Margaret Thatcher

[americantrotter]

Since when did being Liberal become a bad thing? If you like to call us names, you better take a look at what that brings. The US is dominated by those that despise liberalism and consider it a vice. I dont think you want that do you?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

why do YOU hate Margaret Thatcher?

'Cos she got rid of free school milk and now all the best English footballers have got brittle bones.

That is actually something that never occured to me - could there be some correlation?

And there was me blaming all these metatarsal injuries on puffter boots!!!

Think the key here is that a medical term has come into common usage since Lord Beckham got injured. In the olden days it'd just be "broken foot" or "broken toe" and that's it. Probably not at all an uncommon injury in (fully milked-up) days gone by, but now we have a little knowledge - which is, of course, a dangerous thing.

but anyway, back to the politics...

[bobo the clown]

Since when did being Liberal become a bad thing?

Easy .... when 'liberalism' became a cover word for forcing people to take stances they don't actually believe in ... but are afraid that if they don't say the right things they'll be blackballed. (as per my much vaunted remark "liberal fascism").

Also, when 'liberal' laws, set with all the best intentions, are so easily driven a coach & horse through ... viz. the current fiasco of the Human Rights Bill. Because taking a 'liberal' position is contradictory. Live & let live doesn't improve freedoms, it subjugates everyone else's freedoms in the name of the person who shouts first.

There was plenty wrong with Thatcher, but you have to take yourself back to the '70's before condemming her out of hand. The extremities of union power led to her gaining office. The miners, dock-workers, car-workers, steel workers, print unions, electricitysuppliers, public-sector, teachers, breweries [now THAT should catch your attention !!]. Many of these truly, truly were seeking a socialist/communist/Trotskyist revolution.

TV/Broadcasting unions actually started to try to control what was put out on air.

Local councils were often overun by quasi-Trotskyites. Public service companies had crippling debts. Company's run to the ground by the unions were expected to be bankrolled by the state. In the end even the 'old' Labour party had to kick the Trots & Communists out. Remember Liverpool Council (Derek Hatton et al ?).

Tax at 95% of the marginal earnings above (approx) £40k pa in todays money was actually celebrated by Wilson & Healey ("we will tax the rich till the pips squeak"). That was YOU KEPT 5P FOR EVERY EXTRA £ EARNED !!! "Fancy some overtime tonight Bill ...." - "no ... not really !!"Investment was pointless ... so none came into this country and the brain drain occured.

We ended up with bodies not being buried. Can you imagine that ?


So she took over & turned matters around. Not, as you'll be led to believe, without support. The bulk of the population supported her. It's just that the bulk of the population aren't working for the BBC, or pop-singers & actors. The glitterati, the liberal elite get so much air time you begin to think you're the only one who dioersn't think the way they do. Britain desperately need what Thatcher brought & without it we'd have plummeted to near 3rd world status.

The current Labour government is the most authoritarian government since universal sufferage. They are positively anti-democratic. They lie, cheat and steal. They provide favours in repayment of support. They threaten & marginalise those who don't agree with them. They employ their own & are more elitest than any Tory Government for 100 years. They close in on any opposition. They run media campaigns to justify the unjustifiable. In short ... a disgrace. History will show them in their true light.


Now, I'll get off that fence ....

[Bruce Rioja]

Think the key here is that a medical term has come into common usage since Lord Beckham got injured. In the olden days it'd just be "broken foot" or "broken toe" and that's it. Probably not at all an uncommon injury in (fully milked-up) days gone by, but now we have a little knowledge - which is, of course, a dangerous thing.
but anyway, back to the politics...

Indeed. I've got to go in for a cartlidge op in a couple of months, when was the last time you heard of one of those? Made me feel like Neil Whatmore it did when they told me.

Oh, this is a politics thread isn't it?! Well then, I've only been on the waiting list for eight bleedin' months (there we go, that should do it )

[Albert Tatlock's Dad]

Since when did being Liberal become a bad thing?

Easy .... when 'liberalism' became a cover word for forcing people to take stances they don't actually believe in ... but are afraid that if they don't say the right things they'll be blackballed. (as per my much vaunted remark "liberal fascism").

Also, when 'liberal' laws, set with all the best intentions, are so easily driven a coach & horse through ... viz. the current fiasco of the Human Rights Bill. Because taking a 'liberal' position is contradictory. Live & let live doesn't improve freedoms, it subjugates everyone else's freedoms in the name of the person who shouts first.

