Murderous communist tyrant dies - the Left bursts into tears and the mass media get all nuanced...

Er... no, it doesn't, Nick. It really doesn't. As comedian Lee Hurst pointed out:

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of Castro's former imperialist masters, the USSR, had this to say:

"I am really sad that Fidel’s time is over. He will remain in our memory as an outstanding politician, an outstanding man and our friend."

Missed out the bit about him being a tyrant who tortured and killed those disagreed with him, Mick - oh, and gays and Catholics, whether they disagreed with him or not (which I suspect they mostly didn't).

Jemima Goldsmith's former hubby, ex-Pakistan cricketer and current politician Imran Khan was quickly into full brown-nose mode:

Castro reasserted the Cuban nation's dignity & self worth that withstood US aggression & became a global leader for anti colonial struggles

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 26, 2016

...and for pro-dictatorship and pro-brutal repression struggles, of course. And I expect it's quite difficult to maintain your dignity when a secret service torturer is ripping your fingernails out.  Khan went on:

We in Pakistan will always remember with gratitude Cuba's support on the ground in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) November 26, 2016

Yes, I bet those capitalist Westerners didn't chip in anything, Imran - as usual! Oh, wait, this was the US response in the wake of the Kashmir earthquake:

The United States announced that it would provide an initial contribution of US$156 million (PKR 3 billion) for emergency relief in Pakistan, and teams from the United States were the first on the scene to deliver assistance. The U.S. military also provided supplies and assistance. As of November 3, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has 933 personnel providing relief and reconstruction assistance in support of the Pakistan earthquake relief effort. Five CH-47 Chinook and three UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters are being moved into Pakistan immediately, and a C-17 Globemaster III military aircraft has already been assigned to bring blankets, tents and other relief supplies to the victims. The 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), established October 25 in Muzaffarabad, currently has 36 Intensive Care Unit beds, 60 intermediate minimal care beds, and two operating rooms. To date the MASH has performed 46 surgeries, and treated 548 non-surgical patients. Furthermore, a 23-member logistical support group is also being dispatched from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. The United States Agency for International Development has provided more than US$41.8 million for relief work in Pakistan, including nine completed airlifts of relief supplies. The airlifts delivered a total of 45,000 blankets, 1,570 winterized tents, 6,150 rolls of plastic sheeting for approximately 30,750 families, 15,000 water containers, 17 water bladders, 2 water purification units, 10 WHO emergency health kits, and 20 concrete cutting saws. USAID has also committed funds to the UN, other international organizations and NGOs. On Wednesday, November 9, 2005, business leaders from GE, UPS, Pfizer, Xerox, and Citigroup met with President Bush at the White House to announce the launch of the South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund and website.

Stingy neo-colonialist aggressor bastards! Still, I expect Imran will remember to pay homage to Dubya, should the opportunity arise.

As the world awaited Jeremy Corbyn's response (he's probably heavily sedated, sobbing uncontrollably, and refusing to leave his bedroom) some rave-from-the-political-grave Labour lefties got in on the act:

 Well, he was 6ft. 2in. tall, Ken, so not really a giant. But tall for a Cuban, I grant you.

And, of course, there's always Peter Hain:

Ah, yes - "social equality". That's where you've made the whole population equally poor - it's the socialist way! Hain's tweet elicited this response: 

Here were some more responses I could relate to:

Obviously, Cubans in Miami are inconsolable:

I'm sure there'll be more rich pickings throughout the day. From an hour's TV news coverage I watched this morning, Sky News were even more oleaginously obsequious to the dictator's memory than the BBC - which is saying something, because, when I first tuned in, it was all tragic faces and hushed tones. In case British journalists are in any doubt about what sort of man Castro was and what sort of regime he created, I would refer them to this Human Rights Watch page about Cuba. Here's a lengthy extract:

The Cuban government has committed egregious, systematic human rights violations since the 1959 revolution. But the exact numbers of victims wrongfully killed, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, arrested, or suffering other human rights abuses by the Cuban government is impossible to know, in part due to the government's secrecy about its human rights practices. Human Rights Watch has monitored human rights practices in Cuba for over ten years. During that time, we have documented scores of cases of wrongful arrests, detentions, prosecutions, exile, and other abuses. Moreover, the human rights violations committed in the early years of the Castro government stand out as particularly severe. Historian Hugh Thomas, who acknowledged the impossibility of knowing precisely how many executions and other human rights violations had occurred, estimated that by early 1961, the Cuban government had "probably" executed some 2,000 Cubans, while by 1970, the government had, "perhaps," executed 5,000. Thomas does not specify whether these executions occurred following trials, but notes that "in the case of political crimes, there [was] no rule of law."118 Thomas cites a Castro speech in in 1965 in which the Cuban leader admitted that Cuba had 20,000 "political prisoners"—an unclear number of whom had participated in armed actions against thegovernment.119 Human Rights Watch is not aware of the Cuban government providing restitution to any victim or family member for any of these human rights violations.120

In a report to the U.N. Committee against Torture, Cuba provided information about internal efforts to establish accountability for a broad range of rights and specifically mentioned receiving complaints of abuse in its prisons. Since Cuba permits no independent prison monitoring, and has not even released the number of prisoners currently detained in its prisons, it is impossible to confirm the veracity of this information. Without providing specific details of any cases, the government stated that in 1997 it had received thirty-seven complaints of ill-treatment in prison or in custody; had taken "administrative or disciplinary measures" in ten of those cases; and had sent ten cases to the courts, one of which resulted in an eight-year sentence.121 If this information is true, Cuba's actions would be encouraging steps in the process of establishing accountability for human rights abuses. However, Cuba's retaliations against prisoners who denounce prison abuses and conditions and its ban on prison monitoring suggest a determination to cover up—rather than expose and punish—prison abuses.

The Cuban government has argued in international human rights fora that its laws ensure that victims can present complaints of human rights abuses. But these avenues fail to provide genuine options for redressing wrongs committed by state officials. Until Cuba's laws are purged of provisions that explicitly violate fundamental rights, such as enemy propaganda or contempt for authority, legal action against human rights violators likely will be stymied by the fact that many prosecutors who deprived individuals of their fundamental rights did so in keepingwith Cuban law. And Cuba's Criminal Code notably fails to criminalize torture, as required by the Convention against Torture.

Still, probably worth it in return for all that health care and education.