[Closed] Explain the "Thatcher" thing to me

owning a council house does not make you middle class.

The need never went away, but council house building did. Of course that leaves lots of room for wealthier individuals to step into the breach, buy up houses and rent them out to those who can't afford/don't want a mortgage. So - the rich get richer........

**for what is worth i think some of the privatisation has been a disaster. For example we are now in the position where the government subsidises a French state owned company to produce energy, with the profits of going to the French company/government rather than being reinvested in improving UK energy infrastructure - which could cut energy costs and in turn help create more wealth within the UK. But we can't have that sounds too much like socialism, best make a quick buck and who cares about more expensive energy costs and foreign state owned companies owning our utilities. So the long term benefit of this was debatable but at the time it is undeniable that the privatisation raised alot of revenue, it just that money wasn't invested wisely and was squandered.

I think you will find that the privatisation was more about taking the industries (and the required future capital investment) of the governments balance sheets. It also had the advantage of pushing the idea of share ownership at large numbers of the population and the staff of the companies

For the naysayers have a look at the water industries in Scotland and Nortern Ireland, both have massive issues around future investment which simply won't happen if it raises the public debt regardless of who is in power.

but it's far simpler to have a bogeywoman to blame everything on 😉

Reply to original question:

Give it 12 months and you will know what it was like: riots, strikes, no jobs, no money, no prospects and music was angry.... Hold on we are already there without he music.

strange that the pre 79 unclass that I remember seem identical to the one we have now

Just that it was only a fraction of the size it is now.

So - the rich get richer........

For the naysayers have a look at the water industries in Scotland and Nortern Ireland, both have massive issues around future investment which simply won't happen if it raises the public debt regardless of who is in power.

I'll give you a hand to start - the most recent PM to get a larger share of the vote than Maggie got was Ted Heath.

Edit: damn you, Garry Lager - you should have let Jeremy do the research himself.

Do folks really think a Thatcher argument is ever going to end well or change minds in the slightest?

I agree with you Druidh. The 1997 incarnation of Labour will be judged to be little more than a continuation of the previously-incumbent government. The point I was trying to make is that the voting populace has continued to endorse policies that allow personal gain to prevail over the health of society and the cohesion of communities, despite the fact the the campaign literature has simply changed colour from blue to red but in substance remains much the same.

druidh - Member
Unless you'd like to rent a council house and you now find there are none available.

ask one of the £100k+ p.a. Union leaders to move out of theirs 😉

big_n_daft - Member

strange that the pre 79 unclass that I remember seem identical to the one we have now

Spend any time as an adult in the big council schemes pre 79 did you?

I did.

Darnley / Arden and Carnwadrick on the south side of Glasgow. Yes there wa unemployment and social ills - however most people worked and hard drugs were almost unheard of. Now? Its a very different place. Thats what decades of mass unemployment does for a society

Do folks really think a Thatcher argument is ever going to end well or change minds in the slightest?

Spend any time as an adult in the big council schemes pre 79 did you?

I did.

😆 😆 😆

Goodnight all. 😉

No, but it is giving emsz a bit of an insight into the whole Thatcher thing, which is good.

Fair point.

I'll give you a hand to start - the most recent PM to get a larger share of the vote than Maggie got was Ted Heath.

yes - and he had a slim majority - without the divided opposition she would not have got the huge majorities. That the point

At least she won her war.

Don't cry for me Argentina.

Her main fault was she applied an ideology to government. Ideologies are always disastrous regardless of colour.

Actaully 1997 labour was not so bad. Blair consolidated his grasp on policy later. Devolution came out of that government for example

I'm not really sure you should bring up water companies as a success story and advertisement for privatization.

why not?

how else were we going to raise the billions needed for the enviromental restoration they've doing for the last 20 years?

I'm sure it could have been done better but they didn't have hindsight at the time and the regulator has been tying itself in knots to maintain the cross subsidies that keep your bills down.

She was so hated that she got re-elected - twice and her policies so reviled that "New" labour adopted them whole-heartedly in order to get elected.

