[Closed] Explain the "Thatcher" thing to me

The unions had a hand in the destruction too. If there had been more compromise the impact would have been lessened. Scargill is just as hateful a character

Do you think I revel in what happened to the industries? not one bit - but you cannot blame Thatcher for it all, [b]it was going to happen sooner or later anyway,[/b] and whenever it happened, it would have been horrific for those communities -

True, but the way it was done with an apparent disregard for the future was callous in the extreme. I've seen nothing in all the years that have since passed that makes me think that the Tory policies of confrontation and repression were justified.

I've no argument with the need to modernise, and I agree that the union leaders needed to bend in the wind - hence my views on the current public sector pensions strike - but to just terminate industries and double the unemployment to 3m was wrong on every level.

Emsz - bet you wish you never asked!

She was very polarizing as you can see from above. I was very definitely an anti Thatcher. She started privatisation of the railway when I was there which was really coming to terms with things in this period on its own by 'sectorisation for a start. (I know John Major was PM when legislation went through in '93).

Last election I did not vote labour because Gordon Brown was complimentary about her not long before the election (voted Lib Dem so I suppose that makes me partly responsible for current problems).

She inspired quite a bit of music, we didn't have FB or twitter to release our tensions, listen to Tramp The Dirt Down (Elvis Costello) Blue (Fine Young Cannibals) Billy Bragg or Christy Moore. [CM is on a boxed set, very eloquent on Reagan / Thatcher when not railing on anti abortion in Ireland etc etc.]

All the above is of course true TJ and there is really no excuse for the way it was done.

They (the unions) were as much to blame as the government of the day, with entirely unreasonable and unsustainable demands, which, along with the rapidly emerging manufacturing industries in the far east, created the circumstances which allowed The Government (not just Thatcher) to behave in the way it did. Coal was only one industry however and many of the problems could have been sorted out if it wasn't for union leaders attempting to take over the running of The Country, which left the Government little option but to 'break' both them, and as a consequence, their members.

Although Thatcher is quite rightly vilified for many of her and her parties actions, little is mentioned of the man, who in my opinion was equally responsible for much of the suffering in coal mining dependant communities, Arthur Scargill. This [url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3067563.stm ]BBC link[/url] explains it quite well.

thatchers main agenda was to destroy the power and right of working class people.
and by destroying the countries most powerfull union, she managed to do this.
hatefull spitefull woman, who acted on her own twisted agenda without a thought for anyone.

A few years ago I was managing a business where it looked very likely that we were going to become unionised to a fair amount of panic amonsgt my colleagues in the boardroom. We got ACAS in and I'll never forget the guy who came down to see us. Completely straightfaced he sat there and told my MD that "you will only get a union if you deserve one"....folowed a few seconds later by "I reckon its going to happen from what I've seen". I had to feign a coughing fit to get past that moment.

Never a truer word spoken in my experience. Think about it, if you're working for a good caring employer who plays a straight bat with you, why would you want to pay to be represented by a union? Thats as true at a national level as it is at a organisational one. So then think about the industrial troubles under Tory governments in recent times. Bad crews or bad captains? Pretty sure I know the answer.

along with the rapidly emerging manufacturing industries in the far east,

PS: Having been one of the first companies to seriously trade in China, which is what you are talking about, (India/Taiwan/Japan/Phillipines etc had been going like 10 men for some time before Thatcher), I'm here to tell you that the boom from there did not really pick up speed until almost 10 years after Thatcher came to power. In the main British companies at the time did not want to do business there because it was notoriously difficult and unreliable. Ultimately we had little choice because of the disasterous state of the UK economy largely caused by selling off utilities and things like coal and steel.

Relatively balanced outlook on the British economy without all the crap from the pseudo-politicos on this forum who believe that only they know the truth.

Interesting comment on that link

However, Mrs Thatcher's modernisation of the British economy was far from trouble free; [b]her battle against inflation resulted in mass unemployment with the jobless count passing 3,000,000 by the start of 1982 compared to 1,500,000 three years previously.[/b] This was in part due to the closure of outdated factories and coalpits which were no longer economically viable; this process continued for most of the rest of the decade. [b]Unemployment peaked at nearly 3,300,000 during 1984 before falling dramatically in the final three years of the decade, standing at just over 1,600,000 by the end of 1989[/b]

So the closures of all the various industries mentioned drove the unemployment up to 3,300,000.

