R.I.P Maggie Thatcher

[scott-atkinson]

In the news today, Maggie Thatcher has passed away...

Love her or loathe her she was an iconic leader in the 80's referenced as the Iron Lady, with lots of other names to boot...

Famous for many things, and infamous for many more, including shutting down the Coal Mining pits, snatching Milk from Infants, and the now infamous Poll Tax riots...

Could history be repeating itself.... could we have Bedroom Tax Riots.... ???

What are your views on the Iron Lady, and the legacy she gave to the United Kingdom, and the world?

 

[Brianwarnock]

She did what was needed regarding the unions and the Falklands, but her privatisation was a disaster , instead of the UK government owning the fabric of our society it is owned by companies in which foreign governments have major shares.

The poll tax was a good idea poorly presented and implemented, the so called bedroom tax , in fact a benefit reduction, is a similar situation.

She did nothing to get us out of that ridiculous bureaucratic money pit called the EU.

Brian

 

[Brianwarnock]

Many Liverpudlians hate her because of her attitude over Heysel when she sided with the real culprits for that disaster, Namely the European Football Association for insisting the match was played at an unsuitable stadium and ignoring the fact that 11 Liverpool fans had been stabbed in Rome the year before.

Brian

 

[ColinEssex]

Like most PM's Maggie did a lot of good and some bad things. Tony Blair for example sucked up to the yanks and took us into an illegal war they started.

Maggie got us out of the strike ridden 70's of power cuts, car strikes and 3 day week and more. They UK was fast down the pan.

But overall, she did ok in difficult times, and she bashed the Argies over Falklands.

Col

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

She opened up the North south divide something rotten. No good for the North and in the long run no good for the south as its get more and more crowded , more and more expensive and in the end prices itself out of world markets.


She opened up the financial markets - which allowed the risk taking - hence our problems today.

She destroyed manufacturing industry - so a manufacturing led recovery is proving difficult.

She backed a boycott of Moscow - but saw Mandela as a terrorist and refused sanctions.

She set up teh hypocrisy of a state owned city of London - paying obscene bonuses to crooked spivs. But ridded us of water, telecoms , energy and many many thousand of jobs in working communities.


Her parting gift is a recall of parliament - where MPs can reclaim £4k to attend for the day - to say how wonderful she was. More than an unemployed person can expect in a year - and the same MPs will next week no doubt be spouting that the unemployed have it too easy.

And we are to have a state funded funeral - the ultimate hypocrisy. Apart from the rediculousness of this in ideolical terms - she is actually the most despised leader we have had in living memory as well as maybe the most celebrated.



Ding dong the witch is dead - is certainly offensive - but so is the celebration of the ruination of towns and industries and lives ,whilst forcing the casualties to help pay for it.


She did break the self serving unions - to end on a good note.

 

[Brianwarnock]

If the Unions had accepted secret ballots then the confrontation of the miners' strike and all that followed would not have happened. When she came to power this country was a basket case and doomed to stay that way in the grip of the unions, when she left we were a strong respected country, it is not her fault if Labour under Blair and Brown threw that away.

No leader is all good or all bad, actually forget that last bit I've just remembered Brown, Blair, Heath, Wilson

Brian

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

If the Unions had accepted secret ballots then the confrontation of the miners' strike and all that followed would not have happened. When she came to power this country was a basket case and doomed to stay that way in the grip of the unions, when she left we were a strong respected country, it is not her fault if Labour under Blair and Brown threw that away.

No leader is all good or all bad, actually forget that last bit I've just remembered Brown, Blair, Heath, Wilson

Brian

Theres a certain selfishness in the idea that the UK became strong and respected , the 3 - 6 million unemployed and their families were strong and respected?

 

[Brianwarnock]

Being unemployed is no fun, I've been there, I also have a brother who twice became unemployed during that period, in both cases it was due to union intransigence and nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher.

Brian

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Being unemployed is no fun, I've been there, I also have a brother who twice became unemployed during that period, in both cases it was due to union intransigence and nothing to do with Margaret Thatcher.

Brian

Employment levels and prosperity have nothing to do with the PM, you seem to suggest? - Then whats being celebrated?

If you take responsiblity for one you can take responsibility for another.

Of course destroying things like mining, steelworking communities and replacing them with nothing is her legacy. Real alternatives could have been set up- before pulling the carpet from under millions of lives.

 

[Brianwarnock]

Employment levels and prosperity have nothing to do with the PM, you seem to suggest? - s.

Of course they can and do influence them, but they are not solely responsible. I don't know your age but do you not remember the strikes that destroyed the car industry?

Both firms that my brother worked for went out of business due to the strikes, the workforce didn't want them but with show of hands ballots the union heavies made sure they voted the "right" way. Thatcher changed all that , and for that alone we have to be grateful.

However I guess we are never going to see eye to eye on this.

BTW I think the eulogies have been OTT and I would give nobody a state funeral, my father was a verger and he said that when people were carried through the gate, into the graveyard, they were all equal, I agree.

Brian

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Of course they can and do influence them, but they are not solely responsible. I don't know your age but do you not remember the strikes that destroyed the car industry?

Both firms that my brother worked for went out of business due to the strikes, the workforce didn't want them but with show of hands ballots the union heavies made sure they voted the "right" way. Thatcher changed all that , and for that alone we have to be grateful.

However I guess we are never going to see eye to eye on this.

BTW I think the eulogies have been OTT and I would give nobody a state funeral, my father was a verger and he said that when people were carried through the gate, into the graveyard, they were all equal, I agree.

Brian

I fully agree on the unions were just as much trouble, and ackowledged her part in changing that in my original post.