Does anyone remember all that Thatcher legislation that Tony Blair over-turned when New Labour got into power? All the industries they re-nationalised? The increased control they re-exerted over the financial services? Nope - neither do I.

druidh - you do know that the traditional rabids of this forum will largely ignore your pertinent comments of argue right around them.

Why argue around something thats easy to explain?

Thatcher tried out one big social experiment on the country. She set out to turn the working class into middle class, and attempted to improve the material wealth for the individuals of this nation which is not necessarily a bad thing.

So she got re-elected because of this and a weak opposition which in turn had to become more "middle ground", hence Tony Blair. Of course once new labour came to power, they weren't going to upset the "mondeo man" voters by doing anything particularly left wing and they weren't going to upset the city, which was becoming more and more vital to the UK economy(after Thatchers de-regulation) since manufacturing was in decline. Manufacturing was too working class.

Her failures are real slow burners, and one of them only reared its ugly head in 2007-2008 when the de-regulated markets crashed in the city that had become too powerful, because it knew we had become too reliant on financial services, and had little else to fill the void, all watched over by politicians who had followed her policies to become electable.

There are many subsets within the class system, but the way I see it is you now have the underclass, the aspiring class, the true middle class and the upper class.

Apart from the underclass, The the ones who you would call working class 25 years or so back, through the right to buy(thatcher policy), cheap credit and loans and mortgages(De-regulation), which enabled them to buy houses, cars, white goods and shit loads of plasma TV's and so forth suddenly believed they were middle class and behaved accordingly, hence the very middle of the road political parties, these are the aspiring class. And their aspirations are now definitely looking downwards.

The true middle class and the upper class sail on as if very little has happened.

The Thatcherite and subsequently Reaganite policies of the 80's sowed the seeds of the trouble both economically and socially we have today.

Big and daft - I'd like to know what you actually know about life in the poorer parts of our cities pre 79.

People can make their own minds up about Thatcher (and I am sure that the dance on her grave type suggestions will not receive the same kind of abuse as Clarkson's poor attempt at humour yesterday).

But any review of what she did/was forced to do, should not be made without a full understanding of the context in which she came to power. It was my childhood and a bloody miserable time characterised by:

Unprecedented levels of inflation (26% in 1975, took until 1985 to get back to 1970s levels)
The highest UN since the WW2
Stagflation
A bankcrupt economy - requiring international funding of $5000m
Declining economic growth
BoP crises leading to emergency deflationary budgets
The Labour Government introducing what ironically became known as "the first Thatcher budget"
The Winter of Discontent
Power cuts - doing homework by candlelight
Rubbish in the streets
A crisis of confidence in the UK leading to massive capital flight
Catastrophically high rates of marginal taxation

I am sure that life in certain parts of the Uk were not fun under Thatcher but it was far from a barrel of laughs for the whole economy under the previous Labour government. One again the selective memory of some astounds - even by STW standards

Do folks really think a Thatcher argument is ever going to end well or change minds in the slightest?

Not in the slightest

I am sure that life in certain parts of the Uk were not fun under Thatcher but it was far from a barrel of laughs for the whole economy under the previous Labour government. One again the selective memory of some astounds - even by STW standards

But all those problems pre-thatcher Government does not excuse all what she set out to do and the subsequent problems that were created by thatcherite policies since.

TINA? There were always other ways.

A time of potentially massive prosperity because of the oil money lost and the money wasted on paying benefits. Her economic policies were disastrous. with high inflation, low growth, massive unemployment. its only the oil money that stopped the country gong bankrupt

I think you will find that the privatisation was more about taking the industries (and the required future capital investment) of the governments balance sheets. It also had the advantage of pushing the idea of share ownership at large numbers of the population and the staff of the companies

For the naysayers have a look at the water industries in Scotland and Nortern Ireland, both have massive issues around future investment which simply won't happen if it raises the public debt regardless of who is in power.

We are certainly paying the "price" now aren't we? The only success privatization has been is to the shareholders.

but it's far simpler to have a bogeywoman to blame everything on

There's this book called the bible and the first chapter is called Genesis...you get my point.

I'm an ordinary man, nothin' special nothin' grand,
I've had to work for everything I own,
Well I never asked for a lot, I was happy with what I got,
Enough to keep my family and my home,
Now they say that times are hard & they've handed me my cards,
They say there's not the work to go around,
When the whistle blows the gates will finally close,
Tonight they're going to shut this factory down,
Then they'll tear it down.