However by the end of the decade the unemployment figures were back down to almost the level seen before all the closures.

So, genuine question, either all those that lost their jobs as part of the closures

a) found new work

or

b) retired

or

c) the figures were seriously doctored and reclassified

So if she permanently devestated the country, why did unemployment figures drop back to the level they were at before her evil crusade?

Figures were doctored. the way unemployment was counted was changed frequently reducing the headline numbers dramaticaly

because everyone got a job in a call centre

Ton - bus ask yourself why? Arguably (oh, no!!) she came to power in response (among other things) to a union movement whose main agenda was to destroy the power of businesses and entrepreneurs. And by destroying governments (Wilson, Callaghan and Heath) and industries, they managed to do this. Hateful, spiteful people (seems extreme, but...?), who acted on their own twisted agenda without a thought for anyone.

BB - I like that: "Completely straightfaced he sat there and told my MD that "you will only get a union if you deserve one".

Figures were doctored. the way unemployment was counted was changed frequently reducing the headline numbers dramaticaly

Doctored enough to wipe millions off the figures? Again, genuine question. I do know the way of classifying unemployed was changed but it must have been a hell of a change to shave millions off the top.

Even now I hoard and worry over money

*splutters coffee over screen*

With the amount you spunk over frames, forks etc?

Back on topic.

If there is a hell, then Thatcher *and* Scargill will be gaffer taped in a loving embrace for all eternity whilst evil little pixies poke them with hot sticks.

Berm Bandit

Not just talking just about China, as the others you mention were still 'emerging'. I was working in the oil industry at the time and I remember a tender for a semi-submersible rig being awarded to an Indian shipyard. They built two for less than a UK or other Western builder was willing to build one.

Doctored enough to wipe millions off the figures? Again, genuine question. I do know the way of classifying unemployed was changed but it must have been a hell of a change to shave millions off the top.

Yep, also take a look at the numbers claiming incapacity benefit.

TJ - your claims aren't supportable - according to the ONS:

Economic inactivity trends
[i]Data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS)
back to 1971 show that the overall inactivity
rate has remained fairly stable over the
period, even though there have been
notable variations in the economic cycle.
Despite this stability, there have been some
distinctive changes in the composition of
the economically inactive group.
Unless otherwise stated, analysis in this
article is based on those aged 16 and over
and below state pension age (that is, 60 for
women and 65 for men).
Th e total number of economically
inactive people in the UK stood at 7.9
million for the three months to September
2008, a rise of around 864,000 since
the beginning of 1971. Despite this, the
economic inactivity rate has remained
stable over this period because the total
population for this age group has also
increased.
Figure 1 shows that the proportion of the
population who were economically inactive
fl uctuated around 21 and 22 per cent
throughout the 1970s. Inactivity increased
during the early 1980s’ recession, with the
rate reaching 23 per cent during the fi rst half
of 1983. As the economy improved in the
1980s, the rate fell to around 19.3 per cent.
However, the recession in the 1990s drove
the rate back up to the level experienced in
the 1970s. In the three months to September
2008, the economic inactivity rate was 20.9
per cent (down by 0.2 percentage points
from a year earlier).[/i]

If large numbers of people had been pushed off the unemlpoyment figures onto, for example, long term sick, then it would show in the economic inactivity figures.

f large numbers of people had been pushed off the unemlpoyment figures onto, for example, long term sick, then it would show in the economic inactivity figures.

so what about the millions on youth opportunity schemes or enterprise allowance schemes ? millions of people massaged off the UB totals but still financed by the govt. and with no chance of full time employment at the end.

BB - good points and question and an important marker for the next few years. There is no doubt that UN was a direct consequence of T policies and marked the transition in the structure of the UK economy. This is shown by the bell-shaped curve of UN. In time, supply side reforms helped the private sector to absorb some of the losses of the private sector but with a painful lag. So this was the period that went from a Keynesian inspired state-oriented to a more enterprise oriented economy (see Zulu's personal experiences above).

