I’ve always thought people who hate Thatcher aren’t considering the global economic forces at work during the era, or the fact the unions were utterly out of control through the seventies. The unions are equally culpable for the pain suffered by the working class at the time.

Blair is a war criminal, Thatcher wasn’t. I don’t hate Blair, that’s too much effort, but he deserves a day or two in court. I respect Margaret Thatcher but I admit my wifes family would string her up.

She had conviction in her actions, and bigger balls than blair !

Wouldn’t be difficult.
And the only conviction I’d like to see in Blair’s case is one for war crimes.

Blair is a war criminal, Thatcher wasn’t

Hmmmmm, Belgrano ?
(and anyway, I’d say she was fairly lucky from a global stability point of view during her tenure)

Blair was weak and I suspect he wandered into conflict because he didn’t want to say no to the US (oh, and I imagine a teeny weeny monetary promise or two – national and personal. I just hope any cash he was offered personally has been mislaid just like the financial benefits to the UK have)

No issues with thatcher whatsoever…to young to vote for her at the time but I agree with alot of what she did. Lots of others did clearly as well given how long she was kept in power.

Blair is an evil self serving dog…so gets my vote.

Labour closed more pits than Thatcher did

hating Thatcher fits the class war narrative that the left continue to push, they hate Blair because he wasn’t “left” enough without realising that the real crime was his lies to take the country to war and that the left failed to remove him from power before/ during/ after this

Both are flawed characters, only Blair should have been prosecuted for treason

Hmmmmm, Belgrano ?

I think they showed remarkable restraint in not bombing the airfields the Argentinian FGA were using or targeting their civil infrastructure

I still don’t get why expressing anger at two ex-PMs helps make life better in the here and now…

We’re probably at the beginning of a lost generation – there’s been enough very clever people around the world trying to find a solution to our economic mess and no-one appears to have found it yet and our current political options don’t even seem to be trying that hard tbh… surely our focus should be on pushing them hard to provide some leadership through a very difficult time.
For the first time in my life I’m not sure if I’m going to bother voting.

Banging on about people who aren’t in power any longer helps us how, exactly? If anything it lets the current shower off the hook…

Does’nt matter who you despise most.
If it was’nt them it would have been some other puppet.

Watch ‘our money masters’ on youtube, kinda tells it how it is(3.5 hrs long tho).

Thatcher without a doubt. I also remember driving up the A1 back up to Yorkshire during the miners’ strike and passing coachloads of the SPG (the Met’s Special Patrol Group) on their way to fight the miners.

Blair’s major blot was taking the country to war in Iraq on false premises. The economy grew reasonably well during his premiership.

Very few PMs, and especially those who have had more than one term, are remembered for their successes. I wonder what the history books will make of Cameron’s premiership?

Too young to have lived through Thatcher, but I know the majority of older friends would say Thatcher.

A lot still hold her accountable for years of misery & hardship endured by their families.

I don’t know who is hated most. I never had a personal problem with Thatcher, I intensely disliked her policies and the damage it did to both to individual people and society in general, but she was after all leader of the Conservative Party. With Blair it’s personal. I intensely dislike him in a way that I never felt about Thatcher.

Thatcher to me was like Benn & Foot, conviction politicians who stood for their beliefs and whether you agreed with them or not, that was what they stood for, clear as day.
With Blair, its the introduction of the career politician, the representation of that Futurama joke where all the politicians are cloned so look and sound the same, to be a politician not to put your ideals into action and to help the community but just to ensure you get paid and have a pension at the end of it.
Blair lied to get the UK into two long and bloody wars, and you could argue that his governments push to rapid un-restricted immigration has had as bigger effect on communities than Thatchers policies in the 80’s.

I think Blair; Thatcher’s supporters knew roughly what they wanted and what they got.

I still don’t get why expressing anger at two ex-PMs helps make life better in the here and now…

Jesus, internet threads don’t have to be useful from now on, do they???

Blair

Blair.

FYI, Thatcher was given a poisoned chalice from the IMF as the UK was effectively bankrupt when she took over and IMO, as far as the mining industry is concerned, the main protagonist was Scargill. His absolute desire for power and ignoring many many miners, who didn’t want to strike caused more of a government whiplash than Thatcher on her own.

For those of you who at the time were either still in nappies, not even born, or with carrying chips on your shoulders, let’s remember that we were not able to extract our coal economically anymore because of the high wage demands of the unions and that the stuff was getting more difficult to extract.

