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Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 10 Apr 13 at 12:43
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I wonder why so many of my Facebook friends are throwing parties, I think I know why now!
Personally it is wrong to celebrate the death of anybody but lets just say I am not exactly upset about the news! Personally her policies didn't really effect my parents that much, apart from the poll tax.
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Anyone who remembers the state this country was left in by Labour in 1979 (sound familiar) would know what a fantastic job she did in turning this country around. Sure she had her faults, but there were some very hard choices to make and she had the guts to make them.
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Her condition is now described as satisfactory !
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I am going to keep my nose out of this trough, (lest I am accused of being extreme right wing) there will be extreme polarised views from both ends of the spectrum displayed here.
For myself, she did good she did some bad, but my scales are just about down on the good side. History may or may not be good to her, bad probably as most Historians now seem to turn out as revisionists, saying something different is the only way you get your books published, usually at the expense of truth.
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My views on her as a politician will be evident form my previous posts on the subject.
I have however no wish to 'dance on her grave'. Whatever one thinks of her legacy as PM she's died and ones symathies are with her family and, should you beleive in such things, her soul.
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>> ones sympathies are with her family
Oh?
the daughter who is a bigot, and the son who was happy to finance mercenaries to conduct military coups?
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>> For myself, she did good she did some bad, but my scales are just about
>> down on the good side. History may or may not be good to her, bad
>> probably as most Historians now seem to turn out as revisionists, saying something different is
>> the only way you get your books published, usually at the expense of truth.
>>
IMHO one of the shrewdest things ever written on this forum.
Surprisingly, we are not that far apart, except that I view the scales as tipping towards "bad".
She was at her best when working in patriotic mode - standing firm on the Falklands, standing up to Europe.
She was at her worst with her economic policies - sometimes not so much in WHAT her governments did, but the unnecessarily harsh way that they implemented their policies.
I certainly do not rejoice in her death. I don't rejoice in anyones death(though I would be sorely tempted with Tony Blair, if I am still around).
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Some liked her some loathed her, doubt we'll see her like again.
However people felt about her she was a charismatic and powerful presence and a sound national leader, especially when compared to modern groomed boring nothing worth saying professional politicians, clones except for an honourable few.
I didn't agree with much of her doing, but one of the things that made me respect her most was her 'the buck stops here' attitude, no looking for scapegoats or excuses or dodgy reports like certain other recent PMs.
She made a decision and it was hers and no one else's, if was right she took the credit, if wrong she took the flak, ask her a question you got an answer you might like it but you got one.
Rest in Peace Ma'am.
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As so often, Zero has it right. Mrs Thatcher had the abrasive personality needed for the job. She hectored, and that upset a lot of people. It often upset me at the time although I thought she was right about the Falklands and the big trade unions. Bosnia too, later on.
Perhaps because she was the first woman PM (and still the only one to date) people both for and against became obsessed with her personality in what always seemed to me a neurotic way. No doubt some will be celebrating in a distasteful way while others will be in floods of tears.
But it's hardly a shock or tragedy, or even a bad thing for the nearest and dearest, when someone of 87 with dementia dies. All things pass.
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When she becane Prime Minister I thought that with a woman in charge we might get some common sense into politics.
A short while later I wondered exactly what kind of species she was and concluded she was a monster.
Now I admit she achieved a great deal, much of it necessary. A divisive figure whom I could never warm to.
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According to BBC News feed she will be accorded the same status of funeral as the Queen Mother and Princess of Wales.
If her coffin's to be paraded through Central London on an open carriage there is, to put it at the most neutral, potential for mischief.
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>> If her coffin's to be paraded through Central London on an open carriage
I do hope not. That would be inappropriate and an appalling lapse of taste. Of course we are well capable of that as the mawkish display during the Princess of Wales's funeral showed.
Was it the Duke of Wellington whose 18-ton bronze gun carriage was pelted with filth and rotten fruit by enraged segments of the populace? If I were her children I would opt for something dignified and more or less private. But it won't be in their hands probably.
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I agree with GB.
She was principled, and honest, and stuck to her guns rightly or wrongly (wrongly in the case of the Poll Tax, which I avoided with ease). Given the cards she was dealt she did a better job than any other PM in living memory.
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>> Given the cards she
>> was dealt she did a better job than any other PM in living memory.
Arguable that Clem Attlee's achievements were as great but much more modestly won.
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Interesting article by Matthew Parris in the Times: tinyurl.com/d9uxelw I'll not comment on her policies, but she must have had enormous inner strength.
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If she'd been around to see the demise of Rattle and Bobbyg I doubt she'd show the contempt they've displayed, regardless of what she thought of them.
I admired her, as I do Wedgie Benn. Doesn't mean I support their politics.
Last edited by: bathtub tom on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 14:22
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I never really had an opinion on her as she was before my time politically other than my father credits her with creating a country that afforded him the opportunity to lift himself above his humble beginnings having started his business in 1982 with a small bank loan and by 1990 they were turning over £1 million a year.
He was and remains grateful for that opportunity having lived through a Labour era that was quite happy for the poor to remain poor - the 70's cemented his hatred of Labour and its total lack of aspiration for someone like him.
She didnt work for everyone though, that is for sure.
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>>Personally it is wrong to celebrate the death of anybody but lets just say I am not exactly upset about the news!
Why not? What do you know about her, and what she did? What do you think she did that was so evil that any comment about her death is appropriate? (and "not exactly upset" is a comment).
Because unless you Google it between now and when you may or may not reply to me, I'd put significant money that you don't have the first clue.
I cannot understand people's reactions. Aside from the fact that I never quite worked out what was wrong with the Poll Tax, she did some good stuff and she did some bad stuff. Although the judgement between good and bad could only be accurately made after the event.
However, she said what she was going to do, she did what she said she was going to do, and she held herself accountable for what she did. An honest woman, a strong woman and a woman of integrity, irrespective of whether or not she was right.
We should all be be judged so well.
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'What do you know about her, and what she did? What do you think she did that was so evil that any comment about her death is appropriate? (and "not exactly upset" is a comment).'
I think you might be a little harsh on Rats. His words might just mean her death doesn't signify much to him.
I feel much the same, though I'm from a generation that witnessed her whole career.
I certainly don't think jubilation is acceptable - people who want to dance on someone's grave are pretty nasty, in my view.
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>> Because unless you Google it between now and when you may or may not reply
>> to me, I'd put significant money that you don't have the first clue.
She much more widely disliked in the north of the UK than the south. Something that lives on to this day.
During her term of office the core industries of the midlands and north of England and in Wales and Scotland, textiles, engineering, steel, mining etc went into terminal decline. Whether that was wholly to do with her policies, partially so it just happened on her watch is a moot point.
Personaly I'd go for at least partially on the basis of the monetarist experiment and a conviction that UK PLC's future was in banking and insurance. The coal industry was deliberately murdered albeit with the effective connivance of Scargill.
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Rattle, if comments from your friends on Facebonk are your benchmark for 'informed' opinion then if the likes of Paris Brown are anything to go by you are in a bad place indeed.
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Modern politics is sadly lacking people with her strength of conviction and her simple ability to do what she said she was going to do. Whether you agreed with it or not, you were in no doubt where she stood and what line she would take. No flip-flopping or dithering. Just get it done.
The current generation of weak, ineffective career politicians pales in comparison. If more members of all parties were like her, we'd have politics worth getting passionate about.
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>> I wonder why so many of my Facebook friends are throwing parties, I think I
>> know why now!
>>
>> Personally it is wrong to celebrate the death of anybody but lets just say I
>> am not exactly upset about the news! Personally her policies didn't really effect my parents
>> that much, apart from the poll tax.
>>
I would guess that Rattle (& his moronic party throwing Facebook "friends") were not even born when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister and were probably around 10 years old when she left office so has no actual adult experience of those times and as he has told us that he spent his history lessons watching Harry Enfield videos I wonder where he gets his knowledge from !
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>> Personally it is wrong to celebrate the death of anybody ............
I understand that nowadays people clap at funerals or when a hearse passes by!
Last edited by: L'escargot on Wed 10 Apr 13 at 09:08
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As I understand that, l'Es, it's more a recognition of the deceased than a celebration of the actual death. One example that sticks in my mind is Mitch Benn's A Minute's Noise on the death of John Peel - full of respect and affection for the man's life, legacy and humour and entirely appropriate.
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>> One example that sticks in my mind is Mitch Benn's A
>> Minute's Noise on the death of John Peel - full of respect and affection for
>> the man's life, legacy and humour and entirely appropriate.
WDB, I went to John Peels funeral in Bury St Edmunds. I had listened to him for years and I was close enough, so I thought it was the least I could do. A great collection of music was played and his brother (who looks just like him) gave a touching talk about John and he shares the same incredibly dry humour. I think the most emotional moment for me and others was when someone shouted 'We love you John' when the coffin was being lowered into the car. Funny isn't it how someone you don't actually know personally can have that effect on you.
His son (Tom Ravenscroft) now has his own show on 6 music and it's uncanny how similar he is to his father sometimes - the knack for finding obscure records and that droll tone from the speakers. It's as if he never went away.
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If she hadn't destroyed the trade unions, Britain would continue to be the sick man of Europe. Arthur Scargill destroyed mining in the UK, not Lady Thatcher.
You only have to look at the ability of the unions to bring London to a standstill - and demand ridiculous additional payments for their members just for, e.g. the privilege of working over the Olympics (which people like Zero did for free).
No Government doesn't make mistakes.
Margaret Thatcher made modern Britain what it was; without her Blair would never have had the money to spend or borrow in order to leave us in the mess we are in now.
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I can this thread just ended up in one massive argument, so I will keep out of it, but as much as I didn't like the woman for potlical reasons I don't want to dance on somebody's grave.
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>> I don't want to dance on somebody's grave.
You seemed quite happy to hear she was dead from the posting of yours above.
