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That’s what the BBC are reporting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155 -
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@shakeel wrote:
You either loved her or hated her !!!! A very devise politician in was respects. She laid the foundation of the the present day greed at all cost and believed that there was no such thing as society.
“There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.”
you can get the original transcript here:
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106689
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@itsme wrote:
Does seem to be. RIP. I was too young to really know what she was like when in power but I don’t agree with all the hateful remarks that get said about her.
She was in power during very divisive times. Her second term was a success – she defeated Scargill, modernised the unions, dismantled many huge nationalised industries, generally pointed the UK in a different economic direction that most people think is an improvement on what went before. I think her main problem was that while she was good at downsizing the state and deregulating, she was blind to situations where regulation was required.
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She was also virulently anti-gay, pushing-through the now disparaged and repealed section 28 (1988), which stipulated that no government entity “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
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@GarySFBCN wrote:
She was also virulently anti-gay, pushing-through the now disparaged and repealed section 28 (1988), which stipulated that no government entity “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
While I don’t agree with section 28, I thought of it more a case of her being “old fashioned”, “ignorant” or simply “avoiding the issue” rather than being “virulently anti-gay”. She voted for the legalisation of homosexuality in 1966 which implies an “acceptance” of homosexuality although she should have done a lot more to promote gay rights.
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I actually wrote more but deleted it. I detested the woman’s policies but in deference to those who actually think that one must be respectful of the dead, and clearly I don’t, I’m giving this topic a rest.
But a most telling example of just how much she is appreciated, and how that appreciation of her can affect business is the the song “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” (from the movie “The Wizard of Oz”) which has sprung into Amazon’s top 40 songs because of all the downloads to ‘honor’ her:
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She did some good things, she did some bad things. The Left is trying to blame her for everything that has gone wrong with Britain, as if it was some sort of utopia when she came to power. Selective memory.
I once watched her live from the visitors gallery in PMQ against Niel Kinnock – she wiped the floor with him.
Garry, if your example shows anything, it’s how puerile people can be.
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My favorite quote of the blessed Margaret is by Francois Mitterrand when he was was president of France.
“Margaret has the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe.”
I admired and almost loved the lady. She was directly responsible for ‘big bang’ which made the City of London what it is today. She turned Britain’s economy round from a basket case controlled by the hard left into a dynamic functioning success. She privatised the failing nationalised industries, turning them into profitable companies.
She would not give in to tyranny, believed passionately in democratic freedoms, hard work and effort. She had enormous personal compassion which is a side of her character people seldom saw. She was not a consensus politician. You knew where she stood and what she stood for. There was no ambiguity unlike today’s bunch of grey men.
Margaret was a tour de force in the world, helped the US and Gorbachev to see off Soviet Communism which ended the cold war. Yes she made political mistakes and paid a high price but look at her successes in a balanced way before you condemn her.
The world will never see her like again.
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To be honest I think the “big bang” and the City in general was something that she could have done better, I think she mis-read what was going to follow. Tighter controls were needed to prevent the debt bubble that followed it – although her successors had plenty of chance to put that right as well.
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I agree with most comments on here about her, she did some good things and some bad things, you loved her or loathed her.
IMO she was ok to start with but then she lost touch with the masses as most PM’s and leaders do once they’re voted in a second time. It was Thatcher who envied the populus’ love for the Queen, in fact it was said ‘she who would be Queen’, of course she couldn’t ever be as popular as the Queen. She also suffered from megalomania, full of her own self importance.
She took the credit for foreign Banks moving to the City, banks like Goldmans the greedy b
s who created the obscene bonus culture which led to frenzied lending spree copied around the world.People have short memories, yes, she started the ‘right to buy’ with council houses in the UK, so many bought property only to see it fall in price when she ended the dual Miras relief on mortgages which people scrambled for before it’s end, the market then crashed like a stone leaving many with negative equity.
She did get rid of Scargill and won the Falklands war but not single handedly 🙄
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I think overall she was a great PM. Didn’t agree with all her policies but remember that most people were better off…even the working class. All these people celebrating, seeing them on the news just the usual left wing rabble, most of them not old enough to remember her, silly overgrown students 🙄
Personally I couldn’t see anything unfair about the poll tax. Why shouldn’t 5 adults living in a house pay more than a single person next door 😕
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I think she lost touch in her third term (as did Blair). The Americans must have known something we don’t when they limited presidencies to two terms. The second term was the one where she defeated Scargill, dismantled the bloated nationalised industries, and went a long way to ending the cold war.
I think the “right to buy” was a bit of a bribe to get votes from the poor in many respects. While I think it’s right that people should be helped off the state housing schemes, it was too much of a give-away if anything. Even though the housing market crashed after the Lawson boom, I don’t think the right-to-buyers lost out as much as others did. In fact they got their council houses so cheap I doubt they lost out at all.
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Right to buy was basically good for those in council houses who did well out of it, it was those suckered into buying before the dual Miras came to an end something like end September, the market nosedived after that and fell 25%+ so those 1st time buyers went into negative equity as many others did too.
I think this was the time the City Banks became greedy, risky investment banking rose, huge bonuses started to be paid which most people with half a brain could see was wrong and came back to haunt us years later. Maybe re-mortgaging started with the beginnings of buying overseas properties, was she partly responsible for the Spanish boom? 🙄 😉
She will go down in history as having divided the UK nation, many did very well out of her capitalist reforms, we did well out of the property booms, but she is loathed by whole communities especially the mining communities. Was she ‘great’, I don’t think she was, I like to think Mother Theresa did more in this world but in a humble and quiet way?
Mrs Thatcher, where did she get that voice from, yes from voice trainers? 😆
I will never forget her son Mark Thatcher getting lost in the Libyan desert which I heard cost the British taxpayers a fortune to find him, I’d have left him to find his own way back, and look what a dodgy dealer he is! 🙄
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According to Craig Murray former Ambassador to Poland, Thatcher was ‘prepared to promote lung cancer for cash’ when she became a consultant to Phillip Morris the tobacco giant and used her influence to lobby the Polish Gov’t to reduce the size of it’s health warnings on Polish cigarette packets because ‘Poland was applying to join the EU’ and it’s health warnings were larger than EU requirements 😆
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I’m sorry to say that I expect the OTT celebrations in Brixton, Wales and other parts of Britain will no doubt be dwarfed by those in Argentina, but, strangely enough I think Argentina might send a representative if only for future dialogue of the Falkands.
Mind you there were some highly watch-able miners and Poll tax rucks she gave us on tv 😆
She will never lose the tag ‘love her or loathe her’, I reckon the UK is split 50-50 on her PMship 🙄
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Politics should be about vision and standing for a certain set of beliefs. The electorate will either decide their policies are right or wrong for the country. With Margaret Thatcher your choice was clear and you knew she would honour those beliefs and policies despite the political cost.
Today we have a bunch of politicos in most countries that seek to be all things to all men. That produces very little and you might as well vote of any of them because there is not a cigarette paper between them.
Margaret was different. She got things done in the way she wanted, changed British society for the better and gained respect for herself and Britain around the world. The positive achievements far surpass the mistakes.
I look at today’s bunch and ask who will remember them and what they stood for when they are gone? That’s the hallmark of a great leader. She made differences and will always be remembered for it.
Who today could come anywhere near her? I think Boris Johnson may have some of her qualities given the chance but UKIP are certainly keeping the Thatcherite legacy alive.
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According to archived files Thatcher paid for her sons search costs.
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I saw on the news last night a report of people celebrating her death somewhere in the North of the UK and again just briefly now a clip of some student types dancing in the streets. What depressively sad, uninformed individuals.