Furthermore, back in the early 90’s, Sheffield for example had more shops open for business and the Meadowhall full to the brim than any other town or city south of Birmingham.
Blair on the other hand has blood on his hands for the thousands of innocent people who lost their lives, homes, communities and loved ones, but just not here as much as somewhere else, where for some of you, it appears isn’t as bad. 😕

Go figure….

When Thatcher was asked what she saw as her lasting legacy, she said ‘Tony Blair’. They both helped bring about deindustrialisation, weakened unions and the neoliberal economy characterised by zero hours contracts, widening income and wealth gap, bankers’ bonuses etc. I just can’t believe the naivity of some people on here who celebrate such achievements unless ofcourse they are members of the ruling class. It reminds me of a Thatcher era poster campaign about ‘Help the Police’ and some wag had sprayed on ‘beat yourself up’.

Thatcher knowingly and openly ruined the lives of people in her own country so that a few could prosper. Blair was a warmongering tit. Tough choice.

I think the country and industry was ruined before thatcher got in. Can people not remember power outages, hyper inflation and the workers in the so called industries that thatcher is supposed to have ruined, spending most of their time outside warming their hands against fires on the picket line. For something to be considered an industry it requires actual people to be doing actual work. There was very little of that going on before thatcher got in. People forget the backdrop against which she came in. Like all PMs she did some good and some not-so-good. Blair on the other hand didn’t do any good, and set the labour party onto a path of ruin while he was at it.

Im not that old but old enough to remember pre Thatcher and it was pretty grim so at the time at least to some people including me she was making some hard desicions, you can dislike what she did and possibly with good cause but she was clear about what she stood for and people voted.

Blair seems to be a lying weasely type of person who has taken the whole country for a ride.

Blair’s major blot was taking the country to war in Iraq on false premises. The economy grew reasonably well during his premiership.

My understanding is that one of the main reasons for our current predicament is that the last government spent and borrowed when we should have been saving and accumulating. I know that Brown had a lot to do with that, but it happened in Blair’s watch, it was a situation he created.

Blair.

Thatcher made the decisions and took actions others were afraid to take. Do you really think Britain would still be the foreront of manufacturing? I think not.

Also ..Thatcher never started a sentence with “Look” or “Listen” for that alone she wins.

we were not able to extract our coal economically anymore because of the high wage demands of the unions and that the stuff was getting more difficult to extract.

Why did coal hit a 20 year peak as an energy source in 1979 if wages were so high and it was so expensive to extract?

http://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/blog-uploads/2012/10/energy-sources-percent.png

Thatcher. The hatred of her in the north is palpable.

I liked Blair, and if I’m honest I’ve never heard anyone other than Jeremy Clarkson and this forum complain about him. He’s the only politician that has stirred me to protest over a war but I remember things being a lot better under him than under the governments preceding and following.

My understanding is that one of the main reasons for our current predicament is that the last government spent and borrowed when we should have been saving and accumulating. I know that Brown had a lot to do with that

I think Brown was the only chancellor since the war to pay off a large chunk of the national debt? Funded by the sale of 3G telephone licenses?

One broke the trades unions the other broke the labour party, I call that win, win 😀

Blair is a war criminal, Thatcher wasn’t.

She was a great friend and defender of mass-murderer Pinochet though. And a supporter of Apartheid.

I hate Blair more on a personal level for his utter betrayal of his supposed principles, but at least he did some good as well as all the bad stuff.

Blair was a wolf is sheep’s clothing, whereas Thatcher was completely open about her hatred of the unions and desire to crush them. I see Blair more as a traitor. With Thatcher you got what you voted for….

Blair is a war criminal, Thatcher wasn’t.

The sinking of the Belgrano was pretty close though..

My understanding is that one of the main reasons for our current predicament is that the last government spent and borrowed when we should have been saving and accumulating.

The UK debt isn’t a problem, it’s just being used as an excuse to pursue an ideological agenda of ‘state spending bad, private profiteering good’ aka ‘poor people bad, rich people good’.

Hmmmmm, Belgrano ?

Not a warcrime by anyone’s standards including the Argentinian Navy who have confirmed that the Belgrano was part of a planned attack on the British fleet at the time it was sunk, and that being outside the exclusion zone was no form of protection under those circumstances.

Personally I hate Blair more – at least Thatcher was doing what was expected of a Tory leader, where as Blair was doing his best to turn the Labour party into the Tory party, never mind the dodgy circumstances around his martial adventures.