There was plenty wrong with Thatcher, but you have to take yourself back to the '70's before condemming her out of hand. The extremities of union power led to her gaining office. The miners, dock-workers, car-workers, steel workers, print unions, electricitysuppliers, public-sector, teachers, breweries [now THAT should catch your attention !!]. Many of these truly, truly were seeking a socialist/communist/Trotskyist revolution.

TV/Broadcasting unions actually started to try to control what was put out on air.

Local councils were often overun by quasi-Trotskyites. Public service companies had crippling debts. Company's run to the ground by the unions were expected to be bankrolled by the state. In the end even the 'old' Labour party had to kick the Trots & Communists out. Remember Liverpool Council (Derek Hatton et al ?).

Tax at 95% of the marginal earnings above (approx) £40k pa in todays money was actually celebrated by Wilson & Healey ("we will tax the rich till the pips squeak"). That was YOU KEPT 5P FOR EVERY EXTRA £ EARNED !!! "Fancy some overtime tonight Bill ...." - "no ... not really !!"Investment was pointless ... so none came into this country and the brain drain occured.

We ended up with bodies not being buried. Can you imagine that ?


So she took over & turned matters around. Not, as you'll be led to believe, without support. The bulk of the population supported her. It's just that the bulk of the population aren't working for the BBC, or pop-singers & actors. The glitterati, the liberal elite get so much air time you begin to think you're the only one who dioersn't think the way they do. Britain desperately need what Thatcher brought & without it we'd have plummeted to near 3rd world status.

The current Labour government is the most authoritarian government since universal sufferage. They are positively anti-democratic. They lie, cheat and steal. They provide favours in repayment of support. They threaten & marginalise those who don't agree with them. They employ their own & are more elitest than any Tory Government for 100 years. They close in on any opposition. They run media campaigns to justify the unjustifiable. In short ... a disgrace. History will show them in their true light.


Now, I'll get off that fence ....

Don't agree with that but I'm too tired to reply at the moment.

I have totally the opposite view on most of it, which I'd be able to back up with similar but opposing statements to the ones you've posted.

I think you could describe the mid-nineties in equally frightening terms - high interest rates, no investment in schools or hospitals for years, reducing numbers of nurses, doctors and policemen, years of financial instability, increasing child poverty etc.

So, I'd say that this posting has probably gone far enough.

You either have one view of Thatcher or the polar opposite. That was the issue with the original posting.

[TANGODANCER]

Well, here's a cracker from the current regime:

My wife works at Bolton General Hospital, ie The Health Athority. She works with mentally damaged males,a lot of them ex-boxers, footballers and tramps from the streets. They are above a certain age but can still be a handful. To this end, every three months or so she has to attend a C&E (control and restraint) course to learn handling techniques and self protection without hurting the patients. Fine, she has to do this to keep up her certification in case of personal injury.

The rub is, not only does she lose a shift to attend the course, and travel to Prestwich to do so, she doesn't get paid for going. Travel and meal expenses come out of the pockets of anyone attending (which is compulsary) and they lose a days pay in the bargain. All due to budget cuts by the HA. What a great incentive to attract people to a job I wouldn't do for £500 per week, never mind the pittance wages they get.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Tax at 95% of the marginal earnings above (approx) £40k pa in todays money was actually celebrated by Wilson & Healey ("we will tax the rich till the pips squeak"). That was YOU KEPT 5P FOR EVERY EXTRA £ EARNED !!! "Fancy some overtime tonight Bill ...." - "no ... not really !!"Investment was pointless ... so none came into this country and the brain drain occured.

We ended up with bodies not being buried. Can you imagine that ?

My father, a university-trained engineer, was a works manager for a Bolton construction company and, after six year of war service, an industrial consultant. By the time he was in his late fifties his salary got up to over UKP 5,000 p.a. and he paid Harold Wilson's Supertax. That was 19/6 in the pound which, Bobo, by my calculations comes out to 97.5%! He died in 1974 at age 63 and left nothing after a lifetime of hard work and service. Tax and inflation took away everything. So the pips did squeak even though he was not a rich man. The money I had in England at the time lost half its value almost overnight and I couldn't get it out because of currency controls. For me, the workers paradise had little appeal.