I never missed a day nor went on strike for better pay,
For 20 years I served them best I could,
With a handshake and a cheque it seems so easy to forget,
Loyalty through the bad times and the good,
The owner says he's sad to see that things have got so bad,
But the Captains of industry won't let him loose,
He still drives a car and smokes a cigar,
And still he takes his family on a cruise,
He'll never lose.

Now it seems to me to be such a cruel irony,
He's richer now ever he was before,
Now my cheque is all spent and I can't afford the rent,
There's one law for the rich, one for the poor,
Every day I've tried to salvage some of my pride,
To find some work so's I might pay my way,
But everywhere I go, the answer is always no,
There's no work for anyone here today,
No work today.

And so condemned I stand, just an ordinary man,
Like thousands beside me in the queue,
I watch my darlin' wife tryin' to make the best of life,
God knows what the kids are goin' to do,
Now that we are faced with this human waste,
A generation cast aside,
For as long as I live, I never will forgive,
You've stripped me of my dignity & pride,
You've stripped me bare.

its only the oil money that stopped the country gong bankrupt

TJ - please fell free to have your usual last word. Nothing will change you opinion or the likelihood of some balance in the points. But in your sleep think about re-phrasing your last sentance in the context of the 1970s economic history of the UK. My last comment, as I have no interest in the usual TJ bashing into submission. History will tell it as it is.

Good night.

context in which she came to power. It was my childhood and a bloody miserable time characterised by:

Unprecedented levels of inflation (26% in 1975, took until 1985 to get back to 1970s levels)
The highest UN since the WW2
Stagflation
A bankcrupt economy - requiring international funding of $5000m
Declining economic growth
BoP crises leading to emergency deflationary budgets
The Labour Government introducing what ironically became known as "the first Thatcher budget"
The Winter of Discontent
Power cuts - doing homework by candlelight
Rubbish in the streets
A crisis of confidence in the UK leading to massive capital flight
Catastrophically high rates of marginal taxation

Just to pick one out, I can't be bothered going through it all......[i]"Declining economic growth"[/i].

The downward trend continued under Thatcher :

[img] http://product.datastream.com/DSCharting/gateway.aspx?guid=862bea10-f0fd-41e9-a265-bc22e5370eb9&chartname=UK%20GDP%20growth%20and%20trend%20since%201960s&groupname=Growth%2C%20activity&date=20111108&owner=ZRTN179&action=REFRESH [/img]

yes - and he had a slim majority - without the divided opposition she would not have got the huge majorities. That the point

It's that there Churchill who you should really get upset about if you're bothered about electoral unfairness. After all, Atlee actually got a higher share of the vote, yet Chuchill unfairly became PM. We all hate him for it.

Or maybe that pesky Ramsay MacDonald - he won despite getting a whole 1% less of the popular vote than the rightful winner Stanley Baldwin. If only it hadn't been for that jumped up nobody Lloyd George splitting the opposition vote.

Indeed history will tell it - as the numbers do now.

Thatchers "economic miracle" was based on spending a once only bonanza of the oil money as revenue - wasting it on paying people to do nothing instead of using it to create prosperity for the future.

Oil - very little was brought ashore before 1976 - most of the production was in the 80s.

So teamhurtmore - the oil production had little economic impact until the last couple of years of the 70s and didn't really take off until into the 80s.

The downward trend continued under Thatcher :

Nice bit of Christy there Seosamh 🙂

deadlydarcy - Member
Nice bit of Christy there Seosamh

Aye canny whack him! That song's as relevant today as it ever was.

teamhurtmore

Good post(s). I'm old enough to remember that too.

I had a poignant reminder this week of how 'wonderful' things were pre Thatcher, when men were men and toiled at the coal face, in the shape of an ex-miner bent double coughing his guts up and barely able to breathe. Not many of them left now.

teamhurtmore - Member

It was my childhood and a bloody miserable time characterised by:

Woody - Member

Good post. I'm old enough to remember that too.

What's all this [i]"you don't know I was there"[/i] bollox ?

