conservatives and not the other way around.  Consider that other bombers, all on the left, are now teaching at Ivy League schools, including the man in whose living room, your "top guy" began his first campaign. 

Russ

`Yes, we in the US have a lot to be thankful for: Soon, very soon indeed our "top guy" will have our economy right back where yours was in 1979`

Russ are you for real? All the economies in the west are screwed thanks to the greed of the banking system,it started in the USA under a Right wing government who threw all your money to the Banks,but I suspect that was the fault of Socialists too in your world view.

You are so right Steebo.  The US banking system is to blame for what is happening right now in Greece, Portugal, Spain...  Bush will continue to be responsible for everything bad that happens for the next century.  And folks who believe as you do can keep your head in the sand and some of you, your hands out for the dole--not saying you, because  I do not know you--until hell freezes around the freaking edges--and you will be sincere in your beliefs but just as bad off no matter what you believe.  Obama is a socialist through and through and I will let you sit in all your righteous indignation at everything conservative and believe that caring socialism is better than evil free enterprise.  I do wish you well.

There are those in the US who have openly stated they are glad that Mrs. Thatcher is dead.  I would invite folks on this thread to come out and state whether they agree with that sentiment.  Perhaps then we can determine how "caring" folks on the left really are. 

Russ

Russ

Oh dear - Next stop "Keep their hands of our guns"

Prubast: Screw the guns.  What I am pressing for is that government outlaw pressure cookers and ball bearings.  One can never be too careful.  Actually, I blame the Boston Marathon.  Terrorists, both domestic and foreign, whether right wingers such as McVeigh (who blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building) or left wingers such as Bill Ayers (who set off explosions in New York before holding the kickoff party for Obama's first campaign) tend to pick on iconic events.  So we need to quit holding such symbolic events as the Boston Marathon, the Tour de France, or the Olympics. 

Russ

I for one could not stand the woman. This hard nosed bitch sold off all our basic utilities,gas,Electric and Water,which in my mind should have remained none profit making,as they are ESSENTIAL services. We have old people on low incomes who are frightened to turn on their heating in the winter because they cannot afford huge bills,and the likes of EDF energy(French owned) are creaming in huge profits as a result. When old people cannot afford to pay basic bills that to me is wrong. That said i quite like our present Tory prime minister Dave Cameron.

Also to waste 10million quid on her funeral,to me that money could have been put to far better use in these hard times.

Mista h

I for one American don't see it necessary to apologize. She wasn't universally liked in the UK anyway, and we have much bigger problems at the moment. Our leaders (at least those very few who aren't completely inept) need to be home to solve more pressing issues.

Maybe next time we can send some of our many incompetent politicians and then you can keep them afterwards, imprisoned if you like.

Apparently EDF like Starbucks have failed to pay any corporation tax recently.

Understood and agreed with regard to incompetent and/or vicious politicians.  You can pretty much reach into a bag and draw one out...

As to corporations not paying tax, we have those too--notably General Electric whose CEO Jeff Immelt is an economic advisor to His Obamaness.  Immelt, himself a lifelong Republican--so you can't say I never pick on that party) has managed to suck lots of "green" energy dollars out of the administration, has kept GE from the embarrassment of paying any Federal taxes. 

Corporations are no saints, but they surely do supply the world with greater productivity than most Union leaders. 

In Texas, we have a lower sales tax than in New York or California and NO income tax.  Corporations, taxed out of existence in those two and other primarily Democrat states, have flocked here in great numbers.  Our economy has not suffered nearly as much as those areas of the country where the last person leaving is supposed to turn off the lights.  Our housing prices have not suffered so badly.  True, our educational levels and achievement are lower than some areas of the Northeast, and where huge amounts of Federal dollars are targeted such as Detroit , but although not everyone in Texas is able to study under Kathy Boudin

(http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G...Teacher-Kathy-Boudin)

but we do enjoy a huge influx of evil corporations fleeing the 50 percent overall taxation that visits anyone living in most of the "blue" states, and that means lots of high paying jobs for all the benighted children of rednecks like me!  My son voted for Obama, but that worthy man did nothing to provide the high paying job he has with a major high tech company.  And he only has 1 year of college.