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I'm not happy and I'm not sad.
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>>but as much as I didn't like the woman for potlical reasons
Which reasons are those then?
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I am not getting into that on here. But in a months time or so when the body is no longer warm I will happily have a debate with you. I am very left wing, I am a Guardian reader (well website!) and this site is mainly based out of a Telegraph off shoot, so there will be some heated debates. Now is not the time.
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>>But in a months time or so when the body is no longer warm
What a strange thing to say. You feel it is ok to discuss the woman's death, but not her views.
I also read the Guardian. And the Telegraph. Also El Mundo, El Globo, WSJ, FT and many others. But you'd have to explain to me how that is related to either Baroness Thatcher's views or her death.
>>I am very left wing
I do not believe that you know what that means.
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>> I am not getting into that on here. But in a months time or so
>> when the body is no longer warm I will happily have a debate with you.
More heat than light on here Ratto. There are only a few of us here prepared to defend the left's corner. And while the truth is much less clearcut the narrative of 'a country brought to ruin by the unions' the received narrative starts from there.
I've been working my way through Heath's biography and can't help thinking that the consensus politics of the post war period has much in their favour.
It works for Germany.
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+1 And the UK trades unions had a hand in the development of workers involvement in German industry. By some accounts that should have brought German industry down. Odd that the Germans still make lots of desirable things bought here.
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>> +1 And the UK trades unions had a hand in the development of workers involvement
>> in German industry. By some accounts that should have brought German industry down. Odd that
>> the Germans still make lots of desirable things bought here.
Ah yes, but wisely due to the proximity of the Red Army, the fear of communist infiltration, control and destruction, they declined the Arthur Scargill, Red Robbo, Clive Jenkins and Bob Crowe options.....
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Neil Kinnock on R4 at 5.45pm described A Scargill as the "strategic genius" who made Mrs Thatcher appear correct in her handling of the Miners' Strike -- or some such words...
Last edited by: madf on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 18:46
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>> Neil Kinnock on R4 at 5.45pm described A Scargill as the "strategic genius" who made
>> Mrs Thatcher appear correct in her handling of the Miners' Strike -- or some such
>> words...
>>
Which simply reinforces my opinion that Kinnock was completely and utterly unsuited to the positions which he (with a sizeable shove from his much-smarter wife) attained.
Man was and remains an ass.
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>>Man was and remains an ass.
He always seemed such a "little" man. And so bitter about everything.
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>> the consensus politics of the post war period has much in their favour.
>>
>> It works for Germany.
>>
Don't know much about German industrial relations directly, but Clydeside and the North East of England which I have direct knowledge of, didn't have a lot to do with consensus.
Didn't agree with some of Maggie's actions / words, but I believe she was the right PM for her time and I cannot understand the levels of hate for her more than 30 years later.
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>> I can this thread just ended up in one massive argument, so I will keep out of it, but as much as I didn't like the woman for potlical reasons I don't want to dance on somebody's grave.>>
But were you even around or, at least, of a reasonable age to form a judgement at the time Baroness Thatcher was proving an imposing politician?
Try a little reading (!):
tinyurl.com/cdjrk6m
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>> Try a little reading (!):
>>
>> tinyurl.com/cdjrk6m
For the unwary that's a link to the Mail and praise of MT from three 'historians'.
Needless to say none write from the liberal or left perspective.
I wonder why, when those who write critically of her are accused of disrespect, it's OK to publish hagiographies of this sort.
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>> For the unwary that's a link to the Mail and praise of MT from three
>> 'historians'.
>>
>> Needless to say none write from the liberal or left perspective.
>>
>> I wonder why, when those who write critically of her are accused of disrespect, it's
>> OK to publish hagiographies of this sort.
Oh Brompton, you're just getting annoying. There's almost no perspective at all in that article; it's almost entirely factual. Name four opinions expressed in that article that you disagree with.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 16:14
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>> Oh Brompton, you're just getting annoying. There's almost no perspective at all in that article;
>> it's almost entirely factual. Name four opinions expressed in that article that you disagree with.
Easily annoyed then!!
And if you think Simon Heffer doesn't come with a truckload of perspective you're a lot less informed then I thought.
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Missed the edit.
Ruth Dudley Edward's asserts that the 'Milk Snatcher' campaign was the most vitriolic ever against a femail politician. Really?
I think Clare Short, Mo Mowlam and Harriet Harman to name just three might disagree. And the left were pretty beastly about Ann Widdecombe too.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 10 Apr 13 at 01:00
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>> the 'Milk Snatcher' campaign...
I'd forgotten about that. That alone for me is why I think she did a lot of good things ;-) I hated the small bottles of full fat milk at school!!! Often warm and loads of cream on top. Horrible. Put me off drinking milk that did. I used to get someone to have mine - and I was a 'milk monitor'.
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Not that easily annoyed, it's just getting boring as you're not offering any facts! Have you read the PwC survey above? Of course Heffer comes with a truckload of perspective. However, that article is fact filled rather than opinion filled.
I'll try again. Name four opinions expressed in that article that you disagree with.
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The PwC report is of relative rather than absolute decline. I never said we no longer had any worthwhile industry rather that with a different regime more of that present in 1980 would still be around today.
As to the Mail article I've already identified the assertion that the 'Milk Snatcher' campaign was the most vitrioloc ever against a woman politician as, to say the least, dubious. I attributed to the worng author though. Amanda Freeman not Ruth Dudley Edwards.
There's other stuff as well.
I cannot get the video bit on Leadership/Falklands/Miners to run atm.
Will reply fully later.
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>>The PwC report is of relative rather than absolute decline
Just to be clear, that's relative to % of gross GDP. In absolute figures it is considerably larger.
Thus to talk of manufacturing being decimated, destroyed or anything else is wrong, it has grown strongly. Whether or not it would have grown more strongly in a different environment is more difficult to say, but I would suspect not.
The removal of dead wood (companies, management, industries, unions) was essential at some point.
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>>rather that with a different regime more of that present in 1980 would still be around today.
I don't doubt that. Unprofitable shipyards, mines and car factories, subsidised by taxpayers, making cars nobody wants, that sit around unsold - rusting until they're scrapped. Hurrah! I can see exactly why you want that; more jobs for the boys.
For those of us taxpayers who aren't civil servants this constitutes a very expensive hobby.
Oh yes, and if it takes six months to get a telephone line installed in your nirvana, how long would it take to get a mobile phone network set up - give that it would be being done by the state-owned system. I'd bet there'd be no 3G yet. What do you think?
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 18:15
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>> I don't doubt that. Unprofitable shipyards, mines and car factories, subsidised by taxpayers, making cars
>> nobody wants, that sit around unsold - rusting until they're scrapped. Hurrah! I can see
>> exactly why you want that; more jobs for the boys.
For somebody who thinks he's winning the debate you're remarkably quick to go 'ad hominem'.
>>
>> Oh yes, and if it takes six months to get a telephone line installed in
>> your nirvana, how long would it take to get a mobile phone network set up
>> - give that it would be being done by the state-owned system. I'd bet there'd
>> be no 3G yet. What do you think?
Who knows? In 1980 I got a phone line sorted inside a week, delay mostly down to tracking down the correct 01 number for the house which had been disconnected for several years. Imagine trying to explain that to a Virgin/C&W/Talk Talk script jockey in Bangalore!!!
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>>In 1980 I got a phone line sorted inside a week,
Then you were amazingly lucky.
Whilst telecommunication service may not appear to be the best given expectations today, it is so much better than it was in 1980 that the difference is beyond measure.
You would not need to explain it to anyone, anywhere in Bangalore or not these days, since provisioning is quite different, automated and computerised. It does not require setting of analogue equipment.
Equally it is difficult to see ow one can argue that businesses are typically better run and more efficient these days then they were in the 80s.
Which is not to say nicer, just more efficient.
Quite what any of that has to do with political policies in the 80s though, is quite beyond me.
I think you might be thrashing this one a little beyond reason.
The argument surely is not what the situation is now, compared to then, but how much it was made better or worse by Margaret Thatcher's Government?
Because I cannot see a definition by which industry or individual companies are worse than they were. Surely of whatever political beliefs you have, one cannot imagine or pretend that Leyland (for example) was a good company? Or the utilities, or British Airways, or the Railways.
The country needed to change its attitude. Scargill, Robbo and the rest were doing far more harm than good.
The country did change, and thank the Lord it did so. However, how much it did so because of the Government, how much it did so despite the Government, and how much it did so from an adverse reaction to the policies is almost impossible to say.
She was most certainly a catalyst for change and we needed change.
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>> I think you might be thrashing this one a little beyond reason.
I merely responded to post from MM suggesting all in the past was not as bad as he suggested.
>>Because I cannot see a definition by which industry or individual companies are worse than >>they were. Surely of whatever political beliefs you have, one cannot imagine or pretend that >>Leyland (for example) was a good company? Or the utilities, or British Airways, or the >>Railways
In my limited experience of a few flights LHR>LBA and return the state owned BA was OK. Over 27 years of commuting to Euston I'd struggle to say how London Midland are that much better than Network Southeast, particularly given the much higher level of taxpayer subvention these days.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 20:47
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British Airways
Revenue Passenger-Kilometers, scheduled flights only, in millions
Year Traffic
1975 - 25463
1980 - 40140
1985 - 41103
1989 - 60758
1995 - 93860
2000 - 118890
IATA World Air Transport Statistics
1981 British Airways lost £240million
1995 British Airways became the world's most profitable airline
STILL, was that because of, despite, or against The Thatcher Government's policies? What point are you arguing?
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 21:30
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>> STILL, was that because of, despite, or against The Thatcher Government's policies? What point are
>> you arguing?
I had the impression we were talking of customer service rather than traffic/profit. And I suspect an element of selectivity in the choice of 81 (bottom of Thatcher's a depression) and 95.