As if it's any sort of argument.

What's all this "you don't know I was there" bollox ?

As if it's any sort of argument.

Of course you are right ernie. Personal experience is no substitute for extrapolating 'facts' from questionable sources to support an argument.

Ah - but I was there too and I watch society unravel under the stress of the mass unemployment.

Its a part of the reason why Thatcher is so divisive. if you did OK under he you did really well - but those that got left behind got shat on badly. Working with the old, the sick and the poor as me and my missis do you could see the damage happening. So some people experienced this adn saw it - others did not. it tends to colour your view somewhat

No point in arguing with you TJ, although I am somewhat relieved that you actually managed a post without mentioning oil 😉

I'll leave it now with a [url= http://libcom.org/history/1978-1979-winter-of-discontent ]LINKY[/url] for the OP to add a bit of perspective to show just how wonderfully the UK was governed under Labour pre-Thatcher.

TJ + a million. And Elfin was right - we're tired and this is as emotive a subject as anyone could bring up.

That said, my Grandad was at the forefront of promoting Scottish business during the 60s - 70s, culminating in the huge hydro-electric projects in the Scottish Highlands. Thatcher was instrumental in getting these enterprises up and running. These days, taking these developments as a seperate entity, she might be applauded for her forward thinking, environmentally aware attitude, not to mention the employment opportunities for the local communities.

Beyond all that, I've lived in the North East of England for eight years now and have worked with many of those for whom the miners' strikes were a reality, rather than something to yawn at on the news, or read a bit about in 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole'.

I have friends whose parents were arrested for cutting down telegraph poles to heat their houses.

She was a destructive force for the main part but had her eye on the bigger picture, at all and any cost. I am so not about to invoke Godwins' law and am off to bed also.

Personal experience is no substitute for extrapolating 'facts' from questionable sources to support an argument.

"Personal experience" ? What about all the "personal experiences" of people who don't agree with you ?

Wait a minute, I think I know this one.....they don't count. Am I right ? ..... just the opinions of those who were there [u]and[/u] liked Thatcher count ?

And what do you mean [i]"extrapolating 'facts' from questionable sources"[/i] ? Since when is the Office of National Statistics a "questionable source" ?

Oh wait a minute again, I think I also the answer to this one. The Office of National Statistics is a "questionable source" when you don't like the statistics - am I right ?

Here you go you drongo, a few more facts that you can dismiss 'cause they don't suit you. Growth per quarter before and after Thatcher.

1978 Q2 2
1978 Q3 0.9
1978 Q4 0.3
1979 Q1 -0.5
1979 Q2 3.9
1979 Q3 -1.3
1979 Q4 0.5
1980 Q1 -1
1980 Q2 -1.9
1980 Q3 -1.6
1980 Q4 -1.6
1981 Q1 0.5
1981 Q2 0.1
1981 Q3 1
1981 Q4 0.1
1982 Q1 0.6
1982 Q2 0.8
1982 Q3 0.6
1982 Q4 0.2

Interesting ernie. Your ego knows no bounds in that you assumed I was referring to growth, or facts and figures supplied by you.

Wait a minute, I think I know this one.....they don't count. Am I right ? ..... just the opinions of those who were there and liked Thatcher count ?

Your ego knows no bounds in that you assumed I was referring to growth, or facts and figures supplied by you.

😕 Nothing to do with ego - why would it ? Yes, I assumed you were 'referring to facts supplied by me'. Since you commented that I had allegedly [i]"extrapolating 'facts' from questionable sources".[/i]

Are you drunk, attempting to talk in riddles, or just a bit dim ?

I am not sure the manufacturing industry was in tip top shape before she got involved, TJ. You can't pretend that China would not have taken all our business regardless of whoever was in power. They have something we will never have - billions of very poor people.

Germany seems to do alright in this regard...

As ive said before i carnt wait till she,s dead , thanks to her the area i live became a police state during the pit strike and she let the met police get up to antics that has turned people to have no trust in the police force since.
I belive in time history will show her to have been a very poor PM she had short term fixes that have cause long term proplems for this country every since just like the tories are doing today.
Of course if you or your family were one of the very few who did well during her time then the fact that people are living in almost povity even when working full time if there lucky to have a job at all is a price worth paying as your alright.

hard drugs were almost unheard of.