Gordon Brown's version of Keynesian economics was less extreme and hopefully the repercussions on the public sector will also be less so. But the government is dreaming if it thinks that the private sector is going to pick up the slack in the immediate future. So we will see the same bell curve again. Two losers - financial services and public sector - the new winners - answers on a postcard...!!

BoardinBob - Member

There are certain members of this forum who would swear that black was white because it fitted with their predictable, short sighted and narrow minded politcal views.

Unfortunately the OP asked a question that you will never get a correct answer to (Have you read some of the religeous threads?).

Politicians are all scum who, as Jessa says, should be shot in front of their families, for crimes against humanity.

I don't remember a great deal about the 70's due to my age but do remember the constant power cuts, my dad coming home from work because he couldn't do any work, sitting by the windows in school to be able to read books and boxes of candles. Pretty miserable really not the rose tinted version offered by many on here. A view that is reflected by many others [url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729683.stm ]here[/url]

Emsz, like someone else has said look back at history before and after Thatcher and make your own mind up.

because everyone got a job in a call centre

Zulu-Eleven - Member
TJ - your claims aren't supportable

Boarding bob - yes. Probably reduced the count by 25% or more. 20+ alterations to how the numbers wer counted each time reducingthe headline figure

16 and 17 year olds removed from it. Entitlement to benefits was cut - you used to get a benefit if you were out of work no matter what - but it became means tested so if one person in a houshold was unemployed they got no benefit so did not appear in the count. YTS and so on removed from the count. Students lost entilement to benifits in teh summer hols so they came off the count.
etc etc

you used to get a benefit if you were out of work no matter what - but it became means tested so if one person in a houshold was unemployed they got no benefit so did not appear in the count. YTS and so on removed from the count. Students lost entilement to benifits in teh summer hols so they came off the count.

students used to be able to claim benefits in the summer hols ?

FFS.

She had some great friends and allies around the world who's beliefs she defended steadfastly

she wouldn't have a bad word said against them

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

Back in the days of grants, yes. The grant only covered you for term time. (And you didn't have to pay it back either. I did demonstrate against the introduction of student loans...)

Why wait til she'd dead, celebrate her now at

http://www.maggies-club.com/#http://www.maggies-club.com#

Actually looks aright for those of a certain age... which is, thinking about it probably, too old tooo party...

http://www.squaremeal.co.uk/restaurants/london/view/104226/Maggi e's

In a Jeremy Clarkson type comment 😆

All those people who voted for her should be took outside and shot lol

and on the other side of the fence all those who did well out of her will no doubt wish that all those who lost there jobs because of her and had to become dole scum (in there views )should have been shot so the money spent on there unemployment could have been saved as f*** them we are ok type of society we became.

On a serious point when she departs down to hell we might at last find out the full truth about the Hillsbough dissaster .

jota180 - Member
She had some great friends and allies around the world....

...as do many politicians

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Hmm: don't suppose I would have gone self-employed ('86) or bought a flat ('88) in a different climate than was prevelent in Thatcher's Britain. Worth remembering though that VAT went from 7.5% to 17.5%..so much dor reducing taxes; also the interest rate on my mortgage soon went up to 13%! That nearly finished me off.
I do echo the sentiments about generations of folk who have never had jobs, but at the same time know that you can't cure the ills of soceity by throwing money at them, the will to better your life has to come from within the individual (accept it's way harder to do this if you've never had a leg up from anyone and only ever had poor role models amongst peers and family).

rkk01 - Member

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

Posted 9 hours ago

Thatcher didn't govern through some sort of personal dictatorship she needed and received the support of her party, her ministers, and parliament. And when that support was no longer forthcoming, she was gone.

In fact, although Thatcher tore up the postwar consensus and she caused huge and lasting divisions in the country, she was actually very inclusive when it came to how she governed.

Thatcher was perfectly happy to include individuals from right across the political spectrum of the Tory party, including former colleagues of her sworn enemy Ted Heath. And she was quite prepared to give them very senior cabinet posts too.

Yes, there's little doubt that she bullied them, but it was still a high risk strategy. And this inclusiveness did indeed eventually lead to her downfall. When she was in effect sacked by her cabinet it reminded me of how when Nikita Khrushchev was sacked by the politburo he said afterwards, "at least they were able to sack me because of me - Stalin would have had them all shot".