I've no figures to hand for BOAC (but I'm sure they're Googleable). While BEA lost money from the war until the mid fifties it was profitable in all but three years from 54/5 until its full absorption into BA in 1974. I've a clear recollection that BA was profitable in 70-80 too.
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>>I had the impression we were talking of customer service rather than traffic/profit
Ah, well, I had the wrong end of the stick then. Because I thought we were talking about the state of UK Industry which is a bit wider than simply customer service.
Mind you, customer service and customer perception was exactly the thrust of BA changes.
>>And I suspect an element of selectivity
And there you do me a dis-service. Not a tactic I use, and in fact both 1980 and 1982 were higher, albeit by peanuts.
I can give you airline profitability if you wish, but I still don't see how it is relevant.
The world changed. Nobody will dispute that.
The question is this...
Was it despite, because of, or part of a rebellion to, her government's policies?
Because I think pinning the merger of BOAC and BEA on Baroness Thatcher is a bit of a stretch, however you look at it.
In the end, I think the point is made, whether or not you agree. So, you fill your boots, I've had enough.
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>> In the end, I think the point is made, whether or not you agree. So,
>> you fill your boots, I've had enough.
Me too.
Even in threaded view I cannot now follow this tangent to the debate.
I thought it started with a slightly ad-hominem post from MM about civil servants, a socialist paradise with cars built to rust and waiting lists of years for phones. My intention was to refute, or at least put a convincing alternative to, the narrative that nationalised industries were all loss making basket cases.
Reference to BEA was laziness. I have its history in print with the P/L figures in an annex. Couldn't be bothered last night to research the figures for BOAC or post 74 BA.
No attempt to link BA's formation with Thatcher
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>>I thought it started with a slightly ad-hominem post from MM about civil servants.
Go on, who else does having rafts of state-owned industry benefit other than those employed by the state to manage them? It's not ad-hominem, it's a statement of fact.
Anyway, I'm still waiting for you to name four opinions in Heffer's article that you disagree with. I think we'll be waiting rather a long time, don't you; much easier to accuse me of ad-hominem attacks than to answer an unanswerable question, isn't it.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Wed 10 Apr 13 at 12:23
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>> when those who write critically of her are accused of disrespect
Personally I can see no issue in criticising her, but celebrating her death is peculiar.
Did you see this....
"David Hopper, general secretary of the Durham Miners' Association, spent all of his working life at Wearmouth Colliery.
Mr Hopper, who turned 70 today, said: "It looks like one of the best birthdays I have ever had."
How empty, sad and bitter must your life be that the best of your 70 birthdays is the death of someone else?
And I had to fall about when someone like Gerry Adams criticised her behaviour and how much she hurt people.
Its a funny old world.
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>> Its a funny old world.
Very funny indeed sometimes. The Falklands provided a moment of high comedy when Mrs Thatcher, who had nothing against the Argentine junta in principle, suddenly denounced it as a fascist military regime at the same moment that the then very vocal British left, which had always denounced it as a fascist military regime, suddenly discovered that it was a third-world government being oppressed by British imperialism. It took a measure of objectivity to get the joke, so most people didn't. I suppose the tactical support of Chile's murdering dictator Augusto Pinochet muddied the waters and confused people.
It isn't really surprising that politically naive people - most of us really - continue to cling to their views of Mrs T as the devil incarnate/best thing since sliced bread. Those were clamorous times. It even became fashionable in some left circles to put on a Liverpool accent (hideous to me, except on the lips of a pretty woman).
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>> And I had to fall about when someone like Gerry Adams criticised her behaviour and
>> how much she hurt people.
Gerry Adams may wonder why she was hard on his cause when she came to power, but blowing up her best friend at the house of commons may have given him a slight clue.
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>> Gerry Adams may wonder why she was hard on his cause when she came to
>> power, but blowing up her best friend at the house of commons may have given
>> him a slight clue.
AFAIK Adams was linked to the IRA. It was INLA who killed Neave.
Distinction is probably a People's Front of Judea issue.
EDIT. It was the IRA though who murdered Ian Gow in 1990
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 17:18
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>> Did you see this....
>>
>> "David Hopper, general secretary of the Durham Miners' Association, spent all of his working life
>> at Wearmouth Colliery.
>>
>> Mr Hopper, who turned 70 today, said: "It looks like one of the best birthdays
>> I have ever had."
>>
>> How empty, sad and bitter must your life be that the best of your 70
>> birthdays is the death of someone else?
The closure of the mines removed a support and structure from people's lives that went back to the industrial revolution. Not over a generation like the run down of textiles but over a handful of years.
No inward investment to replace it; just years on the dole.
Almost like being invaded and conquered.
Rightly or wrongly folks in the mining areas see MT as personally responsible for that.
My mother's family were rooted in the Yorkshire coalfield. By the time of my birth they'd mostly retired. Her brother had resisted the pressure to follow his contemporaries 'down the pit' and made a career as a telecoms engineer. Others were not so fortunate or academic as he was.
I understand Mr Hopper's sentiments and I've heard others say the same.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 20:56
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>> I wonder why so many of my Facebook friends are throwing parties, I think I
>> know why now!
Very bad timing, given that the students are away for Easter.
They'll have to wait for a few days, before they can gather together under their posters of Che Guevara, and drivel on about the evil of Thatcher, and everything else they've learned, since they first got into politics, six months ago.
If they want a crack at any of the newly politically aware girls, a "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher" T-shirt is probably the way to go.
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A piece from the late Hugo Young from the day after she resigned.
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/1990/nov/23/past.conservatives
I guess for the current generation today will be a Kennedy/Diana moment. You can remember exactly where and how you heard.
Recall exactly where I was and who told me she'd resigned. In those days of course there was no internet and news was perhaps most commonly revealed by the Standard billboards when stepping out of the office.
Constant news awareness was just starting to stir though. Our investment people had a teletext type service running all the time. News ticker on there said Thatcher resigns and message spread round the fifth floor like wild fire.
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I was in a press conference with a police Chief Superintendent. There was a tap on the door and a control room sergeant stuck his head around it and said 'She's gone, Sir'.
Today my son sent me a text from the UK saying 'have you heard the news?'. So I turned on the BBC. I sent him a text saying 'I have now'. That's all I'll have to say.
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Current plan, according to colleague reading from web news ticker, is for cortege to pass along Strand. Will then pause at St Clement Danes Church for the coffin to be transferred to a gun carriage before continuing along Fleet St to St Pauls.
Not sure how firm that is as she's hardly cold yet.
I'd have thought there was more sorting to do but I suppose the basics have been on somebody's PC for several years. It was a foreseeable event.
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I'm not sure a cortege is either appropriate or wise.
Who was the last ex-prime minister to die and did a similar thing happen for them?
However significant she was, and even her worst enemies can't deny her significance, I still don't think it is appropriate.
And it will be an excuse for every protester for miles to smash a few shop windows.
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>> However significant she was, and even her worst enemies can't deny her significance, I still
>> don't think it is appropriate.
Pretty much my starting point. If you have to think about whether such a thing might be appropriate the answer is almost certainly no.
The last one to get that sort of thing was Churchill. I was about 4 at the time and can just recall my Gran watching it on the telly and demanding silence for Richard Dimbleby's narration.
I can also remember the queues outside churches for local services of Remebrance for him. I don't think we'll have those this time.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 16:50
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>> The last one to get that sort of thing was Churchill. I was about 4
>> at the time and can just recall my Gran watching it on the telly and
>> demanding silence for Richard Dimbleby's narration.
And that kind of thing should have died with Churchill, I don't think anyone's death warrants that kind of public display any more. Thatcher was after all, just another PM.
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Wherever her funeral is held i expect genuine representation (not simply turning up) from the more mature military and police forces, i expect the two services to almost insist on being allowed to show full public respect.
She was a great and genuine supporter of both.
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Brompton: Hugo Young wrote:
It is a shocking way to go. Having lost no vote either in the Commons or in the country, she was yet disposed of by the unaccountable will of fewer than 400 politicians. There has been nothing like it in the democratic era: no verdict apparently so perverse and unprovoked delivered by a governing party against a leader upon whom it had fawned and under whom it had grown fat for so many years. Many Conservatives will be thunderstruck by what they accomplished yeterday some, even among those who did the deed, will be ashamed.
I wonder what he would have thought of Blair's departure.
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Died in the Ritz. Way to go.
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A fine prime minister and a good woman, who achieved much in her lifetime. She scores ten out of ten in my book.
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I was not in this country during her era. I do not have enough knowledge to comment whether she did good or bad. However, I do know that she was called "Iron Lady" for a reason. She did take some actions unlike our current bunch of politicians who always behave like limp home mode as in cars ;-)
Can someone please explain which of her policies/actions were good/bad and why?
Last edited by: movilogo on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 17:01
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>> Can someone please explain which of her policies/actions were good/bad and why?
I suspect if you read the obituaries on the web you'll get a pretty good idea.
She's one of the reasons why it might still be best to avoid politics and religion in polite conversation.
Opinion on her and which of her policies were good or bad is very strongly divided. At the outset of her term when she sought to break the power of the unions and to control inflation (then seen as the biggest threat in politics). Many think that was a dose of medecine that, however nasty, and the result was the collapse of industry and jobs in a way that still echoes today, some would say was a necessity.
The Falklands war, although it might have been avoided with more attention to the problem in 80 and 81 was tactically a huge triumph for her.
She was brought down by her attitude to our relationship with the test of Europe and by a failure to listen to the advice of others particulalry over the Community Charge or 'poll tax'.
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>> and by a failure to listen to the advice of others particulalry over the Community
>> Charge or 'poll tax'.
I remember the riots that resulted. Never seen anything like it since. No doubt there will be a program as some point following her career in office.