Yes, TJ. It was the Conservative rule in the 80s that enabled the global drug trade. 🙄

thanks to her the area i live became a police state during the pit strike and she let the met police get up to antics that has turned people to have no trust in the police force since.

Not because of those undertaking illegal activity who required to be policed then?

Depraved reptilian scum - utterly devoid of humanity.

I will happily suspend my devout atheism so I can believe in the fires of hell being well and truly stoked when she goes

... and that's Thatcher summed up. She turns the most rationale of us into vitriol spouting ....

Radio 4 had a piece on the new yesterday am. Afterwards the presenters (I think Humphries & Naughtie) were saying that the thing with Thatcher was that the film, or even TV at the time, could not portray how "truly terrifying she was in person, up front and personal"

They're not exactly shrinking violets

The thing I remember most as a kid was taking tins of soup to give the firemen at our local station

We had next to nowt and yet more than these families who had be on strike for a year

I have lined up a bottle of red wine for the day she dies, I will stop what I'm doing. Go home and get blind drunk. Probably run around naked singing ding dong the witch is dead

I can't imagine what the pit communities suffered but I,ve met quite few people from those areas and their feeling in off universal hatred of that particular woman

Spiriting image should be you education on the matter

Too tall its a simple truth. In the 70s hard drug addiction was not the problem it became in the 80s. Poverty and social exclusion are strongly linked to heroin usage. there is no doubt that there was a massive rise in hard drug use during the thatcher years in parallel with the massive rise in poverty and social exclusion.

[url= http://toryreformgroup.tumblr.com/post/13201087129/paul-abbott-why-the-left-should-love-margaret-thatcher ]Here you go emsz[/url]

[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/explain-the-thatcher-thing-to-me/page/3#post-3233263 ]why not?[/url]

So Thatcher closed down coal mines and bought the coal from elsewhere which successfully stopped the coal miners from holding the country to ransom

True,

It's the Russians now

Not because of those undertaking illegal activity who required to be policed then?

Those undertaking perfectly legal practices such as protesting and picketing were "policed" as you put it. In the most brutal way.

I was having a "tidy up" at home a couple of months ago, and found a box of stuff from my student days...

In that box was a cartoon of Thatcher that I drew at the time (mid 80s). I'll post it up - If this thread hasn't been closed down by the time I can re- find and scan! Can't claim the cartoonography is up to much, but it works ok as a contemporaneous record of what people thought at the time (FWIW most folks I knew thought the cartoon was overly flattering)

Nice thread emsz..

Brought out the best in STW this one.

You will of course end up sitting on one side of the fence, but make informed choices yeah, not the sort of choice spouted in vitriolic fashion here.

And you can change your mind about her. I sat one side of the fence for a good few years, now I sit the other. I feel neither agerieved nor singled out, she did some good and some bad, but overall she changed the way politics is both viewd and used and modelled all over the WORLD

Those undertaking perfectly legal practices such as protesting and picketing were "policed" as you put it. In the most brutal way.

The miners were no real problem and usually had a good 'working relationship' with the police on the front line. The rent-a-crowd activists who really went to town caused the worst of the problems.

TJ - you, along with many others, refuse to see the 'Thatcher years' in context and look at the global picture as a whole. I am no apologist for any party, but isolating what you want to ensure your arguement remains strong undermines your perpetual arguements. Drugs increased in availability globally throughout the 70s and 80s and became a crutch instead of (or as well as) alcohol, the previous norm. You may link poverty in areas with political decisions of the time, but linking the spread of drugs is ridiculous if you ignore the global drug industry and its growth.

Oh no tootall I see her in context all right. Its the apologists for her that do not.

As for the drugs - It is an indisputable fact that the was a massive growth in heroin use in the 80s and most academics working in the area agree that there is a strong link between social exclusion, poverty and hard drug use.

If you pursue policies that lead to poverty and social exclusion then a rise in hard drug use is an inevitable corollary of this.

So yes - the heroin epidemic of the 80s while having multiple causes the most important one was the economic policies pursued by the tory governments.