[plodder]

Well, here's a cracker from the current regime:

My wife works at Bolton General Hospital, ie The Health Athority. She works with mentally damaged males,a lot of them ex-boxers, footballers and tramps from the streets. They are above a certain age but can still be a handful. To this end, every three months or so she has to attend a C&E (control and restraint) course to learn handling techniques and self protection without hurting the patients. Fine, she has to do this to keep up her certification in case of personal injury.

The rub is, not only does she lose a shift to attend the course, and travel to Prestwich to do so, she doesn't get paid for going. Travel and meal expenses come out of the pockets of anyone attending (which is compulsary) and they lose a days pay in the bargain. All due to budget cuts by the HA. What a great incentive to attract people to a job I wouldn't do for £500 per week, never mind the pittance wages they get.

Tis a sorry tale, but the fault of the government?

I am sure that the trust has a whole regime of management in place to ensure that costs are cut and targets met. But only if they are able to review them on a daily basis in their meetings.

Not that I agree with the government but the management of the trust(s), who on average have had their funding increased by13% annually for the last four years. Anyway as a sid eissue ask your wife how many new posts and managers have been created over the last five years, what they actually do and how many colleagues have been taken off the wards.

The NHS in terminal decline...........................................

[fanz]

Who is in charge of the trusts? You can palm off some blame to them but ultimately the NHS is the governments responsibility and one they have managed extremely poorly IMO.

[plodder]

Who is in charge of the trusts? You can palm off some blame to them but ultimately the NHS is the governments responsibility and one they have managed extremely poorly IMO.

The Trust Director.

They have been managed poorly over many years.

[warthog]

Well, this thread is what you get, when you don’t listen to uncle Warthog.

Judging by his responses, I’m deeply suspicious of the person who started it. It seems like an opportunity to repeat, parrot fashion, what he’s been told, rather than a genuine attempt to gather opinions. Are you on a mission from the Young Conservatives Mummy?

As for Thatcher, the thing that appalled me at the time, and still does, is how easily the public fell for the rhetoric. According to the blurb from the Tories and the majority of the media, the blessed Margaret resided over a government that was strong on law and order, economically competent, encouraged entrepreneurs and was hot on individual share ownership and low taxes. It wasn’t quite like that.

The previous Labour administration had horrendous problems with inflation and it left behind a rate, just below 11%. A fact usually ignored, is that within months of Thatcher taking office, it had doubled as a whole raft of public sector pay demands were approved. Yes, you did read that last bit right.

As recently as 1990, just before she left office, inflation was 11% and unemployment 3 million. It takes monumental incompetence to have both of those at the same time. Even that unemployment statistic is suspect, since the government made 32 changes to the way the figures were calculated. Every one of those resulted in a reduced figure.

The average interest rate of the Thatcher-Major governments was an eye watering 12%. Get your calculators out and work out your mortgage payments if that figure were repeated today. Even worse, the rate was up and down like a bride’s nightie. Any entrepreneur will tell you that you need low and stable interest rates to promote economic growth.

Ah, but we all got the chance buy shares right? Granted, but the percentage of shares in the hands of individual investors, as opposed to financial institutions, was lower when Thatcher left office than when she arrived. Not quite the revolution in share ownership that we’re led to believe then.

You may have enjoyed the reduction in income tax, but it’s a pity you failed to notice the increase in National Insurance contributions or the more than doubling of VAT. In Thatcher’s first term in office the UK recorded it’s highest ever tax take as a percentage of earnings.

Well at least crime rates were lower weren’t they? Er nope, they rose steadily throughout the Thatcher reign, and it was years before the Conservatives acknowledged the link between crime and the poverty that they did so much to create.

Unemployment; the economy; education; the health service; defence; the miners strike; the poll tax – A thread could be devoted to every aspect of Thatcher’s time in office, but to judge her, have a look at some of the problems we face today and decide if her influence is still felt. The absence of compassion has been mentioned, but for me her biggest fault was an utter lack of vision.


The next time you’re grid locked in traffic, remember who dismantled a whole industry that revolved around the railways, when the country should have been developing an integrated transport system. Some of my friends – skilled engineers – lost their jobs because of that. They either moved abroad, resigned themselves to the scrap heap, or took jobs where they couldn’t utilise their talents. A good use of qualified personnel do you think?

Trying to find a good plumber or an electrician? Not easy is it? Yet, once upon a time, a sixteen year old leaving school could get an apprenticeship and learn a trade. That idea bit the dust as firms laid off employees, and the manufacturing industry was reduced to a fraction of it’s previous size. Poor old Margaret had the insane idea that the country could survive on service industries alone.