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>> Many think that was a dose of medecine that, however nasty, and the result
>> was the collapse of industry and jobs in a way that still echoes today, some would say
>> was a necessity.
Sorry Bromp the collapse of shipbuilding and mining were well on the way, to say the unions and others of the left including many contemporary Labour politicians were not as much to blame is just plain denial of the truth. Maggie may have hastened it by standing up to the Scargills & Reids but they had at least one foot already on the slippery slope
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Changed the political landscape . Even her opponents changed with her. Did not like her but admired her.
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Benedict Brogan writes in the Telegraph politics blog:
"The death of Lady Thatcher will have immediate political consequences for David Cameron and the Conservatives. The tributes to her memory and the recollections of her achievements will remind the party not just of what it has lost, but of what it lacks."
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At least this thread is quite civilised. Other forums I go on sometimes have had to lock all comments about this until they decide what should do. It seems many claim to have been waiting for this day for years or decades and many claim to be looking forward to a drink, more than a bit odd I'd say, for that amount of time as well.
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>> many claim to be looking forward to a drink
As I am - only ten minutes to go! - but not of course to celebrate Mrs Thatcher's demise.
I saw her at fairly close quarters a few times when I was masquerading as a French hack. I saw her flirting with Francois Mitterrand in front of a roomful of hacks. Quite a magnetic individual and far from being all bad. The French were fascinated by her and often referred to her as 'la dame de fer'.
I'm not an expert on politics but I did learn a lot about it in that period. Our great flaw was rabidly adversarial industrial relations reflected by rabidly adversarial politics. French, Germans and Swedes for example were far too sensible to let those things interfere with the important stuff. Odd really since we see ourselves as reasonable.
Manufacturing industry had been degraded not by the left alone but by donkey-like organised labour and smug greedy idle ignorant management. Mrs Thatcher kicked what remained to pieces throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and she instituted an era of corruption and cynicism by embracing 'monetarism' and creating the yuppie who is still with us, alas. But you can't blame her alone for any of that. She had to cope with the bloody-minded British as they were.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 10:15
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I lived through - indeed, became politically aware during - the Thatcher period, and it sowed a lifelong antipathy to her style of politics and the party she led. Her supporters like to hand her the credit for removing the unions' grip on British manufacturing industry; if the unions were the whole problem, industry should have flourished in their absence, but look around you today.
Then there was the 'markets with everything' attitude that left us at the mercy of markets for our energy, housing, public services and, if Cameron has his way, healthcare. Tell the parents of the 30-year-olds who can't afford to leave home that that one worked out well.
As for
The Falklands war ... was tactically a huge triumph for her.
Substitute 'politically' for 'tactically' and I'd have to agree. Militarily, as recent revelations have shown, it was another one (see D-Day) we got away with thanks to a lot of low-level individual bravery and hard work, and despite, not because of, the political leadership.
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Wild you took the words right out of my mouth :). Her policies have directly caused the housing problem we have now have. Yes you could say my grandparents contributed to that by buying their house under the right to buy scheme.
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>>Wild you took the words right out of my mouth
I assume the gap between "it wouldn't be right while the body is still warm" and now was filled with a quick Google?
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt"
On a different point, I was just reading the various media contributions. Labour politicians drinking champagne, unions saying its like Christmas etc. etc.
What a bunch of sick, inadequate, valueless, know-nothings.
For example, Red Robbo. In my opinion an appalling, self-centered, unintelligent thug responsible for much hardship amongst his members, and much harm to his company - I still cannot imagine *celebrating* his death, although I dislike him, his motives, his action and the harm be brought.
Especially since an awful lot of the abuse seems to be coming from people who were too young to know anyway..
I really do hope that the fleas of a thousand camels have nothing special on this afternoon.....
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 18:27
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"Better to remain silent and be thought a ... than to speak out and remove all doubt"
'Bullying know-all' fits that space too, FM. Try applying yourself to the debate, not the debaters.
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Where in God's name was I bullying? Seems to me that cries of of this type fit into this world about as well as blowing your horn at someone who has already passed.
If one stumps up an opinion, then I assume one is prepared to defend that opinion. It can't be bullying every time something is argued with.
If one is unable to defend that opinion, then that is as worthy of note as it is when someone defends an opinion well.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 18:51
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And for the avoidance of doubt it is not me gifting Rattle with the red frowny face.
Or to you for that matter.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 18:53
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No, one would need an extraordinarily thin skin to be as offended as someone here seems to have been. And I'm quite sure you haven't got one of those.
};---)
All the same, I felt that rather than addressing Rats's views, you made fun of how (you thought) he'd come by them. I don't think he deserved that.
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>>All the same, I felt that rather than addressing Rats's views, you made fun of how (you thought) he'd come by them.
It is fair to say that sometimes I step over the mark. However, I do not always do so.
If one puts up an opinion here, in a forum for grown ups, then one should expect that opinion to be challenged and should be willing, and preferably able, to defend it.
If one defends that opinion eloquently and with basis, then one should be admired for that, much as I believe Thatcher should be admired. Without agreement with the point itself being necessary.
If, on the other hand, one stumps up a valueless repetition of a little understood point read elsewhere, then one should also be prepared to take the flack that comes with that.
And I did make fun of him, I do think he writes drivel, but it is his right to do so. As it is my right to laugh at it.
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I too made comment regarding Rats post as at this time I felt it inappropriate in that it was based on social networking comments. Social networking is something I despise because of what it has become. All I will say is if you lead with the chin expect sometimes to get it thumped.
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>> Her policies have directly caused the housing problem we have now have.
Would you care to show your working out?
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Or just point us to the page where you read it.
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>> >> Her policies have directly caused the housing problem we have now have.
>>
>> Would you care to show your working out?
>>
Rattle isn't far off the mark in fact.
Before Thatcher most working class people lived in council houses.
She came up with the 'right to buy' policy - which appeared to be a good idea, and indeed for some it was....
For others, it turned into a millstone. The mortgage payments were one thing, the costs of repair on the rundown properties were another. The fact that many ex-council house buyers lost their jobs through Thatchers policys were yet another.
Many ex-council houses were repossessed by the mortgage companies, then sold some to the housing associations that had taken over the council stock, many others were sold to private landlords.
The fact is, today there are very few properties available at a lowish rent, the only options are: wait over ten years on a HA list, rent privately, (possibly a run down ex-council house!) or buy.... Oh, that's not easy for youngsters is it? (lack of deposit - lack of lenders willing to lend)
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Interesting rewrite of history,.
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>> Interesting rewrite of history,.
>>
Hardly a rewrite.
More a differing viewpoint from yours, formed from knowing people to whom such things happened...
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SQ
>> The fact is, today there are very few properties available at a lowish rent, the
>> only options are: wait over ten years on a HA list, rent privately, (possibly a
>> run down ex-council house!) or buy.... Oh, that's not easy for youngsters is it? (lack
>> of deposit - lack of lenders willing to lend)
>>
For many thousands of people it worked out very well tthough, including Rattles grandparents it would appear. I wonder if he berated them for helping to create this housing shortage ? I guess not !
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 19:48
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>>
>> The fact is, today there are very few properties available at a lowish rent, the
>> only options are: wait over ten years on a HA list, rent privately, (possibly a
>> run down ex-council house!) or buy.... Oh, that's not easy for youngsters is it? (lack
>> of deposit - lack of lenders willing to lend)
>>
I'm not sure all that is down council houses being sold. The houses still exsisted, I don't think they were knocked down. The shortage could be made up in all sorts of ways. I suppose the question is why are they being built at such a slow rate, as opposed to the past?
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>> The fact is, today there are very few properties available at a lowish rent, the
>> only options are: wait over ten years on a HA list, rent privately, (possibly a
>> run down ex-council house!) or buy.... Oh, that's not easy for youngsters is it? (lack
>> of deposit - lack of lenders willing to lend)
I suppose it depends upon what the "housing problem" that Rattle alluded to, actually is.
If it is that, as you say, it is not easy for youngsters to get onto the housing ladder, I'd like to see how that directly flows from Thatcher's policies.
Easy money and the housing bubble that followed was, of course, not limited only to the UK, likewise the increase in rents. There has certainly been a disconnect from historical prices, and also a tightening in lending (much due to increased demands for bank to hold capital), but I'd be interested to hear how it all ties back to Thatcher (assuming that the "housing problem" isn't something else entirely).
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 19:48
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One thing for sure, the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/ has lots and lots of pages on Mrs Thatcher.
So she made history.
"Margaret Thatcher: looking back on the life of the Iron Lady
The UK's first female prime minister changed the way Britons viewed politics and economics and the way Britain was viewed around the world""
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/08/iron-lady-margaret-thatcher
Last edited by: madf on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 19:22
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I wonder how many people will mourn Blair. An exceptionally gifted politician by any measure, but his legacy will be just as divisive, although I suspect the balance will be towards the negative. He ushered in a new era when Labour stopped caring about the working classes and fell in love with the chattering classes, a legacy that continues today.
The Left will have to answer for him one day, so think on.
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Two things people got consistently wrong about Mrs T: they thought she was frightfully grand and that she was a 'super patriot'.
She wasn't grand at all of course but the daughter of a provincial corner shop owner, petty bourgeois through and through like Edward Heath and a host of other high-flying politicos. Careful elocution and presentation tutoring made her sound less common and more like the sort of Tory PM the population was used to. She eventually went over the top and started using the royal first person plural, a very duff note to those with an ear.
Nor was she a real patriot. Of course she did the sensible thing over the Falklands and twisted Reagan's arm until he understood which of the two rival allies was the important one in the long run. No British PM with any sense would have done anything different, whatever old Labour people may claim. But the monetarist scheisse was what the US wanted: for our relatively civilised society to take a step backwards and become more American. In that respect she was more like some sort of Latino comprador president, keeping everything free and easy for United Fruit as it were. Or so it seems to me.