Personally to celebrate the death of someone is in my opinion disgusting.
What I find really odd is that most of these people were not even born when she left power!! Even someone under 30 would have been only 7 years old when she left politics and still requiring another decade of growing up until they might have just an incredibly small understanding of the world, if that.
They have really no idea at all, but yet they celebrate the death of an person that probably had a significant impact on their current prosperity, fortunes and opportunities that have been afforded to them (and me as well).
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@angie wrote:
Right to buy was basically good for those in council houses who did well out of it, it was those suckered into buying before the dual Miras came to an end something like end September, the market nosedived after that and fell 25%+ so those 1st time buyers went into negative equity as many others did too.
Yes but if you’ve bought your council house at a discount of 25% then you ain’t going to lose out if they market crashes by 25%. the people who were really screwed by it were young workers who weren’t on benefits.
@angie wrote:
I think this was the time the City Banks became greedy, risky investment banking rose, huge bonuses started to be paid which most people with half a brain could see was wrong and came back to haunt us years later. Maybe re-mortgaging started with the beginnings of buying overseas properties, was she partly responsible for the Spanish boom? 🙄 😉
yes – but why didn’t anyone reform it afterwards, when the problems were becoming more evident?
@angie wrote:
She will go down in history as having divided the UK nation, many did very well out of her capitalist reforms, we did well out of the property booms, but she is loathed by whole communities especially the mining communities. Was she ‘great’, I don’t think she was, I like to think Mother Theresa did more in this world but in a humble and quiet way?
Sorry but I don’t give a shit about mining communities. I’ve continually had to move to find work. What makes people think that certain industries are so special that everyone else has to bend over backwards to protect them?
@angie wrote:
Mrs Thatcher, where did she get that voice from, yes from voice trainers? 😆
Because she was from a lower middle class background and people took the piss out of her accent
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@jp1 wrote:
I saw on the news last night a report of people celebrating her death somewhere in the North of the UK and again just briefly now a clip of some student types dancing in the streets. What depressively sad, uninformed individuals.
Personally to celebrate the death of someone is in my opinion disgusting.
What I find really odd is that most of these people were not even born when she left power!! Even someone under 30 would have been only 7 years old when she left politics and still requiring another decade of growing up until they might have just an incredibly small understanding of the world, if that.
They have really no idea at all, but yet they celebrate the death of an person that probably had a significant impact on their current prosperity, fortunes and opportunities that have been afforded to them (and me as well).
I think to get an idea of her reforms you need to be in your mid fifties at least. I’m 44 and remember her being in power but I have no meaningful recollection of what things were like before then.
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@shakeel wrote:
She was a elected dictator. If there such a thing ?
It’s been said that the electoral system in the UK promotes elected dictators – whoever wins has a lot more power than most other European systems
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For a well balanced view of Margaret Thatcher’s times read this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22076886 -
Or there’s this version, I know it’s from the Express, more like £300k 😆
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/390396/Margaret-Thatcher-Love-and-respect-from-her-cherished-twins
I heard at the time it was several 100k which the UK tax payer paid, but then some say that pillar of society Gaddafi paid it 😆 But, under £1,800, I doubt, maybe that was her contribution? 🙄
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Yes I said above that the right to buy did well out of it 🙄 Those suckered into buying to beat the end of dual Miras, did not do well until much later when the market regained it’s losses. 🙄
You should maybe ask the FSA about why nothing was done to reform things, they’re still allowing Liars loans mortgages until 2014 too 🙄 Although they’ve been replaced by the Prudential Regulation Authority currently headed by Merve the Swerve King of the BOE 🙄
I’ve bought you a 1st class ticket to a Welsh mining community to discuss this further Chopera, not a great fan of them myself but doubt I would word it that strongly 🙄
Agree about her roots and accent, but personally didn’t care for the voice 😉
As Mark said earlier, she did good things and bad things IMO 🙄
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@angie – I think the FSA has now been disbanded -thankfully. Completely agree about liar loans – anyone who has applied for a mortgage through a broker (who has very short term interests in getting a commission) will have seen what a joke it was.
Also agree about Thatcher being divisive. But on the subject of the miners the unions did much more harm than Thatcher managed, and she subsidised new manufacturing plants in Wales in an attempt to soften the blow.
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not true GARY!! 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 in fact NM came to no 10 immediately after leaving his cell to thank her for her huge help in bringing change to SA; he LOVED her and so did the ANC 😮 😮 😮 😮 😮
it’s a great pity Spain doesn’t have a Thatcher as PM to kick everyone up the A—E and change their lazy mentality and crooked ways 😡 😡 😡 😡 might even bring employment down to UK levels – maybe Spain could be governed from Gibraltar 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
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@GarySFBCN wrote:
Well, she certainly was on the wrong side of history regarding Nelson Mandela and the ANC, calling them terrorists when they were rebelling against a terrorist, racist state.
Yes but she did change her view later on, and indeed Mandela personally thanked her for her diplomacy in securing his release. The USA, on the other hand, didn’t take Mandela off their terrorist list until 2008.
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Here lies in the the difference as to who is a terrorist & who is a freedom fighter !!! A word used in order to sway thinking & views by the politicians via the media.
Besides Nelson Mandela there was another famous terrorist who was responsible for bombing of King David hotel in Palestine. He was later awarded a Nobel peace price !!!!
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The Daily Mash take:
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19-year-old student Stephen Malley said:“The worst thing about Mrs Thatcher was her lack of humanity, empathy or emotion.
That’s why it’s great that she’s succumbed to dementia after what would have been a long, frustrating and humiliating illness of the type commonly affecting elderly people. The f..king old cow.” -
@GarySFBCN wrote:
And regarding criticism of the dead, I feel that for ‘public figures’ it is entirely acceptable.
Criticism YES, Celebration NO.
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Well it was a good excuse for some 20 yr olds to have a piss up and smash a few windows. Margaret seems to be blamed for everything. The bank crash, student fees. Bet she was responsible for people being affluent enough to buy second homes in Spain 😆 Most did ok. in the Thatcher years. The only ones that didn’t are those that are still losers whichever government are in power.
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Politicians of the caliber of MT do not govern for the likes of Daily Mash readers. They choose to exclude themselves from mainstream society. They prefer life on the edge. Living in squats, drinking cheap cider and popping the drug of the day believing in alternatives and waiting for the revolution which will never come.
Their misery is of their own making yet they end up blaming it all on others who decide the way forward in life is effort, hard work, and yes membership of ‘society’.
These people who have displayed joy at her death deserve our contempt and acceptance that they represent a marginalised society group called the hopeless.
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@logan wrote:
Politicians of the caliber of MT do not govern for the likes of Daily Mash readers.
I take it you didn’t read the article?
“Following Lady Thatcher’s death, people who want to look impressively ‘political’ are acting like they remember Thatcher as something other than a vague abstract concept of evil.”
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Regarding contempt for Thatcher, anytime any politician is so vile that they refer to my household as being a ‘pretend family’, they can expect contempt from me.
There are probably 1,000 less vile ways of being homophobic without the hateful cruelty of that statement.
That the gay community and many others are celebrating her death would be no surprise to her.
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While , I am no fan of Mrs Thatcher. I would respect the dead even politicians, Bankers, Spanish Estate Agents, Jesus Gill etc.
It is Ironical that the people who are posting on various forums are the product of a society Mrs Thatcher created.
The forum has not commented on how well her son Mark thatcher did because of her. Remember he funded a revolution in oil rich new guinea through public school mercenaries.
