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finchy

seanoconn wrote:

I hope the devil is keeping her busy.

Newsflash from hell: Thatcher has teamed up with Satan and forced all of the demons to accept new contracts with the work now being outsourced to an American company. Satan says that he is delighted with the efficiency savings and many sinners are also secretly pleased as the company has lost their records and they aren't receiving any "service".

The company is based in a tax haven.

random man

Ballysmate wrote:

You are right 47b, I posted in haste.
It gets exasperating to hear people lay the blame at one person for all ills. Yes people may have been in despair but to claim it was like heroin supplied by the PM is nonsense. The champagne socialist, 'Degsy' Hattton, who was ultimately expelled from the Labour party, failed to run the finances in Liverpool and must share some blame.quote]

At least we agree on something - the extreme left and extreme right are as bad as one another and seek power to fuel their own ego rather than those they have been elected to serve, and the 70's and 80's swung from one extreme to another.

Mikey23

I just love these ignorant, I'll informed Neanderthal one liners from some folks who seem to have the political understanding of a mollusc. I had the misfortune to be living and working and trying to bring up a young family in the per thatcher era... And believe me it was pants. I voted for her three times and although I didn't agree with everything she did, I admired her for her honesty and integrity, her deep convictions and courage in carrying them out

seanoconn

Mikey23 wrote:

I just love these ignorant, I'll informed Neanderthal one liners from some folks who seem to have the political understanding of a mollusc. I had the misfortune to be living and working and trying to bring up a young family in the per thatcher era... And believe me it was pants. I voted for her three times and although I didn't agree with everything she did, I admired her for her honesty and integrity, her deep convictions and courage in carrying them out

Way to deliver a Neanderthal one liner back at the other Neanderthals

"Living in the Thatcher era was pants but I voted for her 3 times" ..... An astute political mind in action

Cleat Eastwood

Ballysmate wrote:

You are right 47b, I posted in haste.
It gets exasperating to hear people lay the blame at one person for all ills. Yes people may have been in despair but to claim it was like heroin supplied by the PM is nonsense. The champagne socialist, 'Degsy' Hattton, who was ultimately expelled from the Labour party, failed to run the finances in Liverpool and must share some blame.
On these pages Thatcher has been linked to the second Gulf War which started over 10 years after she was ousted.
If you look back at the 'Dogs' thread, you will see someone link Thatcher to the inception of the CSA, which was 3 years after she left. I make no comment on the validity of the CSA or the Gulf War, but it was not her doing.

If you follow the article though Ballysmate, it does say that she used her political to encourage the war. Haha and derek hatton isnt a champagne socialist - he's a fully paid up a-hole.

Even the police chief at the time in liverpool - ken oxford acknowledged and indeed reported ack to the government that heroin use and drug dealing, (heroin was no where the epidemic it became in the 80's) was a direct consequence of Thatchers policies.

You can't acknowledge a period referred to as the thatcher years and focus only her 'positive role' - you have to face up to the fact her policies created huge swathes of social decay.

Pross

seanoconn wrote:

Mikey23 wrote:

I just love these ignorant, I'll informed Neanderthal one liners from some folks who seem to have the political understanding of a mollusc. I had the misfortune to be living and working and trying to bring up a young family in the per thatcher era... And believe me it was pants. I voted for her three times and although I didn't agree with everything she did, I admired her for her honesty and integrity, her deep convictions and courage in carrying them out

Way to deliver a Neanderthal one liner back at the other Neanderthals

"Living in the Thatcher era was pants but I voted for her 3 times" ..... An astute political mind in action

He says living in the per Thatcher era which I take to mean pre Thatcher I read it the same as you at first too

seanoconn

Pross wrote:

seanoconn wrote:

Mikey23 wrote:

I just love these ignorant, I'll informed Neanderthal one liners from some folks who seem to have the political understanding of a mollusc. I had the misfortune to be living and working and trying to bring up a young family in the per thatcher era... And believe me it was pants. I voted for her three times and although I didn't agree with everything she did, I admired her for her honesty and integrity, her deep convictions and courage in carrying them out

Way to deliver a Neanderthal one liner back at the other Neanderthals

"Living in the Thatcher era was pants but I voted for her 3 times" ..... An astute political mind in action

He says living in the per Thatcher era which I take to mean pre Thatcher I read it the same as you at first too

Oops, my mistake.