Remember mass unemployment was a deliberate policy.

"rent a crowd" lazy stereotyping and acceptance of tory propaganda

Interesting political description of what she was and how she went about it, but a couple of points essentially missed, first off you have to remember this happened during 'life on mars seventies' wimmen hadn't really come to the fore and here she was a female absolutely ruling the 'wets' as they were called at the time (Wets were what you could best describe as the more humanitarian politicians in the Tory party).
We'd just suffered the late seventies with such low esteem as Brits, we couldn't afford to travel abroad, our currency was worth nothing, inflation had eroded everything, you would apologise for being a Brit it was that bad.
Don't get me wrong here, I absolutely hated the woman for the way she pretty much militarised the police, deregulated everything, imported Reganomics and was totally enthralled to that monetarist Alan Whateverhisname was.
In the winter of 81-2 however she was on the ropes, the recession she'd caused had pissed everyone off and she'd have been resigned to the margins of history had the Argies not invaded the Malvinas, she seized that opportunity, galvanised the tossers, was Churchillian in her response and given we didn't have much going on in the way of firepower, did a fair job of beating up a third world nation in true tradition of Empire and Gunboat diplomacy and won the day, sinking the Belgrano showed a totally ruthless streak, from there on in, all the right wing yuppy rednecks had a field day..

But strangely we did as a nation all feel a bit better about ourselves and the good old eighties ensued and damn I wish I was back there counting the loadsamoney I made back then, not that I ever voted for her or them, I'm still an SDP man at heart.

But the worse travesty of modern times, we eventually kick the bastards out and in the spring of 97 with a new hope a fresh young Blair and his steadfast dour Scottish companion looking to keep him anchored all was going to be so much better... What was that song again?

Her government did some good stuff and some not so good stuff, like most governments in fact.
The vitriolic hatred is, IMO, more than just political/ideological/social opposition, it's a convenient 'catch all' for the disaffected underacheiving 60's kids who thought they 'had it all to live for' when in fact it was 'all to work for'

It is odd to see so many comfortably off, self proclaimed middle class 40-50 somethings ranting and frothing in defence of the underclass - I mean that phrase says it all, "underclass" - when of course you guys are "upperclass" then I guess.

"It" was there all the time, the Thatcher government just bought it out into plain sight, there's always been whingers and scroungers and skivers and I guess there always will be - it's the downside of a society with social care and support that some will see it as an opportunity to freeload rather than as a means of caring for those with genuine need.....

And, it all rather begs the question: if Fatch was as bad as you now proclaim why did she survive so long and why didn't your "undeclass" rise up and overthrow the shackles (and what were [i]you[/i] doing about it) - possibly because most working people weren't doing quite as badly as you now claim.

And Yes, I was there, and No it wasn't the Fatch-a-geddon you now like to conveniently blame for all your problems.
Get over it, and do something positive instead of bleating and whining.........

We got 'policed'

Worksop roundabout on the A1, stopped and refused permission to carry on and told to **** off back to where we came from
They refused to believe that 2 lads on motorbikes were actually heading off to Holland to watch motorbike racing

Policing Thatcher style
[img] [/img]

She came into power to clean up a right shit mess that Labour had created for almost a decade.

People in basic jobs tend to blame people as far as their nose. Rather than the economic situation that got the country into that situation. So they blamed the current government (Thatchers) for the decisions she had to take.

Then these same folk told their children it wasn't Daddies fault but Thatchers why they were being brought up in straightened-circumstances.

Maybe if Daddy had worked harder or read some books at school then a generation of kids who grew up 'hating Thatcher' might actually have known the truth or blamed their own ****ing parents.

What would have happened if Wilson had still been in power in the Falklands invasion? We'd have folded on that and forever more our reputation tarnished globally.

On milk, I drank it all through the 80's at school. Hateful lukewarm stuff out of small glass bottles!!

Funny, even ironic how Scargill is now ****ing over his own union isn't it?

I'm neither a fan or a hater of her as my own family grew up in poverty however I do admire the woman.

Stronger than any male leader we've had in decades.

I'll leave it there and wont get involved in ongoing arguing. Pointless as you need to blame your own parents for your upbringing than a government.