As I say though, you can't blame her alone for all this. In a way we asked for it.
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>> Nor was she a real patriot.
Interesting view of her patriotism from Geoffrey Howe in tonight's Standard. Gist is that she could not grasp the patriotism of the Irish or Scots to their home nation as opposed to British (for which perhaps read English) loyalty.
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Those of us towards the left despise Blair for (politically) having it all and blowing it so badly. He had an open goal in 1997, but instead of trying to undo the Thatcher legacy, he chose to embrace it. 'Education, education, education' became academies, tuition fees and faith schools; inequalities widened.
And then there was the international grandstanding and, of course, Iraq. Thatcher's love-in with Reagan was ugly but at least predictable; Blair's with Bush was just sickening.
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>>Those of us towards the left despise Blair for (politically) having it all and blowing it so badly. He had an open goal in 1997, but instead of trying to undo the Thatcher legacy, he chose to embrace it. 'Education, education, education' became academies, tuition fees and faith schools; inequalities widened.
And then there was the international grandstanding and, of course, Iraq. Thatcher's love-in with Reagan was ugly but at least predictable; Blair's with Bush was just sickening. <<
That is really rather my point - the Left has much to answer for themselves, the difference being that the majority of those on the Right rather liked Thatcher, whereas Blair is hard even for Lefties to be proud of.
I thought the 'Blair Tour' when he was on the slow march out was almost hilariously arrogant.
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Blair must surely be in the top 5 most hated politician nay creation of all time, competing with and winning against infamous tyrants and dictators for ill will felt from huge cross sections of the nation.
What i've never understood is why everyone else didn't see through the shyster from day one, a straw nobody endorsed and fawned over by the media of the day.
His legacy lives on via his metaphoric son the current leader of the baby and fading fast blue team.
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>> Those of us towards the left despise Blair for (politically) having it all and blowing
>> it so badly. He had an open goal in 1997
There's a lovely Alex Glasgow song called 'The Candidate'. Cannot find it on U tube but, written in the 70s, it marks a Labour Candidate's rightward progress after being elected.
The closing line 'Now it's Only the Wine he Drinks that's Red' never fails to remind me of Blair and his cohort.
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Oops - my indignation got the better of me and popped up twice.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 20:19
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She was my hero...and I'm sad that she has passed on.
If I had any backbone I'd do what I'd promised I'd do and nip up to the smoke on the train and stand in the queues and pay my respects.
Fancy a pint in one of Notting Hill's finest AC?
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Maggie, the Iron Lady.
Rust in Peace.
I guess Carol will have to start paying the bedroom tax now then?....
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Was my grandparents decision good for my grandparents? I am not sure, my grandad has not been with us since 2005 and my grandma is now approaching her mid 80's and still has a mortgage to pay. She has had to pay for a new boiler (well my parents ended up paying for that as a gift), a new roof, new windows, repointing etc etc all of which would have been paid for if it was still social housing.
Her mortgage payments are now a lot less than her rent would be, but with her medical conditions she would probably be entitled to housing benefits anyway and as it was a three bedroom house the new 'bedroom tax' would have hit her hard.
I would say for the people who bought on right to buy in the first place, Maggies policies helped them. The problem my generation faces is extremely high rent for run down properties none existent social housing unless you have kids. The fact is there is far less than social housing now than there used to be, even though demand is actually higher.
On the other hand the estate my grandma lives on is quite nice, it is in one of the better suburbs of Manchester and she never had any trouble from her neighbours. A good half of them privately own the house though, and a lot of the rest are people of my grandmas generation where have lived there for decades. I will admit for my grandma, I think privatisation has increased her quality of life. But that does not help the 100,000s on social housing waiting lists.
It is quite interesting really, I was bought up in a semi tory environment, I think my parents only stopped voting for them in around 1990 but then supported John Major etc My parents were middle class, had middle class jobs, middle class education, a middle class house etc, yet me and my sister both made very similar comments on hearing the news today, my sisters views however are a lot more extreme.
This is the cost of a 1 bed flat in my area
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-38334337.html
If that was social housing it would be half the price, and you probably get a better quality landlord into the bargain.
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>> her medical conditions she would probably be entitled to housing benefits anyway and as it was a three bedroom house the new 'bedroom tax' would have hit her hard.
Not sure it would, IIRC it's only those, agewise, of working age.
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>>She has had to pay for a new boiler (well my parents ended up paying for that as a gift), a new roof, new windows, repointing etc etc all of which would have been paid for if it was still social housing.<<
Firstly, they didnt have to buy it. Secondly, these are bills that ALL home owners have to pay, stop with the sob story.
>>The problem my generation faces is extremely high rent for run down properties none existent social housing unless you have kids <<
You could move area. A one bed flat in my town starts at £370 pcm and for the money of that flat you linked you could get a modern 3 bed house. You wanna live where you live, deal with the consequences.
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>If that was social housing it would be half the price
Really? And *WHERE* would that subsidy come from?
And where would the money come from to build that house?
And *why* would the landlord be more decent? Have you ever lived in "social housing"? I have. As has most, if not all, of my family.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 20:28
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Fat cat PLC landlords not making millions a year in profits! That is where the money will come from!. Not all none profit organisations need money from the tax payer.
Anyway I have not come here for an argument, I told the way I see it, my political views are probably quite obvious. I am just a great believer in social enterprise.
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Rattle, I can think of no way of explaining such a complex subject in a way which will not take half of my life to write and which you are willing and able to understand.
For your own benefit I recommend a bit of learning and reading on the subject, especially reading opposing views, until you are able to adopt your own viewpoint, rather than simply repeating the thoughts of others which I'm not sure you entirely grasp.
As an example, one cannot possibly know that the Guardian is a Left Wing newspaper, as you believe it to be, without reading a Right Wing newspaper for comparison. Unless you simply repeat what someone else has said.
Also you should consider that the Guardian is not, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT, a left wing newspaper. It does print left wing views and aims for a more left wing audience.
It is a right wing, capitalist organisation using the printing of left wing views in order to increases its own profits, which it does not dedicate to "social enterprise".
It really is that complex.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 20:51
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I am well aware of that (e.g the Guardian) :). I am not some vegan hippy living in a converted ambulance while getting paid cash in hand working for a a backstreet food backer. I also don't wish my posts to sound like I am moaning about the situation, I am not, it is just the way things are.
I just can't see why we can't all solve many of the social problems we have no together, and I do not believe throwing tax payers money is the answer to these problems, the government are still borrowing too much. I am aware of all that.
I am not an MP, I am not saying I have the answers to anything because I don't, but rightly and wrongly Maggie was one PM who divides peoples opinions more than any other person in the UK was born in the 20th century in the UK. I do think especially with Northern people it has become fashionable to blame Maggie on everything, and that is grossly unfair I will admit that.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 20:57
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>>I am not some vegan hippy living in a converted ambulance while getting paid cash in hand working for a a backstreet food backer
No, you are a young lad who lives at home with his parents and has experienced very little.
It is not important if your views are right wing, left wing or some hybrid. It is only important that they are yours, that you understand them, and that you take responsibility for them.
If you were my son I would be pushing you to try a converted ambulance and some food packers. A bit of fruit picking for 3 months would do you no harm at all.
You need to read, you need to learn and you need to experience.
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"It is a right wing, capitalist organisation using the printing of left wing views in order to increases its own profits, which it does not dedicate to "social enterprise".
Not quite how it sees itself.
www.gmgplc.co.uk/the-scott-trust/
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>> Not quite how it sees itself.
>> www.gmgplc.co.uk/the-scott-trust/
Or how I, as a third generation Guardian reader, see it. Like any other venture it has to either cover its costs or have them paid by a 'sugar daddy'.
Don't think that makes it a right wing enterprise.
What counts is where any profit goes.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 21:13
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www.gmgplc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/GMG_Annual_Report_2012.pdf
Pages 8 & 35.
Oh yeah, very left wing.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 21:18
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>> www.gmgplc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/GMG_Annual_Report_2012.pdf
>>
>> Pages 8 & 35.
>>
>> Oh yeah, very left wing.
As you well know that is a formal report of the trust's trading position framed in terms of the relevant company legislation.
It's not and cannot be a reflection of the objectives of the Scott Trust itself.
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Actually its the company's annual report and as such very much contains its goals and objectives, as well as its philosophy.
Its statutory reporting is available elsewhere.
I find it depressing how often an organisation sets itself up on a pedestal and then lets itself down with huge salaries, bonuses and benefits.
Charities do this a lot.
The Guardian is no worse than anyone else, it may even be better than most. But left wing , it is not.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 21:31
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>> Charities do this a lot.
>>
>> The Guardian is no worse than anyone else, it may even be better than most.
>> But left wing , it is not.
I'll forgo the temptation to attribute it to Thatcherism but...
People today are less able/inclined to live on basis of charitable altruism etc. The Guardian has to fish for correspondents, editorial staff etc etc in same market as NI, Mail etc.
It's Annual Report has to reflect that and, as I said previously, the statutory framework for reporting on the objectives etc of limited companies.
It remains the one serious newspaper that's not run in the commercial interest of an organisation that has objectives way beyond those of a Newspaper.
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>>It remains the one serious newspaper that's not run in the commercial interest of an organisation that has objectives way beyond those of a Newspaper.
Let's remember I'm starting from the position of not objecting to the Guardian. [warning; the ramblings of a bored man follow]
Surely their entire philosophy is that the group absolutely does have an agenda beyond those of a newspaper. Now, that agenda may very well be worthwhile, but it is not that purely of a newspaper.
To an extent this is admirable, since rags such as the UK tabloids have *NO* interest in being a newspaper, and simply want to be a money making vehicle of entertainment. At least the Guardian does aim to be a newspaper, but it also aims to be more.
But even the Guardian reports with a comment. Again, I am not objecting to that comment, but its presence means that it is not simply reporting news. Editorial oversight means that an agenda is being followed. Unavoidable given the amount that could be reported, but nonetheless existent.