Still paying off that student loan? There used to be a non repayable grant system, but that had to be ditched because of the increased numbers entering higher education. Maggie and her witless bunch of incompetents, would have you believe that they had created a thirst for knowledge, but the truth was, that school leavers went to university because there were no jobs for young people. Unless, that is, you fancied being enslaved on a Youth Training scheme for two years, before being sacked as the next batch were recruited.

The housing shortage. It was a political brainwave to realise that the working class dream was to own their own home. That you could buy it for next to bugger all was even better. Ever wonder why councils don’t build houses anymore?

The anticipated fuel crisis. Only on Tuesday, Tony Blair committed the country to developing new nuclear power stations, because we’ll be heavily dependent on foreign gas. Suddenly, that decision not to invest in coal mines that could have been economically viable looks a bit short sighted don’t you think?

Political spin. Do you know who imported American electioneering techniques into the UK? Go on, have a guess. The end result here has been the same as it was across the pond. Electoral apathy.


Ok smartarse, I hear you say. If she was so bad, how did she last so long?

Well, she almost didn’t. The Tories were heading for almost certain electoral defeat when Argentina rather helpfully invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. Most people at the time, thought these were situated off the coast of Scotland, but got very jingoistic on hearing that a British lump of rock next to South America had fallen into foreign hands. Result: a thumping Conservative majority at the next election. If you think that the Falkland Islanders welcomed our boys, by the way, then think again. Ask any soldier who was there what a BUB is. Failing that, ask me nicely and I’ll tell you.

Post 1983, the economy picked up and people in work did well. Those who had bought property were delighted to see it rocket in value, not realising that that phenomena would once again cause inflation to spiral out of control (so much for that economic competence). You also had all those lovely privatisations to make easy money on too. Quids in for doing sod all. How good could it get?

If not in work, you were screwed. Same, if you lived in a community devastated by the closure of a pit or a factory. No one gave a toss. Depriving millions of people of income was as good a way as any, of controlling the money supply and fighting inflation. As far as the government were concerned, you were collateral damage.

The lack of opposition was the most significant factor. The Labour party spent the early eighties disembowelling itself. It’s leader, Michael Foot, was a decent man, but he wasn’t electable. Neil Kinnock, for all his efforts lacked gravitas. The Liberals were good for a few million votes, but they were distributed in such a way as to not garner many seats. The electoral boundaries, at the time, also favoured the Tories.

The parallels with Tony Blair are striking. Both he and Thatcher are vain, arrogant individuals, not given to listening, unless it’s to an American president. Both would have been better at their jobs with smaller majorities. Both faced hopeless opposition. Ultimately, Thatcher came close to destroying her own party, by a stubborn refusal to groom a successor. What’s the chance that Blair will do the same?

I don’t hate Margaret Thatcher though. I wouldn’t give the old bitch the satisfaction. After all, her time in office provided me with an essential insight, into how shallow, gullible and selfish human nature is.

[sluffy]

BBC4 tonight seems very relevant to this thread -

Tory! Tory! Tory!


23:50 - 00:50

Wednesday, 17 May
An insight into how the Centre for Policy Studies was developed in the mid-1970s as a means of encouraging free-thinkers to air their views on what was wrong with Britain and champion economic liberalism. Following the 1979 election, Margaret Thatcher found herself the most unpopular prime minister since polling began, but history was about to change with the Falklands War

On a personal note every member of my family was made redundant during the Thatcher years - except myself.

Only one member of my family has been made redundant during the Blair administration - me!

[TANGODANCER]

Good to see you back Warty. Do you have highlights of all that?

[Harry Genshaw]

Been reading this thread with interest.

Why do/did I hate Thatcher?

No investment in Social Housing, large scale unemployment with the true figure being disguised ("a price worth paying"), casualisation (particularly in the case of the Dockers) etc etc.

In a nutshell - I agree with Warthogs every word.

One query though? Monty you mentioned something about 3 pages back with the SAS covertly entering Argentina and hiding stuff in the jungle? I'd never heard of this, can you shed any light on it? Are there any jungles in Argentina? If they entered via Chile surely they would have gone through Patagonia? My recollection of there is a pretty treeless environment?

[Montreal Wanderer]

One query though? Monty you mentioned something about 3 pages back with the SAS covertly entering Argentina and hiding stuff in the jungle? I'd never heard of this, can you shed any light on it? Are there any jungles in Argentina? If they entered via Chile surely they would have gone through Patagonia? My recollection of there is a pretty treeless environment?