No jobs? Travel, move. Look at the thousands of immigrants coming here for a better life.

What would have happened if Wilson had still been in power in the Falklands invasion? We'd have folded on that and forever more our reputation tarnished globally

I blame George III

She came into power to clean up a right shit mess that Labour had created for almost a decade.

(and what were you doing about it)

Active in trade unions, working in healthcare, supporting my missus working with the poorest in society as a volunteer. We did what we could.

The vitriolic hatred is because of what she symbolises. The greed and begger my neighbour attitude and the deliberate creation of an underclass of long term unemployed which is a matter of historical record.

The huge rise in unemployment especially long term unemployment and youth unemployment along with the huge reduction in benefits caused massive social ills that we still are paying the price for today. You may belive this is a price worth paying as she did but to deny its existence is ridiculous in the face of the historical record

She brought the top tax rate down from 83% to 40%.

If any lentil eating socialist lefty wuss thinks that's wrong, you can meet me behind the bike sheds after school and I'll knock some sense into you.

I was but a child during the eighties and my parents were working class and they were staunch Maggie fans.

I like Maggie.

"rent a crowd" lazy stereotyping and acceptance of tory propaganda

No. Just years of conversations with people who were actually there TJ.

I'd put the housing policies of Glasgow City on a par with your causes as well. Your quoted areas of Darnley, Arden and Carnawrdric are often held up as examples of terrible social housing that just moved problems and created new ones. That was going on since the 50s as they were essentially inner city slum clearance - exactly the same as areas of the North East (Meadowell Estate, Byker Wall etc) that suffered similar problems for similar reasons. Your desire to argue back to 'Thatcher' reflects the personification that undermines a rational arguement.

Whether you are a fan or not, it will be a sad day when shes passes away.

I don't think anyone can have the same emotion over Gordon Brown or his Tony Bliar.

TandemJeremy - Member
The greed and begger my neighbour attitude and the deliberate creation of an underclass of long term unemployed which is a matter of historical record.

Why keep calling them "underclass" ? little bit patronising isn't it...

..and I'm sure the rise of consumerism and capitalist values would have happened regardless.
Labour Party hardly "put it right" when they had the chance did they....

Emsz, she was the prime mover in shutting down most of the basic industries in the North East, where I'm from. Whole towns annd villages essentially had their life support switched off, and many have never recovered.

That wouldn't have been so bad if it was part of a political strategy to gradually switch away from coal mining & steel production. But no, this was politics driven by a purely ideological hatred of the unions and a desire to break them. Politics is, as they say, the art of the possible, and needs to be driven by pragmatism, realism, and just a little bit of ideology.

Thatcher had way too much ideology, and didn't have any real clue about what to do once she'd shut everything down. Then again, because the people she put out of work were mainly Northern manual workers who would never have voted for her, why did she need to care? They could just get on theior beikes and find a new job somewhere else.

And then she did what every political leader has done when times got bad - she took us to war, and wrapped herself in the flag.

She's a despicable woman, and I'll be happy when she's dead.

(and what were you doing about it)

Broke into [they left a window open] the the local Tory club and shat on the billiard table 🙂

Sorry, I got sidetracked about clause 28. I'd heard about it but never really understood it. Kinda understand now why my school were so relunctant to do anything about the bullying I got. Interesting.

GlitterGary not a troll I promise, I really just wanted to try to understand why she provokes such divided views.
TJ I don't understand why a govt would Diliberatly make a whole class of unemployed people, it makes no sense

You can't blame Thatcher for todays problems, only insofar as Blair wanted to be like her, whilst Brown wanted to be something else, either way it is they who have totally ****ed everything up, they had a chance to undo the so called 'evils' of deregulation but didn't, they lapped it up, totally eradicated boom and bust as I recall..

As to immigration we've bred a nation of wannabe celebs, they want MTB style cribs, the trappings of pop celebrity without necessarily having the talent, after all Jade Goody became famous so why can't they?

Eastern Europeans know the truth, money comes with work, so they wash our cars, wait table, serve at reception desks, carry our hods up ladders and do all the things that our would be celebs don't want to do, whilst they queue up for X-factor, or wire into X-Box transported to an alternate reality.