(Contrast that with the cringe-inducing Stalinist Tony Blair, who after systematically destroying all democracy within the Labour Party and turning it a one man show, then proceeded to surround himself exclusively with sycophantic yes men and women. Anyone who was not a "Blairite" stood zero chance of a government post. Unsurprisingly, he was never challenged, not even when he was bending over for an extreme right-wing war-warmongering half-wit US president)

Thatcher was PM and leader of the Tory Party only for as long as she had the support of her party. And she could have achieved nothing without the support of others.

But the Soft Left in British politics prefers to concentrate on Thatcher the person, to vilify her personally, and to hold her up as a hate figure - putting personalty before policies. Which not only shows a lack of political maturity and awareness, but also goes a long way in explaining why the Left in Britain has been completely ineffective for the last thirty years.

And not only because "hate Thatcher" is an unconvincing argument when fighting right-wing policies, but because the Tories/right-wing use this simplistic vilification of Thatcher to their benefit.

The Tories should never have won the 1992 general election, even the Financial Times was backing Labour, and the perceived wisdom was that they wouldn't. But they did, even though they continued with fundamentally the same policies as Thatcher. Quite simply because they had ditched "evil" Thatcher. With Thatcher still as their leader they would have lost - and they knew it.

Tony Blair and his extreme right-wing cronies were also able to carry on with Thatcher's policies, because Tony Blair wasn't Thatcher.

Even at the last general election, David Cameron made a point of publicly reassuring the electorate that he wasn't Thatcher and putting some distance between him and her, lest people got frighten of voting Tory. And yet he has proved to be much more right-wing than Thatcher was, in fact he's behaving like Thatcher on steroids.

I find the constant, predictable, and tedious, personal vilification of Thatcher by the Soft Left depressing.........go out and learn some real politics FFS. Then perhaps we might have something tangible to offer the British people, instead of the pointless character assassination of a senile old woman. And never has the need to offer the British people real politics been more acute than right now.

craigxxl - Member
I don't remember a great deal about the 70's due to my age but do remember the constant power cuts, my dad coming home from work because he couldn't do any work, sitting by the windows in school to be able to read books and boxes of candles.

But the Soft Left in British politics prefers to concentrate on Thatcher the person, to vilify her personally, and to hold her up as a hate figure - putting personalty before policies. Which not only shows a lack of political maturity and awareness, but also goes a long way in explaining why the Left in Britain has been completely ineffective for the last thirty years.

Reasonable enough comments Ernie, but not ones I follow.

I have always made a clear distinction between Thatcher and her government's policies. The reason I genuinely detest her is not just because of the policies, but because of the enjoyment she seemed to get from talking about the "enemy within" and the "wreckers in our midst".

The policies were bad enough, and stattering in their impact. But to dance on the graves of those companies she closed was a whole new level of unpleasantness.

And yes, we get the politicians we deserve. The Tories caught onto the great idea of selling council houses to the people who effectively already owned them, and with this effective bribe mamnaged to hoodwink many otherwise Labour voters into believing the Tory myth.

Was Blair a Tory? Not quite, and I dispute that he was an extreme right-winger, at least on most social issues. But certainly not a Labour leader, not in my eyes; he's the reason I resigned from the party.

Thatcher was probably the first of the 'personality' leaders, and ever since, the parties have realised that the voters buy the leader first, and the politics come a distant second. Not the way it should be, but how else do you explain Blair, Cameron, Clegg, and most particuarly Boris Johnson? Contrast the failures of Duncan Smith, Hague, Brown....none of whom had noticably worse policies than either their predecessors or indeed successors, but just weren't as media-friendly.

People shouldn't put personality before politics, but they do. Banging on about the fact that policies matter more than the mouth that espouses them is all very well, but first you have to get elected. As we currently stand, I have more chance of becoming Prime Minister than Hopeless Ed Miliband. As I'm neither an MP nor even a member of the Labour Party, that tells its own story.

I remember that too. It was the winter of 78-79 and Jim Callaghan was PM.

Really? Power cuts for most of us were 1973.