Giraffoto

Mikey23 wrote:

. . .I had the misfortune to be living and working and trying to bring up a young family in the pre-Thatcher era . . .And believe me it was pants

Things were, indeed, startlingly bad. What she didn't do was to destroy a thriving manufacturing industry - it was in terminal decline. A lack of imagination and investment at the top meant that most of the factories were doing the same old thing year in and year out while foreign manufacturers were getting more effective and efficient. Nationalized industries were the same, only with more money thrown at them to no effect. And the unions appeared to have the destruction of any industry they worked for as their key objective - dockers demanding "embarrassment pay" for unloading toilets, shipbuilders holding up a build for weeks while they argued over whether a carpenter or metalworker should handle a laminated sheet, car makers negotiating such low quotas for a shift that the night shift routinely turned up with bedrolls, did their quota and slept for half the shift - the list goes on.

The (Labour) PM Jim Callahan told his colleagues, "if I were a young man, I'd emigrate". It was, in short, pants.

Mikey23

Granted...I don't think I phrased that very well! I was working for social security at the time and one of my jobs was to make welfare payments and food handouts to the families of striking miners in the Kent coalfields. As someone has eruditely pointed out on another thread they had to close because of the social and economic issues at the time but it was heartbreaking to know these people and to be part of their story. The three day week, the winter of discontent, red robbo, Arthur scargill, British industry being a laughing stock throughout the world, rampant inflation, I've seen it all. Give the old dear a good old kicking because she happened to have a place in history and had the bottle to do what needed to be done. But don't blame for all the ills of the world just because she had a blue dress, funny hair and voice and a handbag... She deserves better than that

pliptrot

What she does deserve is to be remembered as the woman who did a great deal of damage to the UK economy. Whether you believe they were necessary or you believe they were economic vandalism, you'd have difficulty denying that her policies were destructive and divisive and she made no effort to even consider what would come after the scorched earth policies of the early 1980s. if you think she was competent and had anything other than the interests of her cohorts and cronies in mind, consider the wholesale discounting of some prime companies - the scandal of selling BT, British Gas, the water companies, etc. at monstrous discounts. And perhaps worse still, successive Governments would not have dared to do what they did (and are doing) without her illiberal and repressive reshaping of society.

Mikey23

Yes, agree with much of the above. I don't believe that there was any overt cronyism in what she did. I just dont think she was built that way. I believe that she had a rather rose tinted view of humanity probably based on her Methodist roots and middle class upbringing. That the market is inherently benign and that benevolent capitalism would inevitably be the result if the bogey men were scared away. That the world is inherently grasping, manipulative and corrupt was not in her mindset. Therefore there was a tendency for one tyranny to be replaced with another. That, in my humble opinion was one of her biggest failings and she was too blooming intransigent and unwilling to listen to a contrary viewpoint...

Mikey23

And of we still live in the shadows of Thatcherism and will do so for many years to come. Both major parties are now right of centre to the point where they are almost indistinguishable and follow very obvious Thatcherite policies...

finchy

Mikey23 - what you said about intransigence and unwillingness to listen to people is why I support proportional representation. I believe in the collective wisdom of the crowd and think that the UK really did need a moderating voice during the premierships of Thatcher and Blair, who both seemed to have messiah complexes. While I agree with what DisgruntledGoat said earlier in this thread (or one of the 3 others about Thatcher), about concentrating too much on personality in British politics, I also think that twice since 1979, way too much power has been concentrated into the hands of tiny cliques with charismatic leaders.

Mikey23

Which says summat about the cult of personality that we all buy into. A politician has to look right, sound right, smile right. Poor old Geoffrey Howe looked like Harold the dormouse, tenaciously brought madam back to order and fell out of favour as a result. I still remember that eye watering resignation speech! Heseltine was tall attractive and intelligent but became a threat as a successor so got the boot. Ronnie Reagan she was clearly in love with and flirted outrageously

Giraffoto

johnfinch wrote:

I believe in the collective wisdom of the crowd

You should read some of the reviews on Amazon, that'll knock some sense into you. Or come to think of it, this forum

Peddle Up!

I guess with hindsight, Thatcher's greatest achievement was to allow a neoliberal agenda to prevail driven by and enriching the City, Wall Street and large corporations at the expense of democracy and the life quality of many citizens. She may, or may not have been comfortable with this. We'll never know now.

And yes, Blair, Brown and Cameron just carried on...

Daz555

Thatchers lasting legacy was that she moved left wing politics towards the centre and therefore of course she gave birth to New Labour.

The likes of Blair, Brown, Clegg, Cameron et al are all her creations.