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@logan wrote:
Politicians of the caliber of MT do not govern for the likes of Daily Mash readers. They choose to exclude themselves from mainstream society. They prefer life on the edge. Living in squats, drinking cheap cider and popping the drug of the day believing in alternatives and waiting for the revolution which will never come.
Their misery is of their own making yet they end up blaming it all on others who decide the way forward in life is effort, hard work, and yes membership of ‘society’.
These people who have displayed joy at her death deserve our contempt and acceptance that they represent a marginalised society group called the hopeless.
Logan – it’s a satirical article – pointing out the hypocrisy of someone accusing her of lacking in “humanity, empathy or emotion” while at the same time rejoicing in her death through dementure.
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@katy. If Mark is sponging off people in Marbella despite worth an absolute fortune. Speaks volume about his upbringing. While Carol has never been involved in activities that brought disrepute to the family.
To the best of my knowledge Mark made his money in arms trading & no doubt was a partner in crime with Jonathan Aitken the famous sword of truth and now into theology & prison reform.
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Here is the Wikipedia page for Mark Thatcher:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher
And when he was denied entrance to the US:
The questionably legal arms sales, which made is mother wealthy:
As we say in the US, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
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Gary – I don’t think Mrs T was actually homophobic. She came from a generation whose culture and beliefs taught homosexuality was wrong and an ‘abomination’. That was hideously wrong as our societies have now realised.
Mrs T did not really like other women either and preferred the company of handsome upper class heterosexuals who would admire her femininity.
These are of course her particular human failings. All of us have failings to some degree. However as I have said before on here her achievements far and away surpass such failings of character.
It’s a useless exercise to look at history through the eyes of the present. The vision becomes distorted. Such as Prime Ministers travelling the world and apologising for atrocities committed during colonial times in the nineteenth century.
Injustice I agree is still injustice no matter how much time has passed but it also teaches us how not to behave in the future.
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A few words on that obnoxious git of a son Sir Mark Thatcher, whose title is meaningless as it’s a product of institutional nepotism, (hereditary) ok for goodies, but not in his case. 🙄
He lived at Casa Flores the lowest property in the El Madronal complex, hidden in the steep foothills, the area is a notorious hideaway for criminals and socialites such as Princess Diana’s former lover James Hewitt (heard the Polo House has closed to become an Indian tapas restaurant). Now living in La Zagaleta 😉
He (Thatcher) wanted to live in Monaco but they refused him 😉 Racing drivers ok but not dodgy arms dealers, also one of the HSBC names handed over by the Swiss to the revenue 😆
Just hope he forks out some of his reputed £66 million to contribute towards the estimated £8 million cost of his mother’s funeral. 😯
Sister Carol seems a much nicer person IMO 😉
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His old Harrow school chum Stephen Humberstone who was owed £15,000 or so, unpaid rent, by Thatcher said, quote ‘I want him off my property ( Casa Flores El Madronal I believe) as soon as possible. If you see him, punch him in the face for me’ 😆
I don’t know if Thatcher settled his account, or Humberstone settled his with him 😉
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I’ve never read as many comments about anyone else in my lifetime. If anything else it highlights the person’s importance in our history, more than that, the world’s history, because the comments come from right across the world.
She deserves the state funeral, she was a person we should be proud of. I stood among the crowds in Whitehall when Winston Churchill’s gun carriage rattled past, unfortunately I won’t be in Whitehall next Wednesday.
As an aside, many of the comments I have read say more about the commentator than the person commentated on.
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@Rocker wrote:
I’ve never read as many comments about anyone else in my lifetime. If anything else it highlights the person’s importance in our history, more than that, the world’s history, because the comments come from right across the world.
She deserves the state funeral, she was a person we should be proud of. I stood among the crowds in Whitehall when Winston Churchill’s gun carriage rattled past, unfortunately I won’t be in Whitehall next Wednesday.
As an aside, many of the comments I have read say more about the commentator than the person commentated on.
In the UK state funerals are for Heads of State, not politicians. Churchill was an exception. If the UK starts giving state funerals to recently deceased Prime Ministers then the division is blurred. Soon they’ll be giving them to all ex-PMs for fear of appearing biased.
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I too wonder about the nostalgia 22 years ahead, unpredictable as it is bound to be. We could be shaking our heads in wonder at the two boys from Eton who led our country all those years ago.
We could be counting the Euros in our pockets, the pound having been erased from memory.
Holiday homes in Spain may have been replaced by Dachas on the shores of the Black Sea.
Or will there be a gun carriage rattling down Whitehall with Nigel Farage on board?
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I heard Blair will receive the same accolades and a State funeral one day, and despite austerity measures in the UK, the country, in spite of the cost, will resurrect that age old tradition of given the massed crowds a rotten egg each to show their appreciation as he rattles past, he will then be placed in a circus cannon and fired over Trafalgar Square and the crowds will go wild 😉
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@logan wrote:
She was directly responsible for ‘big bang’ which made the City of London what it is today.
Indeed she was along with that gargoyle Lamont, now look at the mess the City of London now finds itself in. That’s Margaret Thatcher’s legacy to this country.
@logan wrote:
She turned Britain’s economy round from a basket case controlled by the hard left into a dynamic functioning success.
Dynamic functioning success? Chuckle.
You mean took a sledgehammer to our manufacturing industry and smashed into smithereens whilst wholesale switching this country’s future into the service sector industries like the City of London which produces nothing whilst relying heavily at that time on over-pumping North Sea Oil for its revenues to prop up her lunatic policies. All that North Sea Oil revenue, that should have been invested in the future of this country has been spent and wasted.
@logan wrote:
She privatised the failing nationalised industries, turning them into profitable companies.
This is the best one. Flogged off anything she could get her hands on in tacit admission that the government couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. They couldn’t make virtually monopolistic companies turn a profit, yet employ thousands of civil servants to run the country? No wonder the country is in the mess it’s in.
Consumers now pay far more for these privatised companies’ services simply because they have virtual monopolies, have shareholders to pay and bosses who pay themselves outlandish salaries and bonuses. And all that monopoly is supposed to be balanced by toothless regulators that have shown time and time again they can do nothing to reign these monopolies in and the taxpayer still has to subsidise the rail companies as well as pay shareholders profits.
You couldn’t make this nonsense up, it’s so laughably stupid.
And of course just like North Sea Oil Revenues all that privatisation money is gone and spent. This is why this country is now in such a mess, the government has nothing left to flog off and North Sea Oil is costing ever more to extract. The golden gooses have been slain.
The worst by far of them all was the insanity of flogging off council houses and not replenishing the housing stock with the money. So we now have a housing crisis, high house prices and tenants being housed at commercial rent prices. Madness.
Yes Margaret Thatcher got this country back on its feet, temporarily, but at an unbelievable price, funded mostly by North Sea Oil and Privatisation revenues which of course was never sustainable. No surprise then that it was only a temporary fix, giving the good old debt can an almighty boot up the street for the future generations to pay for and we’re paying for it right now. That was Margaret Thatcher’s legacy to this country.
Those that like her profited from her policies, those that hate her, know exactly how she has single handedly set this country on the road to ruin.
@logan wrote:
The world will never see her like again.
Thank god.
One of her once is one too many.
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You forget how the Labour Party and the unions almost destroyed Britain in the seventies. Mrs T turned around a basket case economy. You and us all enjoy the fruits of that effort.
Liberalisation of capitalist economies has done far more good than harm. That is an argument well won much to the annoyance of socialists
The City of London is the major world finance center and contributes millions to Britain’s GDP.
