[Closed] Explain the "Thatcher" thing to me

emsz - Member

See what I mean? It's always 'Her' and 'She did'. Not the conservatives or her government, but always just her.

Why is that?

Exactly. She was/is hugely overrated. Thatcher didn't even invent Thatcherism. The economic ideas came from Milton Friedman, and Sir Keith Joseph, Thatcher's guru and mentor, invented Thatcherism.

Unfortunately for him Sir Keith Joseph, unlike Thatcher, was [i]actually[/i] mad, and he finally had to accept that he had no hope to become British Prime Minister, so he passed that task on to his protege - Thatcher.

Thatcher was eventually sacked by the Tories when they no longer had any use for her - right in the middle of her premiership.

It's the Tories what done it. And pushing all the responsibility and blame onto Thatcher is lazy and shows a lack of political awareness.

She was the last conviction prime minister, probably that we'll ever see. This was far more significant than usual as there was no effective opposition to her in the 1980s. She was elected in 79 with a majority of around 40, then in 83 with a landslide majority of 144, and again in 87 with a majority of around 100. So it was free rein to do what you want with the public's backing. [When you hear a 40-50 yo Ted talking about dancing on her grave - check their voting record. Some embarrassed silences will ensue].

She was a very intelligent, forceful person who would read someone like Hayek and think let's go ahead and implement these theories. With no opposition that's a dangerous game, because you can go ahead and do just that without any checks or balances as they say in the US. She's probably a good argument for keeping properly intelligent people out of #10.

We could argue till the cows come home about the Thatcher and I guess thats a big part of her legacy she really divided people. At the time I couldn't believe how she got re elected but the labour party was out of sink with the way people thought (I was a member at the time) and the only way it could get in to power was to nick the tories polices which says it all really, you get what you vote for and we wanted a thatcher goverment and its polices and still do.

she has claimed a total of £535,000 in state handouts since 2006.

she helped create/invent mr whippy ice-cream

That is 100% true. She's a chemist by profession.

druid +1

She was a very intelligent, forceful person who would read someone like Hayek and think let's go ahead and implement these theories.

Yeah the Poll Tax, "her flagship" as she called it, was a very smart idea. It got her the sack.

and the only way it could get in to power was to nick the tories polices which says it all really,

The damage she did to the manufacturing capability and to the social fabric of this country may never be repaired.

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.

However I agree with you about damaging the social fabric. Very sad.

Although I am not old enough to have experienced adult life in the 70s, so I dunno what it was really like.

I think she wanted people to stand on their own feet but backfired because many were addicted to life of idleness by blaming others except themselves.

Stop blaming the woman. Blame yourself. Are you not able-bodied? Be a slave or work for peanuts.

You never had it so good ... maggots! 😆

Do remeber she never got anywhere near a majority of the vote - the opposition were divided which helped the tories a lot.

Also its worth pointing out the failure of her economic policies. Under the tories we had high inflation, low growth, very high public spending and massive unemployment hardly a "economic miracle" especially as we got nothing for this as the money was spent on unemployment benefits rather that something useful like building infrastructure.

the rich got richer and the poor got poorer

To answer your 'Her' question, you had to be there but she was nails. She looked like a teacher but she'd come out tops in any cage fighting competition. Properly hard woman. Took no crap, attacked any weakness.

Bully, thug. She was really good at inspiring hate in people. Identify a group of people who she despised, say....errm...cyclists, have a think about it, say something she knew would create an association with ****e.... I mean people who think money is the most important thing on earth and then say it. I dunno.... 'When I see a grown man on a bike I see a failure' that sort of thing. Then sit back and watch the morons who always secretly thought that run with it.

She was *very* good at that sort of stuff.

They have something we will never have - billions of very poor people.

That's true.

We'll just end up with [i]millions[/i] of very poor people...

there are divided opinios here, but i wonder if age is and issue, could. Are there any pro-thatch folks here over, lets say, 35?

Although I am not old enough to have experienced adult life in the 70s, so I dunno what it was really like.

I was. I was 18 when she came to power. The year before she came to power I got a job in a local hospital they were looking for staff. 2 years later they had a waiting list of 60 people looking for work.

I remember what it was like before her deliberately created mass unemployment

I'll not ignore your post Druidh...

Are you suggesting that it was a case of "cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man"?

I have a visceral hatred for her and her current successors like Cameron, Maude and Gove but I'm coming to accept that she gave society what it really wanted which was the "me culture" that is still alive today. It is a indictment of UK society that this has been allowed to flourish under successive governments, despite the shift to Labour in 1997.

I commend to the house Jimmy Reid's rectorial address to the students of Glasgow University in 1971. Cometh the hour...

http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336

emsz - Member
See what I mean? It's always 'Her' and 'She did'. Not the conservatives or her government, but always just her.

Why is that?

you dod the same with Blair rather than his govt - we blame PMS for what happens- its called thatcherism as well as she was forceful to put it mildly

She/they did this - sorry of posted only skim read the thread

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 caused the controversial addition of Section 2A to the Local Government Act 1986 (affecting England, Wales and Scotland), enacted on 24 May 1988 and repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland, and on 18 November 2003 in the rest of Great Britain by section 122 of the Local Government Act 2003.[1] The amendment stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"

it was illegal to say in schools that it was ok to be gay [ they called this promoting it FWIW] and to present it as equal to heterosexuality ...and this was in your lifetime

[When you hear a 40-50 yo Ted talking about dancing on her grave - check their voting record. Some embarrassed silences will ensue

Welcome to check mine - Voted Labour in every General Election since i was able to vote in 1985 apart from one silly flirtation with the Green Party.