Actually, Harry, this would be south of Patagonia where a jungle (as in rain forest) would be even less likely to occur (my usage was misleading ). The Argentinians kept their Super Etenard bombers and mirage fighters at the Rio Grande airfield at a similar latitude to the Falkland. Prior to the landing on the Falklands the only threats to the Task Force were considered to be submarines (there were only four, one of which was destroyed ealier and two that didn't work as it turned out), the Belgrano, and the bombers with the exocet missiles. In an attempt to neutralize the third, the British landed an SAS party in a remote part of Chile in the region of Punta Arenas, crossed into Argentina (50 miles) and attempted to blow up the bombers. Details are a little sketchy on how successful this was - some aircraft said to have been destroyed while other sources suggest they never reached Rio Grande. Regardless of the outcome, the threat was sufficient for the Argentinians to hide the bombers off the airfield at night although no such repetition of the raid occured (another was planned using submarines but the war ended before it was enacted). When the seven SAS troops returned either the helicopter broke down or there was insufficient fuel for the return. They were captured by the Chileans, and Chile initially protested about the infringement of its neutrality. Britain said it had been an emergency landing and requested humanitarian assistance. Nothing more was ever said of the matter at the time, but one imagines Maggie had been on the 'phone to Pinochet, who hushed up Chilean protests. The men turned up in the UK three weeks later. There is a strong belief that Pinochet was well aware he had been Galtieri's alternative target and had a secret entente with the UK about the war. This had to remain secret because to side with the Europeans against the South Americans would have been politically difficult. The raid was part of a larger plan called Operation Mikado which involved landing two Hercules transoprts with 50 SAS soldiers at Rio Grande. The operation was scrapped (when it transpired Argentinian radar was better than previously thought) in favour of the submarine plan. Definitive details are probably still secret although a number of accounts have been published.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Good to see you back Warty. Do you have highlights of all that?

Is it possible Mummy started this thread because he knew Warty would react to praise of Thatcher by coming out with all tusks blazing? Anyway, good to see you back Warty - I have been following your thoughts on that other forum.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Well, this thread is what you get, when you don’t listen to uncle Warthog.

Judging by his responses, I’m deeply suspicious of the person who started it. It seems like an opportunity to repeat, parrot fashion, what he’s been told, rather than a genuine attempt to gather opinions. Are you on a mission from the Young Conservatives Mummy?

I have just read this thread through for the first time, and what exactly is it that you think we got Warty?

I can assure you that your suspicions about me are misplaced. I am not a member of any political party - I have only known New Labour and Blair while I have been old enough to understand what's going on. For the moment, I do consider myself a Conservative in the absence of any better option. This was a genuine attempt to gather opinions, and I think it was a successful one. I genuinely don't understand why so many people are perpared to say "I hate the fecking Tories" without really having a clear picture of why.

I don't think Thatcher was perfect - in fact it is a source of regret for me that her personal skills (of lack thereof) have left a huge mountain for the Conservatives to climb if they are ever to get back in power again. It seems that a great deal of the anti-Thatcherism isn't about what she did as much as the way she did it. It's not like she's a hero of mine or anything, and I wasn't around to see the effects that her policies had on people, but there is an irresistable logic to the economics that says that the way to make people better off is to make the pie bigger, rather than change the size of the slices. This is what Quiff was talking about - who cares about whether or not the difference between the richest and the poorest has got bigger? Isn't that just the language of jealousy? Surely the only consideration is that the base level should rise and rise without any discussion of that most disingenuous of concepts, 'relative poverty'?

[mofgimmers]

He's not a liberal fanz. I really wish that hadn't become a derogatory term.

I can't be bothered reading all this yet... but I'll chuck me two penneth in anyway.

I don't like Thatcher because she's a Tory.

The End.

New Labour is a Thatcherite party. It's more Thatcherite than Thatcher would have dared to be in many cases, with the privatization and out-sourcing of core public services. In fact, its corporatist economic policy would have delighted Mussolini. Seriously! It is more right-wing in terms of foreign policy and domestic affairs than most Tory governments could dream of being. But which party do you still bleat about?

It's cool to hate Tories though right?

This is presuming I'm a Labour boy right? To be honest, I'm cynical about all politicians. I don't think there are two main parties anymore... just two fronts for the same values. Both make me ill. The Libs... well... bless 'em... they don't amount to much eh?