Trade Unions are democratised and no union can call a strike without a ballot. The working class voted for Maggie for ten years because they wanted to buy their council house and become property owners. Previously just a dream.
Her achievements are legion. Look at the stature she commands across the world in death. That says it all. Mrs T was a colossus leaving all in her wake.
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@zenkarma wrote:
@logan wrote:
She was directly responsible for ‘big bang’ which made the City of London what it is today.
Indeed she was along with that gargoyle Lamont, now look at the mess the City of London now finds itself in. That’s Margaret Thatcher’s legacy to this country.
@logan wrote:
She turned Britain’s economy round from a basket case controlled by the hard left into a dynamic functioning success.
Dynamic functioning success? Chuckle.
You mean took a sledgehammer to our manufacturing industry and smashed into smithereens whilst wholesale switching this country’s future into the service sector industries like the City of London which produces nothing whilst relying heavily at that time on over-pumping North Sea Oil for its revenues to prop up her lunatic policies. All that North Sea Oil revenue, that should have been invested in the future of this country has been spent and wasted.
@logan wrote:
She privatised the failing nationalised industries, turning them into profitable companies.
This is the best one. Flogged off anything she could get her hands on in tacit admission that the government couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. They couldn’t make virtually monopolistic companies turn a profit, yet employ thousands of civil servants to run the country? No wonder the country is in the mess it’s in.
Consumers now pay far more for these privatised companies’ services simply because they have virtual monopolies, have shareholders to pay and bosses who pay themselves outlandish salaries and bonuses. And all that monopoly is supposed to be balanced by toothless regulators that have shown time and time again they can do nothing to reign these monopolies in and the taxpayer still has to subsidise the rail companies as well as pay shareholders profits.
You couldn’t make this nonsense up, it’s so laughably stupid.
And of course just like North Sea Oil Revenues all that privatisation money is gone and spent. This is why this country is now in such a mess, the government has nothing left to flog off and North Sea Oil is costing ever more to extract. The golden gooses have been slain.
The worst by far of them all was the insanity of flogging off council houses and not replenishing the housing stock with the money. So we now have a housing crisis, high house prices and tenants being housed at commercial rent prices. Madness.
Yes Margaret Thatcher got this country back on its feet, temporarily, but at an unbelievable price, funded mostly by North Sea Oil and Privatisation revenues which of course was never sustainable. No surprise then that it was only a temporary fix, giving the good old debt can an almighty boot up the street for the future generations to pay for and we’re paying for it right now. That was Margaret Thatcher’s legacy to this country.
Those that like her profited from her policies, those that hate her, know exactly how she has single handedly set this country on the road to ruin.
@logan wrote:
The world will never see her like again.
Thank god.
One of her once is one too many.
yeah I blame fatcher for all vat’s wrong wiv the wurld as well. Even tha’ she left office twenny yeahs ago ‘n all. Fings were sa much be’er when de gubermint ran everyfing. Then all yer had ta do woz sha’ up ta work ocasionaly wen we wosn’t on strike.
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@logan wrote:
You forget how the Labour Party and the unions almost destroyed Britain in the seventies.
I’m not forgetting anything. You make the wrong assumption in thinking I’m a socialist – I’m not. I just believe there are other ways other than the black of socialism and the white of capitalism. What the manufacturing industry and unions required was modernisation and reformation not destruction. Thatcher simply took the easy route and instead of trying to reform and rebuild, she destroyed instead, job done. But where’s it left this country? Declining GDP, massive debt, no manufacturing industry to speak of and a heavy reliance on the loonies in the City to produce income, their desperation to do so inclined toward excessive risk taking and the banking collapse soon followed.
As I said, Thatchers medicine was a short, sharp, shock one, that wasn’t sustainable and has proved so. This country is in the biggest mess its ever been in, in its entire history, the catalyst of which was Thatcher’s policies and the continuation of cherry picked ones by deluded politicians.
You talk about working class voting for her, you mean, she bought their votes with the promises of heavily discounted housing? That legacy persists today, with house prices far out of reach of your average person many of whom now has no hope ever of owning their own property, whilst many fortunates bought housing under Thatcher with as much as a 70% discount. That’s fair to todays generation is it?
As I said, Thatcher simply booted the debt can up the street, just like all politicians do, only she booted it harder and further than most were able.
Thatcher’s policies were so popular with her own ministers, they ousted her before her third term was complete.
They knew what a loony she was and got rid of her before she cold cause any more damage.
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@Chopera wrote:
yeah I blame fatcher for all vat’s wrong wiv the wurld as well. Even tha’ she left office twenny yeahs ago ‘n all. Fings were sa much be’er when de gubermint ran everyfing. Then all yer had ta do woz sha’ up ta work ocasionaly wen we wosn’t on strike.
You show a lack of understanding of the legacy Thatcher has left this country with this silliness.
But you are of course entitled to your opinion. 🙄
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@zenkarma wrote:
@Chopera wrote:
yeah I blame fatcher for all vat’s wrong wiv the wurld as well. Even tha’ she left office twenny yeahs ago ‘n all. Fings were sa much be’er when de gubermint ran everyfing. Then all yer had ta do woz sha’ up ta work ocasionaly wen we wosn’t on strike.
You show a lack of understanding of the legacy Thatcher has left this country with this silliness.
But you are of course entitled to your opinion. 🙄
I’m well aware of her legacy. I lived through it. Some good, some bad. But she left office nearly a quarter of a century ago. Trying to link all today’s problems with her legacy is silly – there have been several governments since then with ample time to alter things. Or don’t they count? And any analysis of her actions needs to be put in context. You criticise her for privatising certain industries – which implies you’d prefer them to have remained nationalised. You really want to go back to that? Maybe you’d like a few militant unions thrown in?
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@zenkarma wrote:
They knew what a loony she was and got rid of her before she cold cause any more damage.
Actually the weasle marginal MP’s of the party, soly concerned with their own positions voted her out because they believed the Conservatives were unelectable in the run up to the coming election which proved wrong. John Major won it.
What right has anyone, political party or politician to deny the aspiration of home ownership to the less well off?
A service economy is not so dependent on the rabid left. It has provided Britain with sustainable wealth. Mrs T provided the foundations of that prosperity. Like any industry it has good periods and bad but in the long term the asset wealth it creates will provide a solid industrial base for the future. Its certainly the envy of most of the world.
Margaret Thatcher was a pioneer and like all pioneers they take the greatest flac from those who don’t really understand how the world works. Countries have to earn a living. Had Britain depended on it’s heavy industrial and manufacturing base now it would be bankrupt. Maggie saw the coming rise of China and the Far East with it’s ability to under cut western capitalism.
Margaret was a pioneering visionary who felled every lesser mortal in her wake. She was a real patriot who devoted herself to Britain. She deserves all the accolades and respect decent people offer her.
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@Chopera wrote:
Trying to link all today’s problems with her legacy is silly – there have been several governments since then with ample time to alter things. Or don’t they count?
Why is it silly when many of todays problems (as I’ve already mentioned once) Iink directly back to Thatcher’s time?
Now I have to repeat it all.
Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry and the unions along with it when it should have been invested in and rebuilt and the unions modernised. Instead of that we now make very little and rely heavily on service sector industries for GDP income, no wonder then they’re happy to continue this cheap gravy train of labour flooding in from Europe. The only effect of which is that businesses prop up short term profitability with cheap labour whilst this cheap labour again has to be paid for in the future by the tax payer. Why can’t people see why this short termism does not work?
No coincidence then that Germany and China’s economies are two of the strongest in the world? A coincidence is it they’re both based on manufacturing?
