[Closed] Explain the "Thatcher" thing to me

I want to contribute to this thread. Unfortunately I can't. I can't even read it, as it will invariably involve someone, probably Hora, defending the nasty, hideous, poisonous, vindictive, evil corrosive bitch.

I think you can have some grudging admiration for her abilities to follow a policy even when it was massively resented

Absolutely not. Pig-headedness is in no way an admirable quality.

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

Germany

The Jezza thread vs this for longevity.

My money's on this.

She [s]was[/s] is ginger Marmite.

Think in terms of these issues :-

Freeing up the banks to do unfettered lending
The breakdown of traditional monogamous relationships
The cost of property
The obesity epidemic
The current state of British Rail
The current state of the Gas industry
The current state of the electricity industry
The current state of the water industry
The current state of our Steel industry
The current state of our coal industry
The current state of our financial institutions
The state of the NHS when New Labour came to power and the amount of money it took to repair it

To name but a few, and you’ll have a general idea of why she’s held in such esteem.

I suspect we'll make the day the old bitch dies a national holiday here in Scotland.

"Why don't people blame their parents for the way their life turned out?"
Oddly enough hora, my life changed dramatically because of what the right honourable bitch cow did. I was on strike for a year, then got made redundant. Following that, I did my nurse training, and here I am twenty odd years later, still nursing. Would I have done that if I'd have still had a job in the pit? I cant say. What I can say is that I feel bloody lucky to have been able to move on, and that I still see people and places that havent been able to, and are still suffering for it. As far as blaming my parents, I have nothing but gratitude for what my mam and dad did for me. With regards to Scargill living a gilded lifestyle - how do you know, other than what the media tells you to believe? Following the strike, his wife divorced him, and he's very, very much a shadow of his former self. I know he had a monstrous ego, and made some bad decisions at the time, but I for one would have followed him anywhere.

Not read the whole thread but, any one who lives in the North of England and sees the industrial desolation ,caused by policies that came from her belief that Britain should be a service economy, would be pretty misguided not to hate her IMO.

She has done more for the uk balance of payments deficit and social division than any politician ever AND the current lot seem to be following her template to build further on that legacy. Bitch.

Just what will the UK think when "the ladys not for turning" does eventually pop off??

I do wonder how her legacy will be treated.

Now then, who said "Mark Thatcher"... calm down at the back you..

TandemJeremy - Member
As a deliberate policy she pushed millions onto the dole and wasted the north sea oil money paying for them to do nothing.

We still are paying the price to day as the underclass she deliberately created continue to exist.

it was done to drive down the price of labour and to reduce the power of the unions. Unemployment from a million to nearer five million. Industry was devastated and the rich got richer while the poor got poorer

A massive crime against the people of our country. Of course some will defend her- the people who did well out of it - the richer amongst us.

Posted 11 hours ago # Report-Post

TJ sums it all up to start with,she destroyed the briritsh car and trucka nd bus industry that was BL, she closed the coal minmes so now we have to rly on expensive nuclear poweer, cheap to produce some idiots say, but oh so dear to keep safe for future generations, she closed down the large psychie hospitals and created care in the community, where menetally ill people are allowed to walk the streets with little or no treatment,she destroyed the steel industry, and most heavy engoineering, she wasted billions of oil money, paying her cronies huge sums to create training companies, that failed instead of giving the money to the coleges that existed, she destroyed working class comunities by destroying their workplaces, and created a them and us mentalitity, she sold off the council houses, bt, british steel, the water and electric boards, along with the gas,british rail, etc all companies who make massive profits and charge huge prices, we now have massive unemployment thats not going to be soaked up by pointless media studies degrees amongst others in the newly created univercities, some which are failing already and being taken over.

She must really be quite cheered by how she destroyed the unions power, and be quite happy at how poor a turnout the so called day off of work the unions and media created between themselves on wednesday .

A few yrs ago i was fortunate enough to be offered a part in the Channel4 documentary/dramatisation about the Battle of Orgreave during the Miners Strike.
That weekend i met many former miners who were there on that horrible day and i was struck by the implacable bitterness from that community towards Thatcher and her Ministers that still reverberates to this day.

At the end of filming there was a march down the road behind the Union banners, and again i was struck by how those men once again lifted their heads, firmed their chins and marched in pride.

*Plus, i got to hit a famous Hollywood director with a rubber rock! 😳

Why don't people blame their parents for the way their life turned out?

