The Margaret Thatcher is Dead Thread

[London Irish]

It's unbelievable how people swallow the lies churned out by Rupert Murdoch's rags about the miners. Thatcher's attack on the miners was never about the economics of coal mining, she spent billions of taxpayers momey preparing for the dispute, smashing the mining communities and then picking up the cost afterwards in terms of welfare payments.

For a real history of the dispute, start here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1163360,00.html

During the strike, 3,000 people were injured or hospitalised, including Scargill himself. 11,312 were arrested with 200 serving time in prison. In the many successful lawsuits for false arrest that followed the collapse of trials involving miners, the police were forced to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax payers' money in compensation. In an out-of-court settlement, South Yorkshire Police agreed to pay £425,000 compensation and more than £100,000 legal costs to 39 mineworkers. The settlement followed the collapse of prosecutions against 95 mineworkers for riot, unlawful assembly and other offences.

Two miners - Joe Green and Davey Jones - were killed on picket lines and three more died whilst digging for coal during the winter. About a thousand miners were sacked during the course of the strike. When the strike began, there were over 181,000 miners in 170 pits. Thatcher's victoty meant that by 2002, there were just 8,000 miners in 17 pits.

 

[Icy Gull]

London Irish - are you Bono in disguise

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Thatcher had balls. An 18 hour working day , 7 days a week. She was pretty ruthless in her percuit of her goals but her policy was generally let people make something for themselves if there are prepared to work.

She didn't like shirkers or spongers. She did bring in the council right to buy which has benefitted millions of council tenants but brought in the ill advised poll tax.

Gave the Argies a kicking but had no defence with the sinking of the Belgrano when it was sailing away out of the war zone killing 300 men.

My understanding of the mining situation was that it was losing a lot of money. You could argue that the government has a duty to subsidize it as some Northern towns depended on its production to prosper in other ways. Lots of other sectors have lost masses of staff and I haven't seen any nationwide rally for insurance workers !.

Some great strengths and some bad points but the strongest leader by far the Tories have ever had.

 

[dougdeep]

Stronger than Churchill?

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Good point !.

Strongest leader since the war.

 

[dougdeep]

Quiet today, isn't it!

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Wheres London Irish, I need another history lesson !.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Lazy bastards are all still in bed. Its a glorious day, England are about to beat the Frogs. Get up and get at it campers !.

 

[Hunting 784561]

The best endorsement you could give of Thatcher was that the the Labour party had to imitate her, and her Conservative party policies, in order to get elected in 1997...


She overturned the soft liberal consensus of both parties that had seen Britain decline economically after the war, and she revived a sense of entrepreneurialism in the British people, that had been long forgotten. As a country we were sinking fast in 1979, and she stopped the rot.


Unfortunately she did however go totally swivel eyed barking mad in the end. She lost the plot on Europe and the Poll Tax, and much like Tony Blair now, became so arrogant that she started to believe in her own invincibility.

 

[Gully]

Gareth is right in saying that she brought in the poll tax, she did however help perpetrate the old Anglo Scottish divide by introducing it north of the border a year before England, thus giving the Scots further reason to dislike those from south of the border. It was always my belief that the Government knew that the Poll Tax was a piece of flawed legislation, we always knew that Thatcher disliked the North of England, here was divine proof that she hated the Scots, after all there were few Tory MP's from north of Yorkshire so there was little to be lost in electoral terms.

One other thing that I disliked about Thatcher and her time in office was their failure to address the terrorist threat from the IRA, one would have thought that this would have been of prime concern, particularly after they were almost wiped out during the 84 conference in Brighton. At the time we had the farcical situation of terrorist leaders appearing on the TV with their words spoken by an actor, I had always considered that it would have been better to get the likes of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness straight in front of the camera after each atrocity and ask them to justify the actions. Instead we had a this sham form of censorship, worthy of a tin pot dictatorship in some unseen part of the World, not of a country considered by most to be one of the more civilised and democratic.

I am not saying that things are perfect now in Ulster, there are still punishment beatings and the occasional murder, however the approach of the Blair government has by and large removed the threat of Republican terrorist attack from our towns and cities, though I accept that it does exist from other terrorist organisations. By and large in Northern Ireland we have seen the proliferation of the ballot box over the armalite, it is just a pity that their approach there is totally inappropriate to the Middle East.

 

[Half Time Pies]

Martin Mcguiness is a terrorist who should be serving a long stretch at her Majestys Pleasure not be embraced as a politician. Maybe providing bin laden with a legitimate political platform might help the situation in the middle east, but would it be ethical?!

OK the killings have stopped over here, but the IRA has not disarmed as it was supposed to and the beatings and murders in Belfast are still much more than just occasional.

We have yet to see whether or not Blairs policy in Northern Ireland will bring long term peace to the region.

