Margaret Thatcher

[golach]

Well if you were RN reserve you weren't there nor where you a serving member of the regular armed forces and saying you worked at MOD HQ is well laughable in the regs you'd be called a REMF which I suppose is as suitable a term as I can muster. I'm fully aware of the official secrets act and if you're as old as you suggest but still can't say anything that would say everything so don't try the James Bond I can't say anything line as its baloney used by floor sweepers to sound big down the pub !

What an insulting pratt you have turned out to be, Reservists be they RN, TA or RAF when called up are as much serving armed forces as you allegedly were, and still are in Afghanistan at the moment, where did I say I was trying to make myself a James Bond type, I just see no need to brag about what I did or did not do., OH I love my ignore button!!!

[John Little]

[QUOTE=RagnarRocks;1019626]

I've met a few funnily enough two arms two legs, eyes all the usual bits the same as the rest of us they really are nothing to be scared of :0)

Ah, but there are quite a few of the left, as there are of the right, who would shoot you for disagreeing with them.

Poor Duke is a hell of a nice chap and does not deserve to be shot.

Now me, I am a Social Democrat and look for balance in society. They would shoot me too.

[RagnarRocks]

What an insulting pratt you have turned out to be, Reservists be they RN, TA or RAF when called up are as much serving armed forces as you allegedly were, and still are in Afghanistan at the moment, where did I say I was trying to make myself a James Bond type, I just see no need to brag about what I did or did not do., OH I love my ignore button!!!

Reservist nowadays may play a role and during the world wars but back then in the 1980s it was not the case so my initial comment is correct you've served nowhere and done nothing, Therefor you do not have that particular right,revisionist history is unappealing at best So using the ultimate sacrifice of fallen comrades to justify your political points is unacceptable ! And should you ever wish to see a service record, medals earned and scars worn after I'd be more than happy to compare them against yours ! Of which I suspect you possess zero !

[piratelassie]

Thatcher was a wicked uncompromising tory bag. She supported dictators, called Nelson Mandela a terrorist and among other things did more damage to Brittish industry than Hitler ever managed.

Why thank you sir (or madam)Mrs Thatcher had great success as the PM as well as many lows.However that was just her career.She wasn't a cold blooded killer, a rapist, a pedophile or and other such horror.She was the PM who was elected by us.In the past weeks, months and years though she was simply a unwell old woman at the end of her life. And to see folk saying good riddance etc is plain distasteful, I wonder what they would say if the same was said of their loved ones when they pass away?

[secrets in symmetry]

Don't forget that the worst of Thatcher's many appalling Chancellors was a northern Scot - and an even more northern one than (m)any of us!

[theone]

It amazes me the amount of people on here, on facebook and beyond who want to celebrate Thatcher's death.

Like her or not, she was voted in as PM 3 times through democratic process. Disagree with her policies - fair enough - but the fact is the majority of the electorate wanted her and her party in power at that time.

That's democracy. If you don't agree with it, offer a solution.

I've never voted conservative in my life, but the fact is her party was voted in following the "winter of discontent" when the voting public became fed up of being held to ransom by the trade unions. Although I don't agree, I can understand why.

She wasn't a dictator. She was what the public voted for. Mocking her or celebrating her death is, in my opinion, really is a bit sad.

[macadamia]

Amen to that. Grave-dancers demean only themselves.

[Phill]

Oh this is nice!
In other news, City won!

[RagnarRocks]

Why is it on this forum that the left wingers think it acceptable to personalise everything resort to name calling or direct personal attacks doesn't inspire me to feel they have valid points or a cause worthy of intellectual consideration! There are aspects of socialism I embrace fully so the concept itself isn't all bad.But in this particular instance over the death of an elderly woman a mother and grandmother and our first female prime minister democratically elected and voted in 3 times any sane person must consider whether basic common decent behaviour is too much to ask for!

[Flynn]

Why is it on this forum that the left wingers think it acceptable to personalise everything resort to name calling or direct personal attacks doesn't inspire me to feel they have valid points or a cause worthy of intellectual consideration! There are aspects of socialism I embrace fully so the concept itself isn't all bad.But in this particular instance over the death of an elderly woman a mother and grandmother and our first female prime minister democratically elected and voted in 3 times any sane person must consider whether basic common decent behaviour is too much to ask for!