I've no skeletons about Thatcher and i'll be digging out my dancing shoes...

Socially her impact on the UK was pretty damning for a large section of the population however there were still alot of winners in this equation and they will still support her and treat the social breakdown as a price worth paying in the belief that she improved the economic situation in the country.

However it is her long term economic legacy where the really damning inditement of her rule rests. Her governments had north sea oil revenues coming online and then the proceeds of privatisation* to play with. It was an enormous windfall, something that no UK government before or since will have at their disposal, and was squandered when you consider that a huge proportion of it effectively went to pay people for not working rather than trying to improve infrastructure, increase productive capacity, improve manufacturing methods and raise education standards - four things that we could still be seeing the benefit of today, these would be the motors of real economic growth and recovery instead of an over reliance on casino banking and all the problems that has brought in the last 5 years.

**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.

She did create a new middle class through homeownership though? Selling council houses and increasing personal wealth must be a good thing, no? I know it removes the right to strike and gives the employers greater leverage and room for abuse, but hey, the middle class doesn't strike anyway, does it?
More tea anyone?

CharlieMungus - Member

No, because she made everyone greedy and sefl-seeking

speak for yourself, plenty of people do things which are neither

As Elf said, she created the "underclass".

and as for the opposition at the time, Foot and Kinnock were both plainly incompetent so are as much the blame for remaining in power as anyone. Scargill tried to step into the vaccuum and the inevitable happened

Obviously people will now tell me about the countries that have managed to maintain their manufacturing in state ownership and take it from strength to strength 😉

Interesting innit how "she" still polarises opinion. Perhaps some of us are old gits. 😀
TJ as Ernie has said none of the policues were hers, they mainly (all) came from Kieth Joseph (loved Steve bell's parody of Sir Keith).

Garry_lager - yup like that summary

Old Labour was committed to nationalising industries. That would really not have fit well with the modern world we found ourselves in.

TandemJeremy - Member

Do remeber she never got anywhere near a majority of the vote - the opposition were divided which helped the tories a lot.

😆 I love TJ ... you are going to blame the world now aren't you? TJ, some are born into privilege life some are born to suffer, some are born to lead others are born to put to hard labour. The life you choose depends on how you set your mind.

Also its worth pointing out the failure of her economic policies. Under the tories we had high inflation, low growth, very high public spending and massive unemployment hardly a "economic miracle" especially as we got nothing for this as the money was spent on unemployment benefits rather that something useful like building infrastructure.

Could the alternative in those days do better? I doubt it. Lazy buggers.

the rich got richer and the poor got poorer

Shhhiiittt! Did those people get rich by putting people into slavery, the N.Korean style? 😆

What's with all this shite blaming all the previous governments? Can't you just look to the future rather than indulge in the past?

hmmm i'd like to have seen Kinnock in government personally (without some of the baggage of course). I still think he started what J Smith continued which lead to Blair,

She was that good in scotland the tories have hardly won a seat here since she was pm. She probably singlehandedly created the north south divide. If she could not shut it down in scotland then the north of england got it, if you look emsz it is very probably a north south divide with her popularity.

stuartie_c - Member
I'll not ignore your post Druidh...

Are you suggesting that it was a case of "cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man"?

I have a visceral hatred for her and her current successors like Cameron, Maude and Gove but I'm coming to accept that she gave society what it really wanted which was the "me culture" that is still alive today. It is a indictment of UK society that this has been allowed to flourish under successive governments, despite the shift to Labour in 1997.

No stuart - I'm merely reflecting on that fact that most of those criticising what she did and what she stood for continued to vote for "more of the same please", despite all the left-wing rhetoric on here. At least with Thatcher you knew what you were getting. It's the hypocrisy of the Labour party that sticks in my craw more - that and the cannon-fodder that continues to vote for it. I would argue that we, in Scotland, have had a more representative alternative for several years and yet there are still areas where a monkey wearing a red rose would be elected.

speak for yourself, plenty of people do things which are neither

yes, but clearly not enough

don simon - Member
She did create a new middle class through homeownership though? Selling council houses and increasing personal wealth must be a good thing, no?

owning a council house does not make you middle class.

druidh - Member

don simon - Member
She did create a new middle class through homeownership though? Selling council houses and increasing personal wealth must be a good thing, no?
Unless you'd like to rent a council house and you now find there are none available.

Yeah agreed that was shocking - cheap bribe to the electorate

Do remeber she never got anywhere near a majority of the vote - the opposition were divided which helped the tories a lot.

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

I am not sure the manufacturing industry was in tip top shape before she got involved, TJ.

Britain was exporting more manufactured goods than importing when she became Prime Minister, by the time she left office Britain was importing more manufactured goods than exporting.

Not all her fault, but a fair chunk is - relying on, and building up, Britain's dependency on the finance industry was another clever idea of hers, and another reason why we're in such a mess today.

Do remeber she never got anywhere near a majority of the vote

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.

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 😉