In my opinion one cannot attribute any value or credibility to any person or any vehicle until you first know, understand and accept why it is the way it is, or why they are with the opinion they have.
A comment was made earlier about focussing on the debate not the debater, or something like that. The flaw with that is that one cannot possibly understand the debate without understanding the debater.
Ditto newspapers, politicians or each other.
And for me the most interesting thing is what lies underneath the opinion. There are few opinions in this world I consider offensive, although there are obviously some, but there are so many that I don't fully understand.
And whilst I may think its wrong, or indeed not, I feel the need to fully understand why the opinion is held to form a safe opinion.
What is frequently frustrating is not that someone holds an opinion that is alien to me, its that they are unable to explain why they hold that opinion, or indeed back it up.
It is the same, for me, when dealing with the media, politicians, business people, students, idiots and everybody else.
And for that, at least, the Guardian is useful. Because one can understand their point of view. Although obviously its usually wrong.
But how often does one hear an opinion from someone with a vested interest, but so many people seem to ignore that interest.
So if one is naive, inexperienced, and unaware, to regard the Guardian as a left wing newspaper because it prefers to publish left wing views is unhelpful and incomplete. Just as to take a simplistic view of anybody's position is unhelpful.
As a associated or perhaps side, point I don't really understand the sensitivity to challenge in here, mostly I guess because its not a sensitivity I have. Certainly I challenge everything and everyone I meet. And I have no issue with others doing the same to me. Especially in a forum which is entirely about opinion.
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>This is the cost of a 1 bed flat in my area
Well, 13 years of Labour definitely increased personal aspirations in the UK.
My first property here was a run-down semi bought with a deposit earned by working overseas and a 3x joint salary mortgage at double digit interest rates.
It needed completely re-wiring, walls and ceilings re-plastered and all the skirting/architrave/doors ripped out or refurbed. It needed the kitchen and bathroom replacing and central heating extended to the upstairs. I had to have a dampcourse fitted and wall ties replaced.
In short, I spent just about all my disposable cash and more than two years working evenings and weekends to get the place up to scratch.
Now I could sit on my butt and complain that a fully decorated fancy flat with private parking 'situated amongst beautiful grounds' costs more than £350 a month.
Progress eh?
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>> Fancy a pint in one of Notting Hill's finest AC?
I'd love it Westpig. Actually I will be there I think on Thursday evening, but running about rather. And I won't be at that end of town. But let's do it some time soonish.
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"She was my hero"
Course she was WP. You were one of her "boot boys" earning mega wages during the miners strike, weren't you?
The least you can do is pay your respects to her after all.
Shame the Tories aren't treating the present B&GIB with the same reverence. Oh, I forgot. You're no longer IN, so don't give a monkeys about them? The same attitude that came across from your colleagues at the miners. I bet some of you had the odd payslip from that time framed.
Fancy a chat and a beer then. I know NH really well.
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>> Fancy a chat and a beer then. I know NH really well.
>>
How would I know it was you?
Wait until I crossed a bridge and heard "Who's that walking over my bridge"?
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"......I bet some of you had the odd payslip from that time framed......"
Oddly enough I still have my best payslip from Oct 1984. Not framed but just tucked away. :)
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>> Wild you took the words right out of my mouth :). Her policies have directly
>> caused the housing problem we have now have. Yes you could say my grandparents contributed
>> to that by buying their house under the right to buy scheme.
>>
The comment above has 'some' merit, but is not the whole story. She did a lot of good and well, some not so good, but I wouldn't have wanted to be in her shoes. Damned if you do and damned if you don't ......... etc.
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A quote from Billy Bragg
From Billy Bragg, Calgary, AB, Canada, on the death of Margaret Thatcher:
This is not a time for celebration. The death of Margaret Thatcher is nothing more than a salient reminder of how Britain got into the mess that we are in today. Of why ordinary working people are no longer able to earn enough from one job to support a family; of why there is a shortage of decent affordable housing; of why domestic growth is driven by credit, not by real incomes; of why tax-payers are forced to top up wages; of why a spiteful government seeks to penalise the poor for having an extra bedroom; of why Rupert Murdoch became so powerful; of why cynicism and greed became the hallmarks of our society.
Raising a glass to the death of an infirm old lady changes none of this. The only real antidote to cynicism is activism. Don't celebrate - organise!
I must admit it sometimes hard to take Billy Bragg seriously considering he is so rich though, although he does always think of himself of a bit of social champion.
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I haven't read all of this thread, but;
Britain 1979 = Basket case
Britain 1997 = Thriving economy
Britain 2010 = Basket case
Do the maths, Thatcher was a success and thanks to Labour we're back where we were before she took office. As for Champaign Socialists like Billy Bragg and Ben Elton, God help us.
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>> Do the maths, Thatcher was a success and thanks to Labour we're back where we
>> were before she took office. As for Champaign Socialists like Billy Bragg and Ben Elton,
>> God help us.
>>
So true. I wonder if either of them are aware of the irony that were it not for Margaret Thatcher, they'd probably both be provincial acts on the alternative circuit. Elton in particular was never frightened to bite the hand that fed him.
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>> I haven't read all of this thread, but;
>>
>> Britain 1979 = Basket case
>>
>> Britain 1997 = Thriving economy
>>
>> Britain 2010 = Basket case
>>
>>
>> Do the maths, Thatcher was a success and thanks to Labour we're back where we
>> were before she took office.
I think that may be a simplified view. Don't forget that there was a recession in the early 90's during John Majors reign. I think that Thatcher and Blair were lucky to be in the 'boom' periods rather than the 'bust' periods. These have always happened over decades of history. Governments have a hand in this, but they never seem to be able to sustain a boom.
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corax>> I think that Thatcher and Blair were lucky to be in the 'boom' periods rather than the 'bust' periods.
LOL. When Thatcher came to power, Britain was stuck in a perma-recession. Inflation was high etc. etc. The early 80s were the continuation of that, but the Government had stopped printing money in order to kill inflation.
When Blair came to power, Britain had had 18 years of Tory rule, and say 15 years of economic growth (the odd small recession goes into the roundings). Thatcher laid the foundations for him to fritter away the previous generation's savings, the current generation's savings and the next generation's income.
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>> When Blair came to power, Britain had had 18 years of Tory rule, and say
>> 15 years of economic growth (the odd small recession goes into the roundings). Thatcher laid
>> the foundations for him to fritter away the previous generation's savings, the current generation's savings
>> and the next generation's income.
That's why I said he was lucky.
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>> As for Champaign Socialists like Billy Bragg and Ben Elton, God help us.
No need to worry about them RR. They are just successful entertainers.
No, the worrying thing is these wild swings from basket case to thriving economy and back, like a clumsy driver trying to collect a 1947 Buick whose tail has gone away on a slippery corner. Will the next swing take us up a tree I wonder? Or is there really less difference between basket case and thriving economy than political ideologues claim to think? Surely there must be something in between which is more normal really?
Tchah! (and you do the damn maths. I couldn't begin to try, but I know crap when I see it).
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 8 Apr 13 at 21:48
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>> I haven't read all of this thread, but;
>>
>> Britain 1979 = Basket case
>>
>> Britain 1997 = Thriving economy
>>
>> Britain 2010 = Basket case
>
The middle assertion MAY be true albeit due to circumstance. But if we had half the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much better equipped to succeed in post 2007/8 post banking world.
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>> The middle assertion MAY be true albeit due to circumstance. But if we had half
>> the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much better equipped to succeed in
>> post 2007/8 post banking world.
>>
Exactly.
But someone in the meanwhile sold off the family silver.
Now... just who was that?
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By family silver do you mean the Gold?
Or do you mean all the utilities like Gas and Electricity??
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A question: why should the State (there is no such thing as "The Government's Money" - it's the taxpayer's money) provide housing?
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To stop homeless people sleeping outside your house maybe? Or breaking into your shed to get shelter.
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>> A question: why should the State (there is no such thing as "The Government's Money"
>> - it's the taxpayer's money) provide housing?
>>
Because all the workhouses were closed down? ;-P
Once upon a time, poor people either lived in workhouses, tied-houses or 'downstairs'
These options have on the most part gone.
There are still poor people around!
Council housing was on the most part cheaply built houses, that had been paid for many times over by the tenants. Many did need modernization, which should have been planned for, and paid for by increased rent.
(I admit, many council rents were too low)
Maggie sold off that stock, some people were lucky, others discovered to their cost just how much work was required on the houses and ultimately lost them.
There are people who can not , and never will be able to get on the housing ladder.
Those people are the ones that are bled dry, whilst their landlords are making fortunes.
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>> By family silver do you mean the Gold?
>>
>> Or do you mean all the utilities like Gas and Electricity??
>>
The utility's and most manufacturing.
There are very few of decent size that are owned from within the UK, which means that profits from those end up outside the UK..
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>> The middle assertion MAY be true albeit due to circumstance. But if we had half
>> the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much better equipped to succeed in
>> post 2007/8 post banking world.
>>
Which industries do you mean?
British Leyland, Norton, Triumph, BSA, for example? All were losing money hand over fist and many just survived through government subsidy when they should have been left to go to the wall much earlier if they couldn't cut it. The industries that failed did so because a combination of poor management and unions who wouldn't accept the need for change crippled them, not because of any government policies.
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>But if we had half the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much better equipped to
>succeed in post 2007/8 post banking world.
Tell us about your time in nationalised British industry in the 70's Bromp. We can swap memories of how efficient and successful it was.
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>> >But if we had half the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much
>> better equipped to
>> >succeed in post 2007/8 post banking world.
>>
>> Tell us about your time in nationalised British industry in the 70's Bromp. We can
>> swap memories of how efficient and successful it was.
They're a different story. Most of the industry that went to the wall in the monetarist experiment was in the private sector.