Thatcher took a hard line to terrorism as she did with foreign policy. She came to power at the during the cold war when power politics ruled, and, when the country was controlled by corrupt Unions that seemed intent on running Britains productive capabilities into the ground. Therefore judging her policies in the context of the current polictical environment is not possible.

Thatchers tough line was exactly what the country needed at the time and unlike Blair she certainly never simply was someones puppet. You knew with Thatcher that there was no Alistair Cambell telling her what to and what not to say, she said what she thought and believed was right for the country and importantly she followed through her convictions.

History will be kind to her.

 

[Gullet]

Thats more like it matey.

Loosing in the polls...go to war...suddenly win a huge support from the old war veterans. A cheap trick by the WORST primeminister this county has ever seen.

Major was a nob to.

So obviously you would have prefered to have had Thatcher lose the election and Neil Kinnock become Prime Minister? Great call.......NOT!!! Shows how much you know about it.
Worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen?.................HA HA HA HA HA ..........please tell me you're joking. You obviously weren't around during the Wilson and Heath governments. Actually how old were you during Thatchers' office?
Also, if you think going to war makes people more likely to vote you in Government, I think you'll find a certain Mr Blair will disagree with you judging by the recent local elections.

 

[Gwylan]

My understanding of the mining situation was that it was losing a lot of money. You could argue that the government has a duty to subsidize it as some Northern towns depended on its production to prosper in other ways. Lots of other sectors have lost masses of staff and I haven't seen any nationwide rally for insurance workers !.

Hmm...it's uneconomic to subsidise miners but it's all right to pour millions more subsidies into farmers' pockets.

Miners can thrown on the scrapheap with the minimum compensation, but 'privatised' industry facing problems can go back to the government to be bailed out (see BNFL, Railtrack -before its greed and incompetence got too much, water companies, Air Traffic control etc).

I realise that not all of these were under Thatcher but it was she who had the mantra of 'private good, public bad' and set us on the path to privatisation, disregarding the huge sums that would be required to maintain some of the infrastructure. But Thatcher's cronies would pocket the proceeds while the public would meet the costs, and her ministers would queue up to join the boards of newly privatised companies). Some might call strength, more objective viewers might call it corruption.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

Milk was introduced for kids like me who had to have their diet supplemented to stop us getting rickets due to lack of vitamin D.

By the 70's food rationing was a very distant memory and most kids were well fed.
We didn't need to fork out taxpayers money for something that most kids hated to drink anyway. Luke warm milk - yuck

Perhaps if schools were still feeding kids (cold) milk ... (and I used to get mine subsidised until the end of infants school in about 1986) then fewer of today's youngsters would be troughing themselves obese on Dairylea Lunchables. Just a thought.

I've got a bottle of very nice champagne at home which my dad gave me on my graduation day. I resolved to save it for the day I got a permanent job with my current employer, or the day Maggie snuffed it, whichever came first.

I've got the permanent job now, but thought I'd keep the champers anyway cos I'd have more fun celebrating that mad old bat's demise.

Any NSCers who want to come round and drink it with me are more than welcome!

 

[Gully]

The cleverest part of the privatisations was that we bought what we already owned, selling shares in public institutions to the general public was an incredibly smart way to boost income and help balance the budget. The funny thing was at the time everyone thought it would be a marvellous way to buy a share in the country, few probably thought that by retaining those institutions in public control and running them more efficiently would enable any profits to be re-invested thereby delivering the quality of services everyone desires at reduced cost.

The minute an institution comes under private control the main intention will be to run it for the profit of the shareholders, I don't believe that this has always lead to a better service being provided. In the case of the railways it has led to one organisation in charge of the track and buildings and numerous others running the trains, the contractorisation and sub-contractorisation of maintenance have compounded years of under-investment and reduced safety.

 

[Biscuit]

Selling the council houses. Another STUPID money spinner that has cost this country dear in the long run.

 

[Biscuit]

Any NSCers who want to come round and drink it with me are more than welcome!

See you there mate.

 

[Yorkie]

Selling the council houses. Another STUPID money spinner that has cost this country dear in the long run.

Why? My Mother is now 75 and owns her own house. She doesn't have to pay rent until her death or claim housing benefit because she is on a pension.

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

Yes, Yorkie. At an individual level, we'd all agree it's a great benefit.

But each new council house sale permanently reduces the nation's stock of affordable housing. Which then forces some other poor family to pay a far greater rent than your mother ever had to directly into the pocket of a greedy private landlord - or in the extreme, onto the street.

And that Thatcher initiative certainly helped feed the uniquely British, selfish obsession with property ownership, which has so inflated house prices that most young, would-be first time buyers are now excluded.

What's the good of owning obscenely over-valued property if it means your own children can't buy a house until you're dead?

 

[Yorkie]

That's where housing associations came into their own.

They now build the renting houses and better than the council houses that were available.