Sadly until we stop paying em to do nothing, nothing is what they'll continue to do, until they become famous of course.

What really needs to happen is a fresh ideology based on equality and fair play for all, globally, enough being defined and limited with wealth distributed more equally, some form of modern day communocapitolism, something for the kids to get behind and rebel, maybe throw up some conviction politicians, life can't go on like this, with no hope for a better future and just looking for scapegoats in the past.

nickf so if you found there was no work in your area now what would you do?

Would you feel right sitting on the dole?

We all speak the same language in this country. So why didn't your folks do this?

Thatcher wanted to close the unprofitable state-mines. The resulting long industry strikes (thanks Scargill) had a crippling effect which ended up with alot more closing.

Would you have proposed running loss-making businesses as the right thing to do on the back of the fact Labour had driven the economy into the ground hence where she was coming from.

She was trying to bring the UK out of the brink and the ****ing idiot unions held a YEAR long strike....just like what the unions had tried with Labour previously.

I think you should pissing on your own who feast off you still than her fella.

As a Scot who grew up in the 80's best if I don't contribute to this,as I struggle to be objective. I don't hate her [b]anymore[/b] as she is a once sharp,determined woman who is imprisoned by dementia. But God,she broke my country.

TJ I don't understand why a govt would Diliberatly make a whole class of unemployed people, it makes no sense

(simplistically) Two aims -one is to drive down the cost of labour. if there are loads of people looking for work then you can get people to take on those jobs under low wages thus increasing profits. The second is to break the power of the unions. (Along with laws brought in by her government) But it removes the power of the strike if you have a large number of people so desperate for work that they will cross picket lines. also the job losses were concentrated in highly unionise areas.

Mass unemployment creates the conditions for a transfer of wealth from poor to rich.

In thatchers own words " its a price worth paying" and " if its not hurting its not working"

GlitterGary not a troll I promise, I really just wanted to try to understand why she provokes such divided views.

TJ I don't understand why a govt would Diliberatly make a whole class of unemployed people, it makes no sense

Maybe not a whole class, but as a policy having a proportion of a people unemployed may keep inflation down.
[url] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_curve [/url]

TandemJeremy - Member
TJ I don't understand why a govt would Diliberatly make a whole class of unemployed people, it makes no sense
(simplistically) Two aims -one is to drive down the cost of labour. if there are loads of people looking for work then you can get people to take on those jobs under low wages thus increasing profits. The second is to break the power of the unions. (Along with laws brought in by her government) But it removes the power of the strike if you have a large number of people so desperate for work that they will cross picket lines. also the job losses were concentrated in highly unionise areas.

Mass unemployment creates the conditions for a transfer of wealth from poor to rich.

In thatchers own words " its a price worth paying" and " if its not hurting its not working"

Hmm I think your in danger of a distinct lack of objectivity, I seem to remember the ad that got her elected was a picture of crowds headed to the dole queue and the legend "Labours not Working' which it wasn't and unemployment was already high and like now, you had unions making unrealistic demands.

a picture of crowds headed to the dole queue and the legend "Labours not Working' which it wasn't and unemployment was already high

See if you can guess from the graph when it was she was elected

[img] [/img]

So to summise.

1970's - economy run into the ground through rampant inflation, unsustainable public sector bills, unions striking.

1980's - someone has to turn things round, pull the country back from the brink and close loss-makers etc that caused the issues.

Who gets it in the neck? Is it her fault that historically the only real thing that Wales, NE had were really dependent on a small number of industries.

Whose fault was that?

Esmz - Thatcher was personally utterly homophobic. Thanks Junkyard for bringing up section 28, it's often overlooked amongst all the other appalling things that were introduced during the Thatcher / Conservative years.

I was living in inner city Leeds with my girlfriend at the time, and I still have a taped copy of one of Thatchers speeches where she said:

"The trouble with the youth of today is that they think they have an unalienable right to be gay"

Too damn right we do! (Actually we sampled it, and mixed it with a Kylie song which started 'We should be so lucky ..." 🙂 )

Personally, dancing shoes at the ready, singing along to the witch is dead.