A NEWLY formed square named in honour of Margaret Thatcher has been vandalised less than 24 hours after it was unveiled in Madrid. 

Stickers lambasting The Sun newspaper’s role in the Hillsborough disaster have been plastered across the Plaza de Margaret Thatcher.

Liverpool residents have, since 1989, laid blame for the footballing tragedy in which 96 people died at the feet of local police, the government of the day, and The Sun newspaper.

The Sun is still not welcomed on Merseyside and has not been stocked since publishing an article accusing Liverpool fans of urinating on police and pickpocketing the injured at the footballing disaster.

Mrs Thatcher, the prime minister at the time, was accused of wrongly backing the police against protesters and deceased fans’ families.

The former British prime minister’s son Sir Mark Thatcher attended the unveiling of the Plaza – the first in Spain to be named after an international female politician – in the upmarket Salamanca area of the capital.

Madrid is already home to streets and squares honouring Dwight Eisenhower, Salvador Allende, Nelson Mandela and Yitzhak Rabin.

Curiously it the second place in Madrid to bear Thatcher’s name – a public school in the Barajas district was named after her last year.

Subscribe to the Olive Press

28 COMMENTS

  1. The miners would have preferred Scargill, I guess and the scousers Bill Shankly. This woman was at least proud to be British and the Scots who fought and died to preserve the UK may turn in their grave during the next 24 hours.

  2. d.gallon It’s not the workers who have set that up, it’s the present government! There must be something that draw the two together! Wondering what it could be because it couldn’t be her stance on the Falkland Islands, Spain was pro Argentina in that one, and it couldn’t be her stance with Spain not being able to become a member of the EU until the frontier with Gibraltar was open, so it must be something else. Mmmmm!!The Poll Tax maybe, or the coal mines closure? Goodness knows!

  3. Could they be sucking up to the Conservative Party in the hope of getting their support for a seat on the Security Council coming up soon?
    Still cant figure it out. Mind you they could always change it to “Plaza Relaxing Cup of Café con Leche” in honour of their present Alcaldesa’s enlightening speech when they were vying for the next Olympic Games venue. Anyone’s guess really but whichever way you look at it, it does seem odd and out of place!

  4. Think this reporter needs to use their words wisely… I invite the reporter to Liverpool and a trip across the north of england. Then they will see why Disgracful is a nasty word to call the people who did this. She is the disgusting one

  5. Peter, I doubt whether, without her, Britain would still be living in the dark ages. But you are right in that she was very much admired abroad and her strength and character made her a reference for other countries, especially in the defence of her country and the Commonwealth during her tenure in office, no wonder they called her the Iron Lady. She did, however make some very unpopular choices at home, the Poll Tax especially, which hit the less affluent more than it did anyone else. When records are made public maybe we will be better understand her reasons. For now, let us allow her to rest in peace. She did what she considered was her duty and no one can doubt the lady had the backbone needed to rule in her time. Wish we had some more like her in present times.

  6. If that banner was in the UK the stickers would be the least of their worries! I would be more worried about the rotten eggs and excrement. Margret Thatcher is a controversial figure and she could be one reason for the Scottish to leave the Union of the United Kingdom

  7. A couple of errors in this article…

    Firstly, The Sun Newspaper, is still stocked across Merseyside, unfortunately.

    Secondly, as already mentioned in another comment, Liverpool people do not blame The Sun for the disaster, it was their coverage of it that was disgraceful for which they have now admitted it was insensitive and inacurate.

  8. Nobody has ever suggested the Sun was to blame for Hillsborough – that would be ridiculous – they have been boycotted for their shameful coverage of the tragedy in which they covered up police incompetence and made libelous, completely unfounded allegations allegations about victims. Good to see standards of journalism have made such giant strides eh.

  9. These articles are quite annoying for their inaccuracies.

    The Sun is stocked all over Liverpool, and although clearly not as popular as elsewhere, it is still purchased by many. In fact some see the Hillsborough enquiry as partly exonorating them, as the story was provided by the Police Service.

    The Thatcher hatred is due to the extreme left cynically using Hillsborough to stir their hatred of Thatcher. Once again, since the report this has been seen for the nasty nonsense it is by most. The nastly left will never change of course, but most in Liverpool just wanted the truth of the events, and the truth is the problems aere caused by the police, and the police were responsible for the cover-up

  10. The brave people of Madrid held out for much of the civil war against Franco (along with valiant volunteers of the international brigades). Catalonia is a poor example for once – they spent much of the time squabbling amongst themselves, and folded as soon as the war front came close. Barcelona surrendered before Madrid.

  11. Mark: And of course the police were Thatchers attack dogs. Ask the miners. She stirred much more hatred in people than with just Hillsborough. See what the Scots feel about being used as the original guinea-pigs for the Poll-Tax – For another instance.

  12. The striking miners soon turned into a bunch of thugs. They had to be dealt.
    Night after night we saw the situation becoming more and more like an uprising.
    My dad, a normally placid man, who had lived through the insidious rise of one short dictator could see the parallels in Scargill and would willingly have had him shot.
    As it turned out the country still survived with a smaller industry.
    The pity is that Thatcher was not around to deal with Red Robbo before he and his commie rabble destroyed the UK’s car production industry.

  13. From my hard working middle class standpoint, now much eroded, Maggie was only attempting to keep the excesses of the unions in check, discouraging them from disrupting the rest of society for their own ends.
    There were sea changes in the world’s industrial growth and competition. The unions failed to understand that things were changing preferring to hold the country to ransom with power cuts and interminable strikes
    Crazy restrictive practices were rife and our industrial competitiveness and great industries were irrecoverably damaged

  14. John. So instead all social housing was flogged off at a loss.
    The bankers were allowed to virtually destroy the economy. Greed became “good”. Zero hours “contracts” are rampant.
    North Sea oil was wasted on dole instead of coal.
    Just about every utility, power, water,post, in fact everything not nailed down is owned, or will be, by foreign hedge-funds and not the people who created them.
    Worst of all her vicious machinations opened the door to Blair and the consequent castration of what was the Labour Party.
    You need to look right, not left, to see the cause of your eroded situation.

  15. Whilst I agree with you about the erosions to my current situation I don’t accept that Maggie was responsible what has happened since she was in the hotspot. You also blame her for Blairs policies when he got into power because she wouldn’t cave in to the power of the unruly………….
    I would feel happier if the castration had been Gordon Browns with his raid on our pension funds. However I sense his time might come again after his rallying call north of the border and the ineptitude of the Labour leadership at the mo. If only he could rid himself of the mannerism perhaps he should go to Maggie’s personal trainer

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.