@Chopera wrote:
You criticise her for privatising certain industries – which implies you’d prefer them to have remained nationalised. You really want to go back to that? Maybe you’d like a few militant unions thrown in?
No, it does not imply that.
It implies that I would like the nationalised industries to actually reinvest the profits they pay out to their shareholders and huge director salaries and bonuses BACK into the businesses to make them more streamlined and efficient so that end users do not have to continually pay for their infrastructure investment through higher prices, above inflation increases and inferior services.
The results are always the same – the end user has to pay, the taxpayer has to pay whilst the people at the top of the tree become richer.
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@logan wrote:
What right has anyone, political party or politician to deny the aspiration of home ownership to the less well off?
I don’t deny anyone the aspiration to buy their own homes as long as they have the wherewithdall to do so and that doesn’t include selling property at knock down prices of 70% off the true market price just to win their vote. This policy and the non building of new social housing with the profits is what’s causing so many people today the inability to be able to buy their own property for the simple reason the prices are beyond their reach. So they house them in privately owned homes and pay market rents. No wonder Council Tax increases and yet again the tax payer foots the bill.
No-one’s offering todays generation the chance to buy homes at knock down prices of 70% off.
I find it unbelievable that you can even try and defend this nonsensical policy to be honest.
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China creates wealth at the expense of human rights and decent workers incomes. Germany to their credit does it because they produce quality engineering and managed to reform it’s labour market 10-15 years ago without the unions obstruction.
Without Mrs T the British unions would have only become stronger and emasculated the countries industrial base. Preventing much needed reforms of labour laws and restrictive practices.
Britain has a housing crisis because Blair and Brown failed to invest in more public housing during the period of prosperity which they enjoyed in part because of the Thatcher reforms. They preferred to spend the countries wealth on welfare and a stupid unjustified war.
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@zenkarma. You eloquently post well-considered solutions to some of the world’s problems, some of which I tend to agree with, but you’re unnecessarily terse in your comments.
I’m not sure of your Spanish commitment, nor does it matter, but Calma Te.
Actually, I forgot about Spanish commitment, this is about Lady Margaret Thatcher and her legacy, sorry.
But the same applies, tranquilo hombre.
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The landscape here is that there are people who love her and people who hate her, with only a few in-between.
And then there are those who feel it is disrespectful to speak ill of the dead and those who think is perfectly OK to publicly piss on someone’s grave.
Given that, the conversation here on this blog has been remarkably civil.
I see to many parallels between Thatcher and Reagan. Thatcher was much more intelligent than Reagan, and Reagan was much more likeable than Thatcher.
I have despised Reagan since his days as governor of California. His toxic presidential legacy in the US is that by using his charming witchcraft, he convinced the middle classes that they were being victimized by social programs for the poor, allowing the Reagan administration to eliminate most regulations for the wealthy. The current global fiscal crisis is, in part, his deadly spawn. And even though he was president during the AIDS crisis, he never once said the word AIDS, nor did he allocate funding for care and treatment.
Anyway, for those of you who like Glenda Jackson, please see her scathing “tribute” to Margaret Thatcher. It really captures my feelings about Thatcher. Even if you disagree, it is good theater and highlights why I so admire aspects your parliamentary system:
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Christ, you object to people who don’t like poufs. You may object to the word being used, but it’s appropriate. ..
Actually it is not an acceptable word, but more on that below.
I do not object to people who are homophobic. I do object when those people act on their homophobia in a way that hurts others, such as Section 28, the Ugandan death penalty for gays, etc. I know that several posters here have written that Thatcher wasn’t homophobic. Possibly not, but it doesn’t matter. She pushed through the exceptionally homophobic Section 28 and it is her homophobic actions, that count.
But I have to ask you Rocker, why is it that everytime I write something related to gays, sometimes within the context of the topic, sometimes in response to something homophobic that was posted (mostly by Jake), you are compelled to always respond and always with something negative? It really is an unattractive obsession.
Back to my opening point, here’s a definition of the word pouf:
poof 2 (pf)
n. Offensive Slang
Used as a disparaging term for an effeminate or homosexual male.http://www.thefreedictionary.com/poof
And yes, it is the same word:
Poof (variations include: poofter, pouf, poove, pooftah, pooff, puff) (U.K, Australia, New Zealand, California): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_slang#cite_note-A_Dictionary_of_Slang.2C_P-59
I don’t care if you use the word or not because it has no influence upon my opinion of you.
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@zenkarma wrote:
No-one’s offering todays generation the chance to buy homes at knock down prices of 70% off.
Actually that is not true Zenkarma. I believe the policy of buying the council property in which you are a tenant is still in place. The Labour Party knew it was popular and never dared to reverse it. What may have changed is the availability of finance to do it.
This is my last post on the blessed Margaret. The measure of the lady can be judged by the reactions negative and positive her passing has provoked.
No fair minded person can say she was not an exceptional politician and human being.
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By todays definition, Thatcher was homophobic and a racist. But then again I have yet to meet anyone who was born in the 1920/30’s who is not to some degree.
We may deride thatcher for section 28, But she voted for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
And although I don’t agree with the legislation, it is worth actually reading:
Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material.
(1)The following section shall be inserted after section 2 of the M1Local Government Act 1986 (prohibition of political publicity)—
2A“ Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material.(1)A local authority shall not—
(a)intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;
(b)promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.
(2)Nothing in subsection (1) above shall be taken to prohibit the doing of anything for the purpose of treating or preventing the spread of disease.
(3)In any proceedings in connection with the application of this section a court shall draw such inferences as to the intention of the local authority as may reasonably be drawn from the evidence before it.
(4)In subsection (1)(b) above “maintained school” means,—
(a)in England and Wales, a county school, voluntary school, nursery school or special school, within the meaning of the Education Act 1944; and
(b)in Scotland, a public school, nursery school or special school, within the meaning of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980.”
(2)This section shall come into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.]
Most of those for the legislation at the time seem to have been arguing that they are not against homosexuality, just not for its promotion in school. Probably worried that it was a lifestyle choice or whatever rubbish people believed back then. This was the time when in the public consciousness only gays ‘caught the aids’.to get an interesting view on at least part of the british public, this survey done in scotland in 2000 gives an idea of the views of the public in a more tolerant time
http://web.archive.org/web/20071123085225/http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2000/sh000121.shtml -
@Rocker wrote:
Christ, you object to people who don’t like poufs.
well, of course?
Would any reasonable & rational person not object to irrational dislikes?
I don’t like gays
I don’t like tall people
I don’t like brown skinned people
I don’t like people with green eyes.I think we should object to people projecting their own insecurities onto others instead of dealing with their own internal demons.
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Yes Fuengi. I couldn’t see that clause 28 was such a disgrace. It was a reaction to the excesses of left wing loonies like Ken Livingstones lot at the GLC etc. Children as young as 5 were being given lessons on sexuality. I think in the long term it backfired and helped the Gay cause. The same loonies are always with us…20 year olds celebrating her death, some of them won’t even know the name of the present PM 🙄 Just an excuse for a bit of anarchy and rioting!
I think Margaret Thatcher was a good PM. A Patriot and tough. I didn’t agree with everything. I didn’t agree with council house sales, still don’t, especially the ones in London. Harold Wilson closed more coal mines than her and she was no Al Queda. Someone like Kinnock or Brown would probably have handed over the Falklands
RIP Maggie!
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@zenkarma wrote:
Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry and the unions along with it when it should have been invested in and rebuilt and the unions modernised. Instead of that we now make very little and rely heavily on service sector industries for GDP income, no wonder then they’re happy to continue this cheap gravy train of labour flooding in from Europe. The only effect of which is that businesses prop up short term profitability with cheap labour whilst this cheap labour again has to be paid for in the future by the tax payer. Why can’t people see why this short termism does not work?