So yes, corporations are the root of all evil.

Russ

For crying out loud Russ, November was 5 months ago, man.  You lost, get over it.  Will the mean-spirited bile never stop?

Oh, Digger.  I know far better than you that "I" lost--and what I lost as well...along with so many other people, many of whom voted for him.  Here is the deal, Digger--it is fine to hate people like Presidents Bush and Reagan or PM Thatcher.  That is right thinking.  It is only "mean spirited" when turned the other way.  Then, it is hate speech and yes, racism.  Yes, Digger, November was five months ago--and the previous election was four yeas and five months ago, and Obama still blames everyone and everything for his own failures: Bush, the Tsunami, the "Arab Spring", kiosks, ATM machines. 

You know, Digger, when Watergate hit the deck, I was in Washington doing an internship.  I predicted then that the Republican Party would never come back--I mean, how could it, after the social and political atrocities perpetrated by Richard Nixon.  But it did come back, and Jimmie Carter was the reason.  It came back in the person of Ronald Reagan, who along with John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt, I consider to be the three greatest presidents of the century. 

I would have thought, had I been younger and more naive, that the Democratic Party would not come back and reelect Bill Clinton after he committed sexual harassment, getting blow jobs from an intern who worked for him, under the desk of the oval office, after using her vagina as a humidor and lying under oath. 

Now, I think again the Republicans will not come back--this time, not for the same reasons as the Watergate aftermath, but because of the coalition that Barack Obama has so ingeniously built--based on promises of free stuff--wealth, in his own words "redistributed" from the pockets of the rich.  Mitt Romney (not one of favorites by a long shot), though not at all politically astute in saying so and getting caught saying it, hit the nail on the head when he said that 47 percent of the electorate would not vote for him because they wanted free stuff from Obama.  Once there exists a majority among the electorate--who, whether deserving or not (and please know that I believe many of them are), pay no Federal income tax, and to whom the Democratic Party can promise to write checks every month, then, Digger, the party is over. 

No, Digger, the Republicans are no saints, but they did represent the last bastion to stand in the way of the United States' sliding irreconcilably down the same shit chute that Greece has already done, and when that happens, it doesn't matter whether well-meaning people like you provide Barack Obama with all the excuses you can muster, not only I will have lost, Digger, but so will the United States have lost--as well as the UK and the European continent, once the economic and social bill that the wonderful people who live there have managed to run up comes due. 

The United States, as well, Digger, is not a nation of saints.  We have so many faults it hurts.  But one service we have provided was to settle the hash when European nationalism and anti-Semitism periodically erupted from embers into fire.  That is how we came to be given or loaned (whichever way you want to state it) the bust of Sir Winston.  And erupt it is certain to once more--not so much from within as from without.  (I think you know what I mean.)  And when that time comes, a weakened America, whose youth have lost the pride, the will, and the work ethic of their great grandparents' generation, we will all have lost Digger.

Digger, Due to my somewhat advanced age and getting in under the entitlement wire, if you will, I actually happen to be one of the people who will probably benefit somewhat from what Obama has done and will do.  But my life expectancy is not great enough from this point in time that I will be adversely affected.  But my grandchildren will be affected--as will yours, Digger.

I hope I am wrong, because I do love my country and my friends around the world.  And I do wish you well.

Russ

Seconded!

No apology necessary Russ. It's really no big deal. 

Russ -

Whether it is deifying Ronald Reagan here, or crucifying homosexuals as you did in a prior post, I am certain that there are very few issues that you and I will ever agree on. That is fine by me since, after all, this It is an open forum and you are entitled to your opinions (even when I find them misguided or offensive).

I will leave it to others to debate these topics with you, but I would like to make one simple request:  please don't presume to speak on behalf of any US citizens other than yourself. I suggest a more correct title for this thread would have been "Apologies from Russ to the UK".

Hook (out)

Russ -

you are entitled to your opinions (even when I find them misguided or offensive) "Voltaire"

.... please don't presume to speak on behalf of any US citizens other than yourself. I suggest a more correct title for this thread would have been "Apologies from Russ to the UK".

Seconded!

Keep an eye on your blood pressure debs

Mista h