Oooo interesting thread. TBH Thatcher took over a mess, ran it then created a mess. She did fight a successful short war but as noted was associated with the Dictator. The issue is ALL Prime Ministers have to have alliances even with unsavoury characters to retain influence globally.

Onto Blair. He took an economy and crashed it and has a great deal of blood on his hands. Hes had directly helped destabilise a whole region for decades.

I am uncomfortable living in a country where someone like Blair can evade justice.

As for hatred, obviously it will depend on your POV, but; most right-wing and/or Tory supporters will, to at least a degree, sympathise with Thatcher, but Blair had the unlikely knack of pissing almost everyone off – both left and right of the spectrum

Reading this thread it is apparent that one of the great Thatcher legacies is a universal, uncritical belief that big powerful unions are always bad.

It’s a sort of only half accurate folk memory as a result of good PR by Westminster politicians who have a vested interested in making you believe it. Between 1945 and Thatcher, a lot of politicians from all parties thought it natural to work with the unions (and the other parties) to reach a consensus, rather than impose their view at all costs.

So Thatcher smashed the unions. She also smashed local government and increased the power of central government. This centralization of power has been going on all through the Major and Blair years and is continuing.

So now we have a country where all aspect of your lives are regulated minutely from a Westminster run by a few control freak suits with no experience of the real world and whose only interest is remaining in power. And this is seen as good and natural.

I hate them all (including Scargill).

The last decent politicians we had were Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill.

Under Thatcher Britain was a dark, nasty place if you happened to be part of an ethnic or sexual minority, or worked in a certain industry (or lived in particular community that was dominated by one) or were poor. Some people thrived – some of them working class too – but there were huge amounts of people left behind and then treated like shit. Under Blair the country became a nicer, more open, more compassionate place for people in general not just a small subsection of society. Things werent perfect by any means but they were better for those that were alienated and marginalised under Thatcher. In addition to this the infrastructure of the state whether it be schools or hospitals that had been crumbling through lack of investment in the 1980s had significant improvements under Blair – i dont agree with how it was financed by PFI – but the improvements were undeniable. Schools getting new buildings or extensions, new sports facilities and refurbished. They became places fit for purpose.

As for Iraq – i realise now i was wrong but i supported the decision to go to war at the time, perhaps it would ease my conscious if i could just put all the blame onto Blair for my opinion back then rather than accept i was wrong which is what i expect alot of people do now!

It seems like one the main differences between the two is that Thatcher has as many vehement supporters as haters, whereas the feelings towards Blair seem to run from absolute hatred to…well…meh

A point that is immediately disproven by the above post haha

Omar Little

Good post!

Lets not forget Thatcher took over the country in the depths and had to make some pretty unpopular choices.

PFI though- that’ll haunt us for decades to come. Buying new facilities on a credit card. The other party will extract a terrible APR on us.

That and the 100,000’s killed, murdered and raped of course.

which is what i expect alot of people do now!

The implication being that a lot of people supported the war, which is not how I remember it…

[*]That and the 100,000’s killed, murdered and raped of course

to be fair Tony didn’t actually do that himself though. He did embark on a vanity project to remove a dictator and the situation he created spiralled beyongd anything either he or his man-monkey co-protagonist could have foreseen. They lit the match but Iran, Saudi, Qatar and Kuwait and internal Iraqi actors are all complicit in providing firewood and operating the bellows (to stretch an anlaogy beyond its limits).

FTR I was against the war and signed a petition and everything (well signed a petitiion)

I lived/worked before and during Thatcher/Blair in the North East of England and witnessed first hand Thatchers impact. I am not stupid enough to look back at the pre Thatcher with rose tinted glasses as both politicians and unions had stuff to answer for but it’s interesting that the recent C4 programme “How rich are you” stated the narrow point in incomes was in the 70s? I think Thatcher was a real conviction politician who allowed her ministers to deliver revenge politics and destroy whole communities (just for the record my extended family and I lived in these communities)

What is often missed (Keith Pattinsons book No Redemption captures this) is the absolute loss of dignity, pride, direction and structure has left us with these communities being filled with the current underclass. Blair was a war criminal plain and simple but his crime against this country was knowing what Thatcher had done and continuing down that road. If you fancy a laugh go to sedgefield sit in a pub and ask the locals what they think about Tony! Blair has a level of personal protection in respect to war crimes, personal wealth etc that is remarkable – by any measure he should have been prosecuted.