I'd say before that as we moved house in Feb 72 and the power cuts affected the first house and not the second.
What I'm struggling with is the reasons for the power cuts.

how mad is this?
a seven page thread on thatcher that is still open!

@ernie and @nickf,

Not going to bother debating the minor points with which I disagree in your posts, I am also of the opinion that "we get the politicians we deserve".

So will this ever change? Given that we have roughly followed the American model of personality politics (and it's still worse there, but we're not so far behind), will it get worse before it gets better?

Indeed, will it ever get better at all?

the American model of personality politics

Have you seen the latest rogues gallery....amazing how they keep dropping like flies

Have you seen the latest rogues gallery....amazing how they keep dropping like flies

I've dropped the ball on the republican race for nomination but heard something about two candidates dropping major bollocks - was I imagining things?

nickf - Member
> I remember that too. It was the winter of 78-79 and Jim Callaghan was PM.
Really? Power cuts for most of us were 1973.

don simon - Member
I'd say before that as we moved house in Feb 72 and the power cuts affected the first house and not the second.
What I'm struggling with is the reasons for the power cuts.

I've dropped the ball on the republican race for nomination but heard something about two candidates dropping major bollocks - was I imagining things?

🙂 Funny as hell tbh - they're calling it 'the stumble' in the US.

There's another candidate called Herman Cain who is basically taking the pish even being there - he was asked a soft question on foreign policy and folded horribly. I doubt he was even that arsed though.

What do you reckon??

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

in the cities stuff all, but they don't have a monopoly on deprivation

my pre-79 recollections are the mills starting to close, going to school in home made clothes, the kids who appeared in pyjama's in class all one winter,the monotonous food, eaking out the cheap roast from the weekend and mash and more mash,the vegetable patch to stretch the food budget, the constant delousing, the floor boards, the double glazing in winter (glass on the outside, ice on the inside), being stuck under my dads car freezing my fingers off as he tried to keep his car on the road, watching parents storming through the school yard to have a go at the head, constant violence and bullying in the playground and in the town, the six fingered kid from the council estate, local "family" gang warfare and "no-go" areas

I actually had it reasonably good as "wealth" is relative and I didn't know what I didn't have and lots of people had a lot less and at least I had two parents and my dad didn't piss his money up the wall, others in the deadend valley I lived in were already condemned

I'm sure it was far worse in the big smoke.

the thing about thatcher was stupid and rich people liked her, clever, and poor people disliked her, council house tennants who where allowed to buy ytheir homes liked her, until the day the local council tells every council owned house occupier theyre getting a new kitchen.bathroom, roof, new electrics, garden fence ,etc, while mr bought it doesnt get any of the freebies, and cant sell his ex council house, because who would by an ex council house on an estate, full of council house tennants, with extra settees in the front garden, and overflow fridges, along with the dumped car.

Well all that took some reading, and Ive been on wiki an stuff as well. Lots to take in, but I wanted to know and I think I've got a better understanding now especially some of the stuff from nickf and ernie and tj. In fact you've even managed not to bitch at each other as well. Jota180 who are those men?

It was really sad to read about nickf's dad and the stuff that muddydawarf wrote. Nickf if you don't mind saying is your dad ok now?

I'm not sure the whole celebration about her dying is cool though. Seems a bit weird to me, but I sort of understand the feeling people have about it. I want to see the film more now I think

Having worked in Longbridge imposing democracy on the unions and legislating against restrictive practices seemed a very good idea. Studying economics at uni monetarism to manage inflation and the economy seemed the best option. Renegociating the deal with Europe was an excellent move.

On the other hand even if the miners had a pocket dictator as a leader it wasn't necessary to close the pits once he was beaten. A siege would have got the Falklands back with less bloodshed.

I used her "Victorian Values" speech as teaching material for years. A class act whether you loved or hated her.

emsz,unless you where living through that period, and saw whole comunities split, families split, the non stop media tirade against the unions, whole industries desimated, proud men crying after loosing their jobs,with a lot less of the welfare state than now to support them, jobs and industries their fathers ansd fathers had worked in, trades and skills handed down the generations, all to be demolished, to made in supermarkets or country parks,to worry about your kids haveing no employment and lots more, thats waht thatcher means to a lot of us, and to think stupid muppets voted them back in again.
This time they have little to sell off,like the state industries they had then, thats why theyre trying to provoke strikes among the council workers, to reduce the wage billand sell the profiotable bits to theuiir mates for pennies,just look at Northern Rock.