Chileans wouldn't mourn Pinochet, even though at the end he was a 'frail old man', and I strongly doubt Zimbabweans will mourn Mugabe, even though he will likely be a 'frail old man' at the end. She's mother to a lawbreaking arms dealing son, and a bigoted racist daughter. Her legacy does indeed live on in her progeny.

Closed Britain's industries, privatised the utilities, privatised public transport, deregulated the stock market and banks, sold off social housing on the cheap.

How well did all that work out?

Let's see:

We still have mass unemployment first created by closing down Britain's industrial base. We had near full employment when she was first elected.
We have the most expensive gas, electricity, and water in Europe.
Our railways are now the most expensive in Europe, and buses only run profitable routes leaving millions with no bus services.
The country is bankrupt and in a deep recession due to deregulated money trading and banking.
We now have a massive housing shortage and an enormous housing benefit bill due to the lack of social housing because she wouldn't allow councils to build more social housing with the money they got from council house sales.


Great legacy

Elected three times. First time on the back of nationwide industrial unrest. The second on the back of an unnecessary war. The third on the back of selling people their council house on the cheap. Looks like one easy win and two bought elections to me. And let's not forget she wasn't voted out, her own party got shot of her because they'd had enough of her.

[squidge]

I have been taken aback by the visceral nature of the comments made everywhere over the death of Margaret Thatcher. I am no supporter of her policies and I think her premiership led to dreadful inequalities and hopelessness that we have struggled to rectify since. I could not bring myself to have a street party to celebrate the death of anyone. I read this yesterday on facebook and felt it is worth repeating here. I will not credit it with the persons name but in the midst of the whirlwind of vicious unpleasantness and hate I have read all day, I felt this person said somethings worth reading.

"During the 1984/85 Miners' strike, Margaret Thatcher called my dad, my family & all our mining communities "the enemy within." That really hurt me a lot, as I was only young & had never before seen such vicious class hatred. We suffered a lot. Everybody did. My mum's health was vulnerable, so she had multiple heart attacks due to fuel poverty - no heating in the freezing cold, as the Tories tried to starve my dad back to work. (Mum became a cardiac cripple, was brain damaged & died a few years later, still in her 40s. My dad wasn't long behind her.)

When Norman Tebbit was pulled out of the rubble alive after the IRA Brighton Bombing the same year as the strike, my parents made me promise them that I would never let anger about Thatcherism cause me to lose my humanity. So I have sympathy for Mrs Thatcher's bereaved loved ones. Any loss is painful & it must have been hard for them to watch her deterioration as a frail old woman.

But my thoughts are elsewhere, with all those who have suffered or died before their time due to neo-liberalism - the new name for Thatcherism. They are too many to mention, but include young conscripted Argentinian sailors murderer in Thatcher's war crime on the Belgrano; the 'disappeared' who were thrown out of helicopters in Chile by Thatcher's great friend Pinochet. My thoughts are with all those who died in Reagan's wars. Also with the children in Libya who died when F1-11s based in the UK bombed Gadaffi. My thoughts are with my own relatives who died and with everyone in the former mining communities who is still hurting.My thoughts are also with those who are suffering throughout the world today due to the financial crisis caused by neo-liberal economics and due to imperialist wars.

In the UK there is a new 'enemy within' - anyone poor or disabled who is on benefits or has a spare bedroom. So enjoy your street parties, but I feel rather solemn & sad & don't feel like dancing on an old woman's grave. I'd rather have a quiet glass of champagne & resolve to step up my efforts to bury Thatcher's utterly failed, morally bankrupt ideology. I'll toast those who have gone before and all those throughout the world who have struggled against neo-liberalism. I'll mourn the utter betrayal of the working class by the UK Labour party. Wherever you are in the world, my thoughts are with you in your personal & political struggles. "

Now you may find the language too lefty for your liking but This person had their political views shaped and nurtured by the policies of Margaret Thatcher. Policies which were divisive and have led to dreadful inequalities. I cannot mourn her or feel sad but I cannot dance on her grave either.

[M Swanson]

You won't see it that way, but whether you like it, or not, in writing this post I've no doubt that you've joined the grave dancers and having a whale of a time. Somehow, I expected a little better from you Squidge. Ah! Well!

[RecQuery]

The Thatcher effect on the UK's Gini coefficient.

I can also do charts, sans the misleading cherry picking.

Unemployment levels skyrocketed, and have never returned to pre-Thatcher levels.



GDP per capita was essentially the same as other European countries, who didn't have similar leaders.

Actually GDP started in a recession, left in a recession. She presided over a natural recovery, there's a similar Gini index graph for all western democracies at that time.