No coincidence then that Germany and China’s economies are two of the strongest in the world? A coincidence is it they’re both based on manufacturing?
@Chopera wrote:
You criticise her for privatising certain industries – which implies you’d prefer them to have remained nationalised. You really want to go back to that? Maybe you’d like a few militant unions thrown in?
No, it does not imply that.
It implies that I would like the nationalised industries to actually reinvest the profits they pay out to their shareholders and huge director salaries and bonuses BACK into the businesses to make them more streamlined and efficient so that end users do not have to continually pay for their infrastructure investment through higher prices, above inflation increases and inferior services.
The results are always the same – the end user has to pay, the taxpayer has to pay whilst the people at the top of the tree become richer.
Manufacturing output actually went up under Thatcher. Yes that’s right – it went up. It went down as a percentage of GDP because other sectors grew faster – notably oil and services – but manufacturing output still went up. However I guess there are people out there who don’t see British branded cars on the streets so they automatically (and ignorantly) come to the conclusion that the UK doesn’t makes anything any more. Well the UK has the biggest aerospace industry in the world outside the USA as well as a huge pharmaceutical industry. And if you are still in “la la la I’m not listening, I’m only interested in cars” mode then in fact the UK now makes twice as many of those than it did before Thatcher came to power. Still think she “destroyed manufacturing”? I’ll continue…
When Thatcher left power Britain was a top 5 manufacturing country in the world. It’s slipped down a bit – as you’d expect as much larger Asian countries have grown – but it’s still in the top 10.
Yes Germany and China have strong economies – but China has huge amounts of cheap labour and Germany is benefiting from being tied to a relatively cheap currency. Now that Japan has started full blown QE and the currency wars are beginning in earnest (apart from the demented eurozone that still wants to strengthen its currency during a debt crisis) I expect Germany to start suffering. But that’s beside the point – the point is that manufacturing makes up 20% of the German economy – which is the same as the UK when Thatcher left! Now manufacturing makes up 13% of the UK economy but that’s still actually higher than France and the US, and most of that drop occured under Labour.
And as for where the money went – she got people to buy shares in companies. Shares are a way companies use to raise finance so they can expand and reinvest. She wanted the public to buy shares in companies and invest in them directly, rather than relying on a bloated state to do it. Power to the people! That never really took off, but all the same private finance is a far more efficient way of getting money from those who want to invest to those who want to borrow. Whenever governments have tried doing it it has nearly always lead to zombie industries being propped up by the tax payer.
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@katy wrote:
Yes Fuengi. I couldn’t see that clause 28 was such a disgrace. It was a reaction to the excesses of left wing loonies like Ken Livingstones lot at the GLC etc. Children as young as 5 were being given lessons on sexuality. I think in the long term it backfired and helped the Gay cause.
whether a disgrace or not, i don’t know. When I was a a child, sexuality was not discussed in school. But calling someone ‘gay’ was an insult. Maybe if there had been a bit more understanding about it and discussion, a lot of the children affected might have had a happy childhood, and easier adulthood. But yes it did seem to lead to a unifying and strengthening of the pro LGBT groups
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We seem to have turned around a discussion of an innocent topic into a foray of peoples sexualities.. I have a story to tell, and I’m a straight.
A nice few years ago now, I was in Benidorm Old Town, probably the biggest concentration of gay people io the world. I was trying to to find a shop that sold typewriters ribbons, and called in this little bar to ask
He was a lovely guy, putting up his Christmas tree, and I didn’t even realise he was gay until a few customers walked in. I got the directions for the typewriter ribbons, and was extremely sad to read of this lovely man dying at Westminster hospital, only a few months later.
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I am not homophobic in the least nor am I a homosexual. I was listening to a debate in France this week about same sex marriage which is a hot topic here at the moment with a lot of opposition to the proposed law.
It suddenly occurred to me that that the one thing which makes this legislation strange is the fact that people of the same sex can legally marry regardless if they are gay or not with all the implications that brings.
If you remove the homosexual aspect from the equation for a mo. the law looks slightly dotty. Two none gay people of the same sex can now become a married couple. It’s just seems odd and out of sink. 😉
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@logan wrote:
It suddenly occurred to me that that the one thing which makes this legislation strange is the fact that people of the same sex can legally marry regardless if they are gay or not with all the implications that brings.
If you remove the homosexual aspect from the equation for a mo. the law looks slightly dotty. Two none gay people of the same sex can now become a married couple. It’s just seems odd and out of sink. 😉
I guess from a point of view. But the legal argument was about same sex marriage, not about sexuality. Being gay was decriminalised already.
And since a gay man/woman was already allowed to marry, but only to the opposite sex, this law simply rationalizes the situation. -
I’m not sure what you are suggesting UBEDA. I’m not really against gay marriage as such. It’s the anomalies it creates that I was highlighting.
For instance the main reason why heterosexuals get married it to have children. It’s a social convention children should have two registered parents. If heterosexuals don’t want children they usually don’t marry.
Gay people can adopt children and that’s fine with me and marrying seems to fit but not really otherwise.
I can now marry my golf partner if I want and since he is a very rich man it may be in my interests. We are good friends but both heterosexual as far as I know. 🙂
Quite honestly I am completely neutral on the subject I simply wanted to point out the odd bits of this legislation.
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For instance the main reason why heterosexuals get married it to have children. It’s a social convention children should have two registered parents. If heterosexuals don’t want children they usually don’t marry.
First Logan, nobody thinks that you are at all homophobic.
Regarding the above quote, it is not exactly true and if the trend holds, it will be 100% false.
In France and Sweden, the majority of births occur outside of wedlock (53% and 55%). In the UK it is 45%. In the ‘Latin American’ countries of Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru, it is the same – all over 50%.
And looking at the number of children in single-parent households, and making the assumption that the vast majority of these households are not the result of one spouse dying, the data provides a compelling case that entering into/maintaining a marriage is less ‘coupled’ to the well-being of children.
There are many ‘benefits’ for marriage that are taken for granted. Last Thursday, a same-sex married couple, with all of the additional legal documents (power of attorney, medical directive given each authority to make medical decisions), had a horrible experience in a hospital in Missouri. One of them was hospitalized and the bother of the patient, who was always hostile to homosexuality, asked the hospital to remove the ‘husband’ against the wishes of the patient and the husband. Even though the hospital had all of the documentation, the called the police and the husband was forcibly removed, arrested and the hospital took out a restraining order, prohibiting the husband from ever entering the hospital. This situation is now partially resolved and the hospital will be sued for a large sum of money. But imagine the stress that this situation caused. This is just a tiny example of how the right to marry can change everything – there’d be no question that the husband could stay. They were legally married in another state, but Missouri does not recognize same-sex marriages, so the couple had to go to a lawyer to get additional legal documents (power of attorney, etc) for Missouri.
These types of injustices occur every day.
Back to the relevance to this forum, because of a culturally ingrained ‘home instinct’ and because couplehood provides for greater income if both are working, even those who have financial interests in real estate but don’t have a care about human rights and social justice should be supporting same-sex marriage, because same-sex couples, like all couples, are more likely and more able to purchase a home and a vacation home, or in the case of some of my friends, shopping centers, hotels, etc.
And without the legal document of marriage, getting a mortgage is more difficult, entering title is more difficult and creating a will as part of the purchase process is absolutely necessary, and these are just some of barriers for many to purchase real estate for non-married couples. Note: Because I am legally married in Spain, I didn’t have to do any of this. But had we purchased something in Utah, we would have had to do all of the above steps and more.