Project - As I said earlier, Thatcher and the Conservatives had no monopoly on decimating industries and miners.

There was a fantastic programme on radio 4 about the Category D villages, and the closure of the pits that led to those villages being condemned

and to think stupid muppets voted them back in again.

the whole country was still riding on the crest of a patriotic wave after Las Malvinas.

really ? hardly the whole country. most of the people i knew were either completely ambivalent or totally hostile to the falklands war.

Ah, if we're onto muppets then don't forget the muppets in 2005 who voted Blair's government back in even after the debacle of the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Of course you're right the whole country didn't support the war that would be ridiculous, but I guess you know that, enough of a feel good factor to swing the votes in her favour, again, you knew that too, (or at least I hope you did).

the falklands was a created war, just to take peeps minds off the state of the country, just like the one that is currently happening in iraq and afganmistan, a huge waste of people and resourses, money that could have been spent better, but the falklands got her back in power.

labour where voted back in , not blair, he just took the flak, as nobody else wanted the job.

A siege would have got the Falklands back with less bloodshed

in what way? we didn't have air superiority, we didn't want a load of blokes in boats in the South Atlantic in winter getting picked off by exocets.

Things such as getting one chinook off the Atlantic Conveyor made the difference the campaign was on such a knife edge. We were one exocet from coming home throughout the conflict.

The Falklands was a conflict that didn't need to happen and cost a lot of lives of argentinian conscripts that didn't want to be there. But we were right to move to resolve the issue as the islanders have the right to self determination and the Junta would not have been something I would want to be ruled by.

emsz,unless you where living through that period, and saw whole comunities split, families split, the non stop media tirade against the unions, whole industries desimated, proud men crying after loosing their jobs,with a lot less of the welfare state than now to support them, jobs and industries their fathers ansd fathers had worked in, trades and skills handed down the generations, all to be demolished, to made in supermarkets or country parks,to worry about your kids haveing no employment and lots more, thats waht thatcher means to a lot of us, and to think stupid muppets voted them back in again.

or did you want a Austin Maxi back then?

Comes back to the lack of opposition I guess. Her first term was pretty ropey by all accounts - think this has already been mentioned. Couldn't get her cabinet in order, not too popular. Isn't there some quote by a tory MP that privatisation of the utilities was a 'distant dream' around that time? Enter Michael Foot, stage right, and suddenly the tories start to look like the natural party of governance.

Famous line (but I cannae recall who said it :)) that she chose her enemies well. Arthur Scargill, Derek Hatton - custom built for Maggie. Literally couldn't have invented a more helpful pair of patsies. Mix in Michael Foot as an ideological enemy and the stars were well and truly aligned for her.

Emsz.. there are lots of films which deal with the social fallout from this time period. There's one about the miners' strike specifically, but there's another one I've seen set in the North where the community is helping out the family whose father is on strike, the shopkeeper lady is sneaking stuff into her basket but she's too proud to take it.. forget the name, but there are lots more.

project - Member
the falklands was a created war, just to take peeps minds off the state of the country, just like the one that is currently happening in iraq and afganmistan, a huge waste of people and resourses, money that could have been spent better, but the falklands got her back in power.

load of rubbish, it was a foriegn policy cock-up that if it had happened twelve months later we wouldn't have been able to fight, where every time the task force got "air raid warning red" they were one exocet away from coming home

I doubt Thatcher had even heard of the Falklands before the "scrap metal dealers" moved on South Georgia

no i actually had to wat till about 1994 for an austin maxi, lovely car it was in brown, missed it when it went, and i got a capri.

Mangement helped by thatcher closed industries by investing abroad, and denying that investment to uk plc.

unions abusing their powers just like now then.

What kept her at the top and even made her haters admire her.
Was that she was so fearsome on the international stage. Like when she stood up to Argentina over the falklands.

Zulu11, it was so called slum clearance that derbyshire wanted and relocation of workers and households, nothing at all to do with mines closing if you listen to the documentry you posted.