Doesnt change the fact that for millions of people the choice between her policies and the alterntive was one of honest work bring money into the hgousehold , - or overnight the scrap heap with little money and little prospects alond with the entire community around them.

Both are true - and its understandable why some would be sickened by the eulogies.

Its sad that those who gained fro Thatcher - not only dont feel empathy for those who suffered, they often dont even ackowledge them.

Thats to have been witnessed this week.

I think we actually agree plenty.

 

[dan-cat]

Ding dong the witch is dead - is certainly offensive - but so is the celebration of the ruination of towns and industries and lives ,whilst forcing the casualties to help pay for it.

Amid the plethora of reaction to her death I did come across one response that rung true. I think it was from Neil Kinnock but can't be sure. Anyway it was to do with how her enemies were really her greatest allies.

Judging from this kind of response: Link I can certainly understand his point.

It's somewhat puzzling to combine such unpopularity with three election wins. Did her opponents really behave in this way? It would explain a lot.

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Amid the plethora of reaction to her death I did come across one response that rung true. I think it was from Neil Kinnock but can't be sure. Anyway it was to do with how her enemies were really her greatest allies.

Judging from this kind of response: Link I can certainly understand his point.

It's somewhat puzzling to combine such unpopularity with three election wins. Did her opponents really behave in this way? It would explain a lot.

As she was actually in the same way the greatest ally of her opponents - cretins like Derek Hatton on a local level, they existed together and in ways they existed because of the other, or their like.

And in some ways they only got in due to the appaling nature of the other.

Two side's of the same bad penny. Either choice was pretty grim.


It took 40ish per cent of the vote to win, that's less than 1/3 of the eligible voters.

For those on the receiving end of her policies having to put up with eulogies and quasi state funerals a protest of ding dong actually seems bad taste yes -that's the point I guess, but fairly mild really and actually the only way of having their voice heard on a national level.

Of course it would be polite to say nothing - if we had nothing good to say - but theres a danger of history being re written and a legacy whitewashed, from hearing only one side.

Tories weren't to slow is saying good riddance to Chavez - all we have here is the same thing - from the other side. We are not actually celebrating a private 87 year old woman. We are celebrating or marking with respect what she did for the country. Some , lots of people hate and don't respect what she did for the country. Its dangerous to silence that different belief.

Maybe the charts should have had a Karaoke version of Ding Dong akin to a Gerry Adams interview in the 80s?

 

[Rx_]

Appreciate the perspective views. Across the pond, we get filtered views at 10,000 feet (or a couple of Km). The name was very well recgonized. A name and time in history with your added comments. Thanks

 

[Marlin47]

The vast bulk of Hatchers enemies were sweaty armpitted, hairy arsed, chauvinist pig proles largely from the working class industrialised areas of the UK.

Liverpool would have been the epicentre of this base of opposition, founded in the working class Catholic Irish that predominate. This category of species would have been violently
hostile to anyone of Thatchers type ever since they suckled at their mothers breast.

This opposition to her would have been positively rabid, even before it was known that
Thatcher seriously considered starving Liverpool of grants, aid, money and support in the hope that it would wither and die. Unfortunately, she decided not to go quite that far, drawing the line at stopping welfare payments to Liverpudlians. As for myself, I would no more do any sort of business with a Liverpudlian than I would drink a bucket of petrol and swallow a lighted match. Not to close on a negative note, however, they did provide the world with Ken Dodd...........quickly, where did I put that bucket of petrol and box of matches !?

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

The vast bulk of Hatchers enemies were sweaty armpitted, hairy arsed, chauvinist pig proles largely from the working class industrialised areas of the UK.

Liverpool would have been the epicentre of this base of opposition, founded in the working class Catholic Irish that predominate. This category of species would have been violently
hostile to anyone of Thatchers type ever since they suckled at their mothers breast.

This opposition to her would have been positively rabid, even before it was known that
Thatcher seriously considered starving Liverpool of grants, aid, money and support in the hope that it would wither and die. Unfortunately, she decided not to go quite that far, drawing the line at stopping welfare payments to Liverpudlians. As for myself, I would no more do any sort of business with a Liverpudlian than I would drink a bucket of petrol and swallow a lighted match. Not to close on a negative note, however, they did provide the world with Ken Dodd...........quickly, where did I put that bucket of petrol and box of matches !?

Hi Col - bored again I see!

 

[Marlin47]

Ok. You've sussed me out. I had no idea that it would become so obvious so soon. Let us, though, start out with a clean sheet, as it were. If anyone has any outstanding issues with me, then let's try and clear the air of them now. I'm happy to oblige.

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Ok. You've sussed me out. I had no idea that it would become so obvious so soon. Let us, though, start out with a clean sheet, as it were. If anyone has any outstanding issues with me, then let's try and clear the air of them now. I'm happy to oblige.

Was obvious as Col. No need to clear the air with me. Alls good mate

 

[Rx_]

Well, you certainly had me fooled Col.
Was reading this on my crowded light-rail ride home, laughing in a strange way, then muttered outloud laughing "where did I put that bucket of petrol and box of matches !?".
Suddenly at the next stop the light rail car seemed to empty... very quickly.

Thanks, I appreciated the laugh and the leg room.

 

[Marlin47]

Well, you certainly had me fooled Col.
Was reading this on my crowded light-rail ride home, laughing in a strange way, then muttered outloud laughing "where did I put that bucket of petrol and box of matches !?".
Suddenly at the next stop the light rail car seemed to empty... very quickly.

Thanks, I appreciated the laugh and the leg room.

Think nothing of it, compadre. I'm glad to have been of assistance !