BMC/Leyland of course was nationalised because it was so well invested and managed by the private sector that the state had to sequester its vast profits.
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The middle assertion MAY be true albeit due to circumstance. But if we had half the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much better equipped to succeed in post 2007/8 post banking world.
I worked in a lot of that industry. Most of it was outdated , inefficient and badly run.
I find it hard to read your comment without thinking you have no idea how out of date industry was. When most of the mills closed - eg the UK textile industry - the equipment was 50 years old or older.. Yes it (the equipment) was sold abroad but it was only economic where wages were under 10% of UK wages.
See the car industry as an example. What is left is far better equipped and run with better models and employs at most 20% of the level the UK industry did 30 years ago.
Of course if British Governments were serious about keeping UK industries they would have cut benefits and wages and spent the money investing in industry.. Thus giving industry a chance of competing in the short term.. and building a longer term future. Strangely enough they did not.
Anyone who suggests the UK textile industry - as an example - would survive today competing against cheap imports has very rose tinted glasses.
Or the pottery industry.
Or the mining industry.
etc.
Last edited by: madf on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 08:54
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I think it is the way she went about it more than anything though. Entire communities were just left to rot. While I am not saying industry would be booming it wasn't for her,I personally think she went about it the wrong way.
I have mixed feelings about the unions, I do accept they were out of control and they were holding back industry, at the same time I fully support the need for unions though my personal opinion is if you have a job just count your self lucky and get on with it.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 10:15
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>>Anyone who suggests the UK textile industry - as an example - would survive today competing against cheap imports has very rose tinted glasses.
It failed through lack of investment, I suppose. It seems the British tradition has generally been more "get rich quick" than "5-year plan". I was asked to investigate the eastern European market for a snazzy new automated toe-closer (to knit up the toes of hosiery) in about 1970. What was the home demand, I asked? There wasn't any, I was told, the kit was too advanced for UK users.
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>> I find it hard to read your comment without thinking you have no idea how
>> out of date industry was. When most of the mills closed - eg the UK
>> textile industry - the equipment was 50 years old or older.. Yes it (the equipment)
>> was sold abroad but it was only economic where wages were under 10% of UK
>> wages.
>>
>> See the car industry as an example. What is left is far better equipped and
>> run with better models and employs at most 20% of the level the UK industry
>> did 30 years ago.
>>
>> Of course if British Governments were serious about keeping UK industries they would have cut
>> benefits and wages and spent the money investing in industry.. Thus giving industry a chance
>> of competing in the short term.. and building a longer term future.
I visited enough factories on school visits, works experience etc to have some insight into the seventies shop floor.
It's also fairly well recorded that British industry emerged from the war in a poor state. However, in the post war boom it could continue to make adequate profits. Directors, few of whom had any real feel for the business lived well on the dividends and did nothing to invest. The same complacency allowed the excesses of union power to emerge with shop stewards effectively running aspects of the line.
Come the seventies, when investment was vital, it was no longer viable becuase the monetarist experiment pushed borrowing rates up while the high pound restricted scope to export and sucked in 'cheap' imports.
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>> Come the seventies, when investment was vital, it was no longer viable becuase the monetarist experiment pushed borrowing rates up while the high pound restricted scope to export and sucked in 'cheap' imports.
>>
Brompt, as you correctly state investment in industry was vital during the seventies - late in the day but still time to turn things round (BTW I worked in factories then, my experience wasn't from school visits). But when it comes to laying the blame at government policy it would be well to remember that Labour were in power for most of the decade and the Tories little spell of office in the early period were under the left leaning Heath.
So blaming Thatcher's monetarist policies completely misses the target, she didn't take office till 1979.
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>> Come the seventies, when investment was vital, it was no longer viable becuase the monetarist
>> experiment pushed borrowing rates up while the high pound restricted scope to export and sucked
>> in 'cheap' imports.
Why do you keep bleating out the "Monetarist experiment" line, like some left wing union leader spouting communist party doctrine?
Why don't you correctly refer to it as Free Market Economy? Which we still have BTW. As does all of Europe.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 12:15
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>> Why do you keep bleating out the "Monetarist experiment" line, like some left wing union
>> leader spouting communist party doctrine?
>>
>> Why don't you correctly refer to it as Free Market Economy? Which we still have
>> BTW. As does all of Europe.
Becuase an experiment is exactly what was conducted on th UK economy in the early years of Thatcher's rule - she eased off later.
What on earth is the connection between a Free Market Economy and a government that focusses on control of the 'money supply' above all else?
Do you not remember the publication of Sterling M this that or the other being given the same reverence as earlier governments put on Unemployment numbers?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 12:22
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>>Do you not remember the publication of Sterling M this that or the other being given the
>>same reverence as earlier governments put on Unemployment numbers?
Well, that's a very skewed way of writing it! But given the rate at which Sterling had been printed in the 1970s by your lot, it was about time that somebody realised that Britain's problem was the control of inflation and the proof of this control that the world could see was in the money supply.
Don't forget, foreign newspapers described Britain as 'the sick man of Europe' by 1979. Thanks, Mr Callaghan (and Wilson, and Heath).
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No market is entirely free. Not the USA (big federal subsidy to defence, aviation and agriculture) with tentacles into our industry via , nor China with subsidy priced steel, nor Japan with the direction of industry via various channels and protection, the EU with different "arrangements" to enable some measure of subsidy.
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>I visited enough factories on school visits, works experience etc to have some insight into the seventies shop floor.
School visits and a bit of work experience gave you an insight into 1970s shop floor?
I assume that on your school trips you asked union officials why they demanded uplifted pay for operating new machinery that negated the point of buying it?
You wondered why the easiest way to take the first step on the promotion ladder was to become a mouthy union official not through skill and experience?
You were curious about the untouchable workers? - I've seen the driver of a 200 ton overhead crane being told to go and sleep it off.
You never saw the deliberate sabotage of equipment if someone decided they didn't want to do any work that day?
Most importantly, it was fully explained to you why a young male on 'work experience' should never enter a dept. full of women on their own?
You really haven't a clue.
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>> But if we had half the industry now we had in 1979 we'd be much better equipped to
>>succeed in post 2007/8 post banking world.
Really? Uneconomic mines; struggling shipyards; Delorean cars; Montego; Maxi; Maestro etc. etc. etc. You do write some rot, Brompton.
Instead of just guessing, try reading some hard facts. Here: www.pwc.co.uk/assets/pdf/ukmanufacturing-300309.pdf
The report was written in 2009, so it's a bit out of date, but as manufacturing is a long-term enterprise, the odd four years will make no significant difference. And it is written by that famously Labour-supporting firm, PwC too. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9164870/The-Labour-Party-sponsored-by-PricewaterhouseCoopers.html
Strip out the facts from the fallacies, and the truth is that the real value of UK manufacturing
output has increased in 35 out of the past 50 years, and as the graph below proves, 2007
was a record year for UK manufacturing production
Automation, and a move from heavy engineering (which is labour intensive and it is impossible to build ships in competition with China) has meant that the percentage of the population thus employed has inevitably reduced.
etc. etc. etc.
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>> Wild you took the words right out of my mouth :). Her policies have directly caused the housing problem we have now have. Yes you could say my grandparents contributed to that by buying their house under the right to buy scheme. >>
Remind me how many council houses were built during the period the last Labour Government was in power?
I should imagine that your grandparents were absolutely delighted to be able to have taken advantage of the Right To Buy scheme.
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S'funny ya know, reading through this fred, I haven't larfed so much in years (note to self: must get out 'moor)
I don't think there's ever bin a fred with sooooooo many scowlies either.
S'good also to see who swings to the loony left, and who is right thinking (IMO)
RIP Margaret - and Thank You.
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This event has opened the media floodgates and today's Telegraph devotes over 70% of its large space to MT. I note the kids won't be hurrying back and see parallels between her and the Queen: staunch domestic support, albeit from someone who is a bit of a clown and some unsatisfactory children.
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At my age (!) I lived through the Thatcher years as well as her predecessors and successors.
I admired her then, voted for her and admire a good deal of her legacy now.
Much is made of the miners and pit closures. This is an emotive issue where I live - Scargill territory in the North Notts and South Yorks coalfield areas.
The closure of the mines has undoubtedly left scars in our locality. There are districts and mining villages where we are now in the third generation of folk who have never worked. Social issues such as drugs and drinking are a real problem.
What, however was the alternative? The price of coal - largely due to imports - had reached a point where it was uneconomical to carry on mining in this country. Every ton of coal produced cost more than it could be sold for, meaning that there was effectively a tax payer's subsidy keeping mines open.
Other nationalised industries were in the same unsatisfactory situation.
The choice was between continuing the subsidies or paying more unemployment benefit to workers whose jobs had disappeared. I imagine in those days, it was thought that unemployment of the dispossessed workers would be for a considerably shorter time than it turned out to be. Hindsight gives a different perspective, though.
The Poll Tax (so called) was, I think, a genuine attempt to relate the use and cost of local services directly to individuals living in the local area. It seems perfectly logical to me that local services are paid for by all people living in that locality.
Council tax is a blunt edged weapon.We live in a band "A" house, but pay substantially less council tax (while using the same local facilities) as another couple who happen to live in a higher banded house. This is not often reflected in relative incomes and to me is intrinsically unfair.
So the Lady's legacy is a bit like the curate's egg, but the disgusting reaction of the ignorant trolls of the left reminds me that basically she "done good"!
Last edited by: Roger on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 11:07
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Well the funeral is next week, the route is now decided, some describing it in terms with Winstone Chuchills.
Someone asked me if I would go, and my reply was "Only if they load her body onto a train pulled by a Battle of Britain class loco named after her, and driven at speed up to 100 MPH up the East Coast Main Line to her place of birth" like Churchill was.