One of the rules for selling any product is ‘make it easy to purchase.’
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@logan wrote:
I am not homophobic in the least nor am I a homosexual. I was listening to a debate in France this week about same sex marriage which is a hot topic here at the moment with a lot of opposition to the proposed law.
It suddenly occurred to me that that the one thing which makes this legislation strange is the fact that people of the same sex can legally marry regardless if they are gay or not with all the implications that brings.
If you remove the homosexual aspect from the equation for a mo. the law looks slightly dotty. Two none gay people of the same sex can now become a married couple. It’s just seems odd and out of sink. 😉
Yes it has already been mentioned by a few people that a man can now legally marry his son (in the UK at least) which is a loophole that could be exploited to get round inheritance taxes for example.
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Gary I entirely understand the disgusting discrimination is the US and elsewhere against homosexuals, black people et al. The USA is only liberal in parts.
I would just say that in France that discrimination doesn’t exists, except against Arabs, even though there is a large section of society against gay marriage for other reasons. Catholicism is one. In general the French are real libertarians.
Chopera touched on one of the others. Inheritance laws in France are based on Napoleonic laws dating from when he drew up the civil code. No significant amendments have been made since. Natural children inherit the estate of a father and a spouse only 25% and even that share can be forcibly reduce in law by the inheriting children. You cannot leave your estate to just anyone or the local dogs home. For some reason I will never understand the French hold these laws dear. Same sex marriage may complicate these laws. I’m not going to speculate how but it’s an added complication. There are also no exceptions for foreigners as in Spain.
However all new twenty first century laws challenge the ones still valid which date from a different time. That’s no bad thing. So bring it on. The law has been now passed in France.
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@logan wrote:
Actually that is not true Zenkarma.
Yes it is.
Just because you choose (deliberately or otherwise) to interpret this in your own way, does not make the statement false.
You of course want to point at the few fortunate people who have social housing and have the option to purchase it at a knock down price as an example to demonstrate my statement as being false. Purchase it at a knock down price I might add subsidised by taxpayers.
What you don’t want to acknowledge (for whatever reason, I suspect disingenuity) are the other far less fortunate people (and there are many of them) who do not have the benefit of social housing nor have the option to purchase them at a taxpayer subsidy nor can afford to purchase a property at the normal price because they can’t get a mortgage or simply don’t earn enough.
No doubt you will now try and be a smart Alec and suggest, with equal disingenuity that if you cannot afford something you can’t have it. Quite true, but the people being offered the option to buy their own social housing at significantly lower prices than the market suggests wouldn’t be able to afford to buy theirs without taxpayer subsidy either.
Which brings me back to my original statement.
However you wish to look at this or interpret it, one thing cannot be denied: allowing certain sectors of the population to purchase property at below market rates via taxpayer subsidies is inherently unfair on other sectors of the population who don’t have that option.
@logan wrote:
No fair minded person can say she was not an exceptional politician and human being.
I don’t agree with that statement. Perhaps I’m just not fair minded?
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@GarySFBCN wrote:
Anyway, for those of you who like Glenda Jackson, please see her scathing “tribute” to Margaret Thatcher. It really captures my feelings about Thatcher.
Oddly enough, of the very few times (it may only be just this once) I’ve actually voted Labour in a general Election was for Glenda Jackson when I lived in Hampstead. Not because I particularly liked Glenda Jackson or agreed with Labour policies, but because like most of the population at the time, was fed up to the back teeth with Conservative policies. Sadly our current first past the post electoral system engenders this kind of behaviour, it’s not so much which one you actually want to vote for it’s which one you detest the least.
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@logan wrote:
Gary I entirely understand the disgusting discrimination is the US and elsewhere against homosexuals, black people et al. The USA is only liberal in parts.
I agree.
It’s entirely wrong that sectors of the population should be discriminated against either openly or tacitly. I’m very Liberal as far as this is concerned and it should be entirely up to the individual to decide what’s best and right for them without discrimination or interference from Government.
Sadly, it’s less a question of making decisions on what’s right for the liberty and freedom of individuals and more to do with not upsetting the Conservative/Republican core voters who may frown upon more liberal laws and freedoms.
This is just another example of how in the case of the UK, first past the post doesn’t work, hasn’t worked and isn’t working. It shouldn’t be about any one party taking and making decisions that don’t upset their core votes and everything to do with taking and making decisions for the benefit of society as a whole – not just certain sections of it. PR would change all that, but it’s precisely the reason why they won’t change it and that’s precisely the reason it needs to change.
I don’t want to go through yet another discussion on PR, because as far as I’m concerned it’s the only answer, and nothing anyone can say will change my mind.
Until it changes, this kind of thing will simply continue – Conservatives taking and making policies that don’t upset their core voters and Labour doing the same.
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Z-wotsit. -Just because we disagree on this subject there is no reason to accuse me of being ‘disingenuous’ or a ‘smart alec’. I’m neither.
I said that the policy of council house selling at subsidy was not reversed by New Labour during their many years of power. The reason was it was popular in their core vote. Working class aspirations were and still are to become property owners, move on with their lives. Its called social ambition.
The government of Mrs T helped them achieve that. Previously they had not a cat in hells chance of ever achieving that in their lifetime and your views would deny them it. The tenant had to have paid rent over many years to obtain a significant subsidy and there is nothing whatever wrong with that. Tax payers or the government did not pay for it the tenants did.
Most tenants who bought their properties restored them at their own expense, took pride in them and improved their neighbourhoods as a result. They had a stake in the community and that transformed many council developments into desirable places to live. It also for the first time allowed poorer people to leave their children something on their death.
These are some of the recognised positive results from Mrs T’s policies and it transformed Britain.
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One thing to celebrate when a dictator is gone but I find it vile what has been happening after Chavez “the right” and now Thatcher “the left”. They have families that mourn.
Great observation. Those who choose to defend Thatcher ‘by the numbers’ would also have to defend Chavez by his spectacular success in building national pride, reducing poverty and refusing to be pushed around by the US and other ‘industrialized’ nations.
Where we differ on this, Zen, is that, in general, to many of us, there is no reverence in death. And if someone is a ‘public figure’, especially a polarizing public figure, this type of vile celebration is not only appropriate, it leads to closure for many who directly suffered, or suffered in silence by witnessing injustice after injustice by that public figure. Everyone knows that I detested Thatcher. Even so, I refused to see that movie showing her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, because in my mind that depiction of suffering is just cruel and pointless. However, now that she is gone, it feels quite appropriate to feel relief that she is gone.
It is the same for those wealthy, entitled Venezuelans who “suffered” under Chavez.
What is most concerning is my perception that the adoration of Thatcher and Thatcherism is mostly an artifact of media and is not a widely-shared in the general public. So the vile celebration also acts as a counter argument or truth serum, letting youngsters who were not alive during those years know, that, to find the truth, the need go beyond the current white-washing of Thatcher’s record.
And I’m sure her family, including her despicable son, will somehow get through all of this. Being a member of that family requires having thick skin.
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I can see Gary’s point. However politics is about doing things during the brief time you have the chance. Making a difference and making peoples lives better.
Politicians, even Thatcher are not supermen. They try to improve the status quo within the bounds of a legal mandate. I believe Mrs T did just that. Made mistakes, upset many but also improved life for an awful lot of people. That’s the best they can to ever hope to achieve..
Many, many politicians do a lot less because they see the difficulties first before the solutions.
Her memory as a human being first deserves honour and respect.
