Sheer, bloody-minded nastiness has always been a ready comforter for those on the political left.

Just look at the ugly, hate-filled vitriol directed at former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the week leading up to her funeral.

She was variously called a witch and a murderer, a liar, a cheat and a robber baron (presumably before those critics realized she was in fact a Baroness).

Her children were vilified and her late husband Dennis defined as some sort of court eunuch dominated by a swivel-eyed madwoman.

Hardly edifying stuff, but par for the course from those who stand opposed to the ethics of robust capitalism.

Closer to home, regard a website hosted by an Ottawa pubic-sector union devoted to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that had to be taken down because of the vile nature of the comments it attracted.

For people most commonly associated with the competing demands of political correctness and the intense desire to shout down anyone who doesn’t agree with them, it hasn’t been a great few days to be a socialist.

Or century, come to think of it.

Little wonder it was revealed Sunday that the federal NDP is stripping references to socialism from the party books in an attempt to appear “more modern.”

Given that the left was on the wrong side of history for the entire 20th century, it is no surprise to find that, as we proceed into the new millennium, the same sewer of hate and anger, envy and deceit lives on for those who worship at the altar of Fabianism.

The evidence of the past 100 years is incontestable.

The right claims champions of freedom starting with Winston Churchill and then takes a direct line through Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. and Jr., Stephen Harper and John Howard.

The left, meanwhile, had to watch the slow collapse of Communism, the dilution of socialism and then put a peg on their noses and cuddle working-class heroes such as Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Franco and Pol Pot as their own.

More recently, Hugo Chavez, Nicolae Ceausescu and Kim Jong-un have been leading the rousing choruses of The Internationale for the faithful.

No wonder some elements of the lunar left are so angry and keen to promote the virtues of class war at any cost.

Margaret Hilda Roberts was the grocer’s daughter who rose to the highest office in the land by virtue of her hard work, grit and determination.

She stood up to the Communist totalitarian dictators in the old Soviet Union and refused to blink when challenged by both Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and

Col. Moammar Gadhafi of Libya.

Thatcher showed contempt for the violent thugs who ran the IRA and militant union leaders who thought the U.K. was theirs and theirs alone to run as they saw fit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again.

That she was eventually laid to rest with such reverence is a tribute to her and a poke in the eye for her critics.

The ugly bawling of Margaret Thatcher’s enemies said more about them than it did her.

If you judge the quality of your life by the quality of your enemies, then that surely is the only thing she may have regretted — a paucity of worthy opponents.

We will surely never see her like again.