Derbyshire?

Sort of shows how well you listened to it Project.

The D category villages had [i]everything[/i] to do with pit closures!

[i]1951 - Durham County Council publishes its Development Plan in which it addresses [b]the problems of 350 scattered villages which have grown up around small mines. The mines were no longer economic[/b] and the villages were haemorrhaging population. The Plan classified a third of the villages as Category D because the council felt there was no way of sustaining them in the future. [b]These villages were to be left to die without economic assistance[/b].[/i]

Sorry i only got to this one late. I think over the years she has given me energy to fight for my fellow man. I hate everything she stood for and even though i would never want anybody ill feeling, she has been the one that has challanged this view. I know she is old and now would be a easy target to get at. But what make sme bigger than she ever was and ever will be is that i don't wish her to rot in hell. not unlike she wanted to do too my fellow man.
Flock

at the end the chap said the houses where ok to live in, and they had thousands of visitors visit from all over the world to see what had happened, the same had happened in there countries, also a few of the houses where then rebuilt at beamish as a museum piece.

Not the way it should be, but how else do you explain Blair, Cameron, Clegg, and most particuarly Boris Johnson? Contrast the failures of Duncan Smith, Hague, Brown....none of whom had noticably worse policies than either their predecessors or indeed successors, but just weren't as media-friendly.

Well a lot of that can be explained in ways other than just simply "media-friendly" personalities.

For a start Blair v Brown. Brown definitely wasn't "media-friendly", and yet he did remarkably well in the 2010 general election. The party had been in power for 13 years so it was highly likely that they would lose the election anyway. The British electorate, like most in the world, gets fed up with the same party in power after a while. Add to that the fact that the economy was in a mess and it was almost a foregone conclusion.

Nevertheless the Tory lead over Labour at the general election was just 7%. Which is about the same as the Tory lead over Labour in the opinion polls during Blair's final year as leader, and [u]before[/u] the economic crises. Why didn't Labour do worse under Brown's leadership in May 2010 ? Blair would have lost the 2010 general election anyway, without a doubt. And had Brown gone for a general election when he first became leader, then he would have very likely won.

Cameron......he failed to win a majority at the general election, a very rare occurrence for HM's Opposition. Which hardly suggests that he is hugely popular with the electorate.

Clegg.....everyone went crazy with "Cleggmania" just before the general election, and yet the LibDems only managed to poll 1% more than they had done in the previous election with Kennedy as leader, ffs. [u]And[/u] by May 2010 both the government [i]and[/i] HM's Opposition, had been discredited in the eyes of the electorate. The LibDems should have been raking in the votes !

Boris Johnson v Livingstone. Livingstone did relatively well in the London mayoral elections. Whilst there was a huge swing throughout the country away from Labour to the Tories on that day, the swing in London was [i]much[/i] smaller. Livingstone vote in central London remained solid, the reason Johnson won was because the "doughnut ring" ......Bromley, Kingston, etc, came out in force as never before. In part due to a concerted and prolonged campaign by the Evening Standard.

Hague......he never stood a chance. Labour had only been in government for 4 years and the economy was booming. Plus people's memory of Tory sleaze was still fresh.

Duncan Smith.....what, the guy who famously said "do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man", when everyone was asking why the wasn't saying anything ? Oh come on, the Tories wouldn't have done any worse if they had dragged some random geezer off the street to become their leader.

Having said all that, of course personality is often put before policies by some of the electorate. But the way to deal with that is not to play along and encourage it - policies are always more important than personality. Hammer the policies, not the person.

Besides, Thatcher was never actually "media-friendly". I have known many people who didn't like her as a person but supported her policies.

Which is hardly surprising, when you consider that many on the soft left were more preoccupied in attacking her personality than her policies. Partly because of laziness, and partly because they lacked the tools, and the confidence, to effectively challenge neoliberalism ...... "nasty woman look how she doesn't care about blah, blah, blah" isn't enough.

The battle to expose Thatcher as not a very nice person was largely won, few people think she was a warm kind considerate person. But the political battle was lost. And she went on to win elections and screw ordinary working people whilst convincing them that there was no other way. What more proof than that do you need ?