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@zenkarma wrote:
…
Sadly, it’s less a question of making decisions on what’s right for the liberty and freedom of individuals and more to do with not upsetting the Conservative/Republican core voters who may frown upon more liberal laws and freedoms.
This is just another example of how in the case of the UK, first past the post doesn’t work, hasn’t worked and isn’t working. It shouldn’t be about any one party taking and making decisions that don’t upset their core votes and everything to do with taking and making decisions for the benefit of society as a whole – not just certain sections of it. PR would change all that, but it’s precisely the reason why they won’t change it and that’s precisely the reason it needs to change.
I don’t want to go through yet another discussion on PR, because as far as I’m concerned it’s the only answer, and nothing anyone can say will change my mind.
Until it changes, this kind of thing will simply continue – Conservatives taking and making policies that don’t upset their core voters and Labour doing the same.
My main gripe is with the lobbies rather than the voting system. Both the main parties in the UK are tied to the whims of their main funders (unions on the left, private sector on the right). The Spanish parties are largely state funded and I think this is an improvement (although there are still very powerful lobbies in Spain). PR tends to lead to coalitions, which also has its disadvantages. The current situation ain’t perfect, but I’m not convinced PR is the solution.
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@logan wrote:
Z-wotsit. -Just because we disagree on this subject there is no reason to accuse me of being ‘disingenuous’ or a ‘smart alec’. I’m neither.
I said that the policy of council house selling at subsidy was not reversed by New Labour during their many years of power.No you didn’t.
You stated quite emphatically that what I said was in fact untrue, which it wasn’t as I explained. You interpreted ‘todays generation’ as meaning those lucky enough to be given social housing, what about everyone else? I never stated the Option to Buy had been ended. I don’t consider ‘today’s generation’ to only mean one lucky sector of the population in social housing but you chose to interpret it in that way.
I couldn’t care two hoots about people in social housing – I do care passionately about millions of youngsters and those just starting out in work who simply cannot afford to buy their own homes because tax-payers are subsidising the lucky few to get social housing and buy those homes, a stupid policy that has caused enormous problems in the housing market. That has effectively pushed housing out of the reach of millions of people.
You were therefore being disingenuous by deliberately misinterpreting what had been said.
And please don’t belittle my user-name, ad hominems just don’t work.
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@GarySFBCN wrote:
Where we differ on this, Zen, is that, in general, to many of us, there is no reverence in death. And if someone is a ‘public figure’, especially a polarizing public figure, this type of vile celebration is not only appropriate, it leads to closure for many who directly suffered, or suffered in silence by witnessing injustice after injustice by that public figure. Everyone knows that I detested Thatcher. Even so, I refused to see that movie showing her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, because in my mind that depiction of suffering is just cruel and pointless. However, now that she is gone, it feels quite appropriate to feel relief that she is gone.
You won’t get any disagreement from me.
I didn’t like Thatcher, not so much for what she did, but for how she did it. She was quite happy to decimate entire communities without a bat of an eyelid, whilst an awful lot people grew very wealthy under her policies. It her lack of care I detested.
But then neither do I feel the need to ‘dance on her grave’. I’m just glad she’s gone and as you say we can bring closure on that unfortunate part of Britains past and draw a line under it and hope we never get anyone quite so heartless ever again.
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I will never forgive her for covering up Hillsborough though we will never really know how involved she was in that directly.
I disslike Thatcher for her attitude/posturing, showing no real sympathy for regular people having their lives severly altered with “her” changes. I loved her for her boldness and high economic knowledge. She was a “nerd” and didn’t play the political game as much as others in most cases. Her stance on the Falklands are another thing I love about her. It’s one thing going to stupid wars but to defend your own people all across the globe though it would have been easier to just give it away to Argentina. They only wanted the Falklands for their own populistic reasons with no concern to those who lived there.
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The inheritors and keepers of the flame. 🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9993817/Thatcherism-is-no-museum-piece-its-alive-and-kicking.htmlTwenty ways Mrs Thatcher changed Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/14/margaret-thatcher-20-changes-britain -
@Ardun wrote:
I will never forgive her for covering up Hillsborough though we will never really know how involved she was in that directly.
I disslike Thatcher for her attitude/posturing, showing no real sympathy for regular people having their lives severly altered with “her” changes. I loved her for her boldness and high economic knowledge. She was a “nerd” and didn’t play the political game as much as others in most cases. Her stance on the Falklands are another thing I love about her. It’s one thing going to stupid wars but to defend your own people all across the globe though it would have been easier to just give it away to Argentina. They only wanted the Falklands for their own populistic reasons with no concern to those who lived there.
The Hillsborough thing is a new one on me. I thought it was just a police cover up.
I personally think she screwed up in her third term. Her second term had been a success (defeat of the miners and successful privatisations). The problem was that with any reform there would be some losers along with the winners, and she should have waited to see exactly what the social effects of her reforms were before carrying on, slowing down or changing direction. She had a great systematic brain but terrible empathy. In fact Tories in general tend to be poor social reformers and end up lurching to the right because they can’t relate to the social issues at hand (section 28 being a classic example).
I think this is quite a good article on why she was devisive:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/14/margaret-thatcher-loved-hated-economic
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@katy wrote:
Thatcher accepted what the Police stated on Hillsborough. None of it was clear. I have relatives in Sheffield and I do know that a lot Liverpool fans were drunk and running rampage through the City that day. History rewritten again! What about Heysel!
I dont doubt that some fans behaved like idiots but the BS about people stealing from and mutilation of dead people. The police caused many people to die by not letting people escape to the field as soon as they noticed that people were getting crushed. They then turned to blaming the fans for deliberatly doing this with malice. The FA and the police should have manned up. LFC had voiced their concerns regarding the stadium before hand. Heysel was a totally thing different thing though one should remember that none would have died if the stadium hadnt been so poorly built that it collapsed. Liverpool fans caused the panic though by trying to get to the opposition fans.
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@Chopera wrote:
I think this is quite a good article on why she was devisive:
It’s interesting, but this one in my opinion is far better:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/14/thatcher-economy-talk-based-fraud
It tells you precisely why her policies failed.
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Margaret Thatchers record in government was popular with the public by most modern standards. Half of the population still believe she was good for the country and her policies worked.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3158/Margaret-Thatcher-19252013.aspx
Most western industrial nations political beliefs and opinions are divided among the populations. Mrs T would be one of the first to defend the protests and criticism we have seen in the media and no doubt tomorrow during the funeral. It’s part of the democratic process.
Opposition protests are always more vocal but in Mrs T’s case the silent majority know they had a champion and Britain enjoyed the best prime minister since Churchill. Who incidentally like Thatcher also made political mistakes.
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@zenkarma wrote:
@Chopera wrote:
I think this is quite a good article on why she was devisive:
It’s interesting, but this one in my opinion is far better:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/14/thatcher-economy-talk-based-fraud
It tells you precisely why her policies failed.
Not sure about this phrase:
The question is whether any of it was sustainable. Now, there is a growing and dismaying recognition that too much growth in the past 30 years has been built on an unsustainable credit, banking and property bubble and that Britain’s true long-run growth rate has fallen to around 2%.
There was a property/credit bubble in the late 80s, which was allowed to collapse, but apart from that UK debt (both private and public) was relatively low up until about 10 years ago. Things obviously went wrong over the last 10 years but, as I’ve said before, you can’t blame Thatcher if a different set of people screw things up over a decade after she left office. Economies are dynamic things and constantly need adjusting – if her successors failed to see what was going wrong and stuck to the policies that were designed for the 80s then it’s more their fault than hers.
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