However, the point of this rambling post is, I bet you any money you like, one of the Train Operating Companies using the East Coast Main Line past Grantham, name a Loco after her.
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>> Well the funeral is next week, the route is now decided, some describing it in
>> terms with Winstone Chuchills.
I suspect your prediction about a train operator is right. Would East Coast do it while still under DoR management though. Might be seen as a wee bit political?
Churchill's return to Blenheim was by a curious route. Rather than the obvious way from Paddington the train ambled to Reading over Southern metals.
The reason was said to be that Churchill wanted to force De Gaulle, as part of the memorial cortege, to visit Waterloo Station.....
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 12:28
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>> The reason was said to be that Churchill wanted to force De Gaulle, as part
>> of the memorial cortege, to visit Waterloo Station.....
I dont suppose Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un will be in the invite list?
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>> The choice was between continuing the subsidies or paying more unemployment benefit to workers whose jobs had disappeared.
No it wasn't. That was only the line peddled by both the Labour AND Tory parties at the time because it suited their interests and dogma. What was really needed was a third option which would both address the shortcomings of the UK economy but also do it in a humane way.
Labour were handicapped from formulating a coherent policy for doing this due to the sheet anchor of the trade union movement, and lost a good portion of those modernisers who had some decent ideas to the SDP. The "New" Labour driving idea of combining efficiency and social fairness, such as in Germany, was/is a good idea in principle, but suffered from being hijacked by Blair & Brown.
The Tories recognised the problems but offered only right-wing "free market at all costs" solutions plus the experiments of the Chicago School of Monetarism led by Milton Friedman. There were winners and losers in this, but the Tories appeared callous to the casualties.
All countries have left-of-centre parties and right-of-centre parties, but I submit that the ones that we have in the UK are practically and intellectually inferior to the best of those from other democratic countries. In the jargon of our time, they are not "Fit for Purpose".
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>> All countries have left-of-centre parties and right-of-centre parties, but I submit that the ones that
>> we have in the UK are practically and intellectually inferior to the best of those
>> from other democratic countries. In the jargon of our time, they are not "Fit for
>> Purpose".
>>
Completely and totally agree.
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So that leaves us with the LibDems then. I look forward to their landslide victory in 2015.
;-)
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An original point in this debate Londoner! We do seem saddled with our "heritage". The workers hate management, management despise both the workers and the owners, and the owners are dreaming of knighthoods and tax havens:) The "gentlemen do not read balance sheets" view, set out in Hamilton-Paterson's book. Maybe it woud have been better to have drawn WW2. Then we'd have to examine our performance, rather than have the innate British sense of superiority apparently confirmed.
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>> All countries have left-of-centre parties and right-of-centre parties,
But they are all, slightly left or slightly right. The swing from one to the other is barely noticeable. Ours are right out there, dogma based left and right. The Labour party for example swings more left and right than the left or right leaning parties of any other country.
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>> But they are all, slightly left or slightly right. The swing from one to the
>> other is barely noticeable. Ours are right out there, dogma based left and right. The
>> Labour party for example swings more left and right than the left or right leaning
>> parties of any other country.
Is that really true in te post war era Z?. We had a cohabitation of the centre from 1945 until 1979. Arguably, 1983 provided a stark left/right choice albeit distorted by the presence of the SDP.
From 87 on and particularly under Blair's New Labour project the Labour party moved towards a new concensus co-incident with Major.
Hearing TB's tribute to Thatcher last night reminded me just how far right he was. Certainly more so than a number of members of Major's Govt including Kenneth Clarke and Tony Newton (who's greatest legacy, DLA, is currently being emasculated by his successor).
The late great Alex Glasgow, writer and performer of some of the most biting politically satirical music of the sixties/seventies, sang 'The Candidate' which tracks a Labour man's move from left to right. The memorable lines are:
His heart is on the left but his wallet's on the right and it's only the wine he drinks thats red
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>> >> 'The Candidate' which tracks a Labour man's move from
>> left to right. The memorable lines are:
>>
>> His heart is on the left but his wallet's on the right and it's only
>> the wine he drinks thats red
>>
I can't remember where I found this, but it sums our system up nicely:
" It's called the trilateral system two parties run by the same hidden hands that say
the opposite of each other and an unelectable third party who try to legalise drugs
paedophilia and ban petrol. It gives the illusion of democracy and diverse political choice where there is in fact very little."
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I find the "celebrations" of certain people - both the politicians (not sure if Galloway counts as one) who should know better - and those too young to have had first-hand experience of Mrs T - thoroughly distasteful. What looting shops and attacking the police and expressing all kinds of nastiness about the manner of her death and her fate in the after-life has to do with any reasonable view of her is quite beyond me.
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Tue 9 Apr 13 at 17:14
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>> What looting shops and attacking the police and expressing all kinds of nastiness about the manner of her death and her fate in the after-life has to do with any reasonable view of her is quite beyond me.
Has there been looting and rioting already? I thought they would wait for the funeral. Really, have these people no shame?
:o}
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I do find it quite ironic that the head of the "Respect" party has been probably the most vocally disrespectful.
This is the other thing that I notice seems to accompany a disproportionate number of "lefties"; the whiff of hypocrisy. Liberal and tolerant...except towards those whose views differ from theirs.
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>> This is the other thing that I notice seems to accompany a disproportionate number of
>> "lefties"; the whiff of hypocrisy. Liberal and tolerant...except towards those whose views differ from theirs.
>>
The SWP's rag ran the headline "Rejoice".
Imagine the furore if a right wing paper did that on the death of someone like Tony Benn.
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>> The SWP's rag ran the headline "Rejoice".
>>
>> Imagine the furore if a right wing paper did that on the death of someone
>> like Tony Benn.
Err, Tony Benn never got to be PM and to transform British society.
If he had done and had succeeded in moulding society in his way of thinking then I suspect the outer reaches of the right would have done the same.
The SWP is a tiny fringe organisation peopled by nutters, albeit a few of them cuddly nutters.
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I think why tony benn was chosen he had strong ideas and was to many very similar to Thatcher. Not as successful by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a common comparison and a valid one I'd say.
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>> I think why tony benn was chosen he had strong ideas and was to many
>> very similar to Thatcher. Not as successful by any stretch of the imagination, but it's
>> a common comparison and a valid one I'd say.
Oh he was a conviction politician OK but much more human than Thatch - just listen to him being interviewed.
His achievements in office were modest but included the legislation to allow workers co-ops and getting funding to develop the BAe146 airliner - the most successful British jet airliner.
And while the NVT bike factory that got all the publicity failed Northampton's Daily Bread wholefood co-op, one of the first registered, is trading today.
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I wonder how much that would have been reduced if he'd have made pm? Power corrupting and all that. Still I think the comparison is valid. Yes I read one part of his political career when he was pmg, very interesting.
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>> I do find it quite ironic that the head of the "Respect" party has been
>> probably the most vocally disrespectful.
>>
>> This is the other thing that I notice seems to accompany a disproportionate number of
>> "lefties"; the whiff of hypocrisy. Liberal and tolerant...except towards those whose views differ from theirs.
>>
His job is, first and foremost, that of a celebrity. He has to keep himself in the public eye by doing something outrageous now and again.
If he was a WAG, he'd be getting into a car with no knickers on, but I doubt that would work for him.
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>> I do find it quite ironic that the head of the "Respect" party has been
>> probably the most vocally disrespectful.
>>
>> This is the other thing that I notice seems to accompany a disproportionate number of
>> "lefties"; the whiff of hypocrisy. Liberal and tolerant...except towards those whose views differ from theirs.
>>
Galloway only has "respect" from his client voters. He is, however, an extremely intelligent politician who trims his sails well to suit his own advantage.
"Liberal & tolerant......", oh boy, have you got the rest of that sentence correct.
Of course these days, "lefties" include all of the Labour and LibDems parties and a goodly swathe of what once used to be the Conservative party.
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I used to have a lot of "Respect" for GG, but I'll be crossing him orf my Christmas card list, that's for sure.
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>> Has there been looting and rioting already? I thought they would wait for the funeral. Really, have these people no shame? >>
See:
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/police-arrests-thatcher-death-parties
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Oh good God... thanks for the link Stuartli.
Of course one has to remember that without a good supply of utter boneheads (for cannon fodder among other things) the country would never have been great.
Much comment has said or implied that Mrs Thatcher made the country great again, or made us feel that we were great again. I don't think so myself. She just ran the place for a while without affecting its level of 'greatness' or otherwise.
Galloway is just a pimp, but there are a lot of people from northern industrial areas who are doing the old gravetop jig.
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>> >> What looting shops and attacking the police and expressing all kinds of nastiness about
>> the manner of her death and her fate in the after-life has to do with
>> any reasonable view of her is quite beyond me.
>>
>> Has there been looting and rioting already? I thought they would wait for the funeral.
>> Really, have these people no shame?
>>
>> :o}
>>
Was it was your daughters house warming that got out of hand?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22077072
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I doubt if she would have been there. She isn't that sort of lefty. Earnestly non-violent.
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"Why don't you correctly refer to it as Free Market Economy? Which we still have BTW. As does all of Europe."
And look at the state that FME has dropped us all into. Not just in Europe either.
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I think its fair to say from both here, and the general media feedback in general, she is the one PM from recent times that very much divided opinion.
Some love her for what she did, and some hate her for what she did. There doesnt seem to be too many in the "not bothered category".
I don't think any other PM since will have the same effect , OK Blair is a buffoon and war criminal but I still don't think he would get the same coverage when he pops his clogs.
Now is that a sad reflection on our leaders, the people who are supposed to lead the country and direct them,that since Maggie they have all just sort of shoe shuffled along and acted as caretakers without doing too much radically different from the previous Num 10 incumbent?
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Margaret Thatcher's legacy found in Australia
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22080553
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Baroness Thatcher has died following a stroke, - RattleandSmoke