On a side note and as a point of order GDP is not the Economy.

http://www.neweconomyworkinggroup.org/visions/living-wealth-indicators/gdp-flawed-measure-progress

Then there is also the fact that GDP takes no account of how income is distributed. There could be complete income equality with everyone's purchasing power growing equally. Or the society may be divided between a small minority of the extremely affluent and a majority of the extremely destitute---or anything in between. GDP gives no clue one way or the other. Growth in the incomes of a few billionaires can produce impressive growth in GDP even as a majority of people starve.

Underlying all these deficiencies is the simple fact that GDP is based on market transactions, which means GDP is a measure of the rate at which money is flowing through the economy. Anything that increases the flow is therefore treated as a positive, even if it is clearly a negative for the society. Furthermore, because money metrics make no distinction between phantom wealth and real wealth, activities that generate profits from purely financial transactions unrelated to the creation of anything of real value count as additions to GDP and presumably to national well-being.

That is why restructuring the economy to shrink the manufacturing sector and grow the financial sector could appear to make us richer as a nation, when in fact it reduced our capacity to produce real things in favor of giving priority to generating profits from the exchange of worthless financial assets.

Thatcher is only really liked by a certain type of person living in the home counties.

[squidge]

M Swanson you dont half post some nonsensical stuff. How is it dancing on someone's grave to express a view that she was divisive and her policies led to inequalities? I thought this was a measured and unhysterical explanation of the view of someone who might well be expected to join in with the hysteria that is going on. A good way to balance things out. As for what YOU expect of me M Swanson.... I utterly do not care one iota for your opinion, good bad or indifferent I utterly do not care.

[M Swanson]

Nope! You just used someone elses bigotry to gate-crash the party, Squidge, imo.

[secrets in symmetry]

As I said last night...

I did my celebrating as a young loon when she died as a politician on November 22, 1990. Today's event was the sad death of a sick old lady.

I don't dance on her grave, but I don't denigrate those who do, because I too recall her appalling economic, monetary, and social records. She was the architect of our country's present day economic imbalance, and the architect of its inequality. Indeed, Michael Forsyth was beaming on TV this morning, whilst explaining exactly how she destroyed Scottish industry and replaced it with, err, ..., nothing. Well, not quite, she replaced it with unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and despair. Coal, steel, automobiles - she destroyed them all. Forsyth still doesn't understand what they did wrong, and I suspect the sick old lady didn't understand either.

Her successors Major, Blair and Brown, didn't do much to redress her industrial lunacy. If we want a strong woman leader who knows which way to drive the economy, we should reach out and steal Mrs Merkel - although I doubt we'd find much solace in many of her other policies....

[M Swanson]

If Margaret Hilda and her policies are as awful as you claim, SiS, then why, in 12 years governance did Labour do nothing to change them?

I wonder how many of you grew and prospered during her Premiership?

[golach]

As I said last night...

I did my celebrating as a young loon when she died as a politician on November 22, 1990. Today's event was the sad death of a sick old lady.

I don't dance on her grave, but I don't denigrate those who do, because I too recall her appalling economic, monetary, and social records. She was the architect of our country's present day economic imbalance, and the architect of its inequality. Indeed, Michael Forsyth was beaming on TV this morning, whilst explaining exactly how she destroyed Scottish industry and replaced it with, err, ..., nothing. Well, not quite, she replaced it with unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and despair. Coal, steel, automobiles - she destroyed them all. Forsyth still doesn't understand what they did wrong, and I suspect the sick old lady didn't understand either.

Her successors Major, Blair and Brown, didn't do much to redress her industrial lunacy. If we want a strong woman leader who knows which way to drive the economy, we should reach out and steal Mrs Merkel - although I doubt we'd find much solace in many of her other policies....

Have to agree with you on this one SiS, sorry M Swanson I do not think you will get many over this side of the border thinking as you do on the subject of Mrs T.

[secrets in symmetry]

Actually GDP started in a recession, left in a recession.

A point of order - her first recession was entirely of her own making. Even Cameron and Osborne wouldn't copy the crimes against economics committed by Thatcher and Howe (aided and abetted by Keith Joseph).

Her second recession was mostly the fault of John Major - before and after he became PM.

[M Swanson]

No problem Golach ...... I was already aware of that, but my beliefs are my own and as valid as anyone elses. I'm not afraid to air them in even the most hostile of surroundings. Would you have me any different?