I think most of us on the 'soft left' (whatever that is) have the revulsion for Thatcher that we do because she personifies the policies of the faceless corporate types that paid millions to have her front their ideology, and you can't blame people for that.
We as a species have always anthropomorphised what we see as 'bad' or 'evil' by creating a demon for it, no real difference then by using Thatcher as the Head of State for the policies that did so much harm. Thatcher did ride roughshod over her 'wets' and made a big deal of it, we all remember the Spitting Image sketches of Tebbit as a leather-clad thug with a cosh.

We do need to remember that she didn't dream up these policies though, Alan Greenspan (?) and the neo-con dreamers in the US were her idols and we all know that when the US sneezes we catch a cold.

P.S. the 2 terms 'neo-con' and 'neo-liberal' seem on the face of it to be poles apart so why are they essentially the same extremists?

P.S. the 2 terms 'neo-con' and 'neo-liberal' seem on the face of it to be poles apart so why are they essentially the same extremists?

I'm taking that as a serious question, not a rhetorical one, hope it was. 'Neo-con' refers to a new kind of conservative. Richard Nixon famously once said [i]"I am now a Keynesian in economics"[/i] which nicely sums up the "old" conservatives. 'Neo-liberalism' of course refers to a liberal economy which is allowed to freely operate without government intervention. The two go hand in hand.

Ernie - it was a serious question, thanks for the answer. So essentially a Neo-con is an ultra hardline US conservative who espouses a neo-liberal (i.e. free marketeer) fiscal policy?

I'm old school and still use the term 'liberal' to denote a school of thought that places value on personal freedoms.

I'm old school and still use the term 'liberal' to denote a school of thought that places value on personal freedoms.

Ah, but I'm sure the neo-liberals would argue that an economy free of government interference is a prerequisite for "personal freedom".

They probably would, but to my mind personal freedom ends when it impinges on another's existence.

I do agree with you on the idea that Thatcher wasn't the only demon, but she was the face of the enemy so to speak and that will always bring up emotions.

liberalism-authoritarianism and socialism-conservatism are different political axes.

Part of me wants to read this thread and the other 99% of me says 'go do something less boring instead' to coin a phrase.

Can anyone give me edited highlights so that I can jump in with my 10 cents?

Can anyone give me edited highlights?

TJ doesn't like Thatcher.

Zulu-eleven likes Thatcher.

TJ doesn't like Thatcher.

Zulu-eleven likes Thatcher.

This is good.

Does anyone actually have a bottle of champagne on ice for when she dies? Several people on the UKClimbing forums claim to.

I'm hoping she croaks on the 30th January, that way i can celebrate the endings of two traitors to England...

(The other being Charles I who was executed on that day) 🙂

Does anyone actually have a bottle of champagne on ice for when she dies? Several people on the UKClimbing forums claim to.

That is a wicked thing to say ... about anyone.

Wicked, debatable.

Understandable, certainly.

Ernie - it was a serious question, thanks for the answer. So essentially a Neo-con is an ultra hardline US conservative who espouses a neo-liberal (i.e. free marketeer) fiscal policy?

The neo-cons in the US are really defined by their foreign policy. There's a big wiki article on the word / movement and it's probably meant different things at different times, but recently it's been all about exporting US democracy wherever they feel it is needed - with the attendant war-mongering and nation-building.

They're actually not hard line conservatives at all in the trad sense - all the OG neo-cons were liberals initially. SO they're not particularly interested in domestic / social or perceived moral issues - you wouldn't get a neo-con making a big deal of gay marriage or something like that, for example.

9-11 was the neo-con moment as they had been in abeyance after the cold war, and Bush's circle of advisors was strongly identified as neo-con. I'm less familiar with its use as an identifier here in the UK. Obviously we tucked in behind the US in Iraq and Afghanistan but that was never presented as some sort of ideological crusade of British conservatism. It was much more realpolitik - alleged WMDs, Saddam is a bad man, how did our oil get under their sand etc. It was very much an ideological crusade from the pOV of US neo-conservatives, though.

Wicked +1, she was quite despicable as a person and leader, but I wouldn't allow myself to stoop to her levels.

No, regardless of who it's aimed at, you just shouldn't say things like that about anyone. 😐