Or blame themselves?

If theres no work in deepest Wales, why not * move to where there is work.

"No lad you see I've lived here for generations and I'm * if I'm going elsewhere. I'd rather sit here in a council house drawing benefits whilst feeling quasi-proud about not moving away from my roots' and blame someone for not knocking on my door and providing work just a bicycle ride away.

Of **** off.

You're right Hora. People should get off their backside and find a job. But if you were from a mining town (and I'm assuming you're not) and had had an appalling education, then stuck down the mines at 15 (this is precisely what happened to my father), what exactly would you do if you were suddently put out of work at 35? No qualifications, a recession on ..... sure, there were [i]some[/i] jobs down South, but nowhere near enough. And some places had a mixed economy, but if you went to, say, the Durham coalfields there really wasn't much else around there. It was the biggest employer (on both a primary and secondary basis) by a huge margin. It stopped, everything stopped. People couldnt afford cars, so the garage closed. People didn't need labourers or builders. The metal-bashing firms were big suppliers to the mines, so they shut too. Supermarkets shut.

Jobs just a bike ride away? I can assume only that you're either quite young and just know about history, or never lived in a part of the country which was really affected. I watched communites [i]crumble[/i] and saw homeless people appear in my city.

Miners are not workshy people - there's a proud tradition of hard graft in the industry - so to blithely talk about people as somehow not being bothered, not caring about whether they could get a job is just so far of the mark that it's not funny.

Building, Labouring? etc etc.

She's responsible for killing our primary and secondary sectors, putting too much faith in the tertiary?

Some of this must be down to blanket education where those in charge think every student wants to go to uni, get a degree and powerdress to work.

Some kids just want to shape wood and weld things for a living.

I hope she goes while there's a Tory government in. I want to see the reaction of Call-me-Dave and his chums as Everywhere other than London and the Home Counties erupt in spontaneous rejoicing. I'm sure they'll find it incomprehensible and will express disgust and faux outrage, while the rest of us pop the champagne corks

Ironically I can think of no greater illustration of the polarisation and social division she bequeathed to the country

"Building, Labouring? etc etc."
Where? when the pits went, the villages and communities went, Which part of that do you fail to comprehend? In the village I grew up in, you went to work down the pit - that was more or less your choice, there werent a lot of options. I was lucky insofar as my mam and dad encouraged me to get an education, which gave me something to fall back on, but not everybody had that option. Keep going hora, your thatcherite ideology's shining through nicely, I'm sure she'd be very proud... 🙄

I struggle with long sentences
and, being at work have no access to youtube, so don't know if this will work or not, but of you want the thatcher philosophy summed up, see if you can't find the "Greed is Good" speech by Michael Douglas from Wall St (Gordon Gekko was the character).

Hora either doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand how the loss of a huge local employer affects a community.
Overnight the money is gone. Pubs close down, shops close and local services like plumbers, builders,garden centres etc all go bust because no-one - and i MEAN no-one - has any money to spend. 600 jobs gone in a pit can mean 10'000 more people losing money and businesses because of that.

THAT is why she is hated.

My comment was referring to this:

and had had an appalling education, then stuck down the mines at 15 (this is precisely what happened to my father), what exactly would you do if you were suddently put out of work at 35? No qualifications, a recession on ..... sure, there were some jobs down South, but nowhere near enough.

Calm down.

Referring back. WHY was an area so dependent on one industry? Why as a country had we put such reliance for an area on one sector instead of a mix?

The Government at the time had to take drastic measures due to the economic situation. The country couldn't keep running in such a way and had to control inflation. Unions wanted payrises.

Why, to this day is one person blamed and no one else is seen to shoulder the blame?

Why did the Unions call a year-longstrike surely knowing the downside could be a whole lot worse and detrimental for the whole country if they lost. Everyone loses.

As for the 'better to have people unemployed'- bollocks. Taxes paid and money spent in the economy is much more preferable.

I just don't agree that she was seen as the wicked witch and the source of all ills.

Are you really from the North of England Hora? You can't be. Sometimes I think you're from another planet. Planet Penis

If theres no work in deepest Wales, why not **** move to where there is work.

Have you not noticed the scale of Welsh/Irish/Geordie/Scouse/Manc migration ot other parts of this sceptred isle, and for that matter throughout the world? I would have thought even the meanest intelligence would have.

in the 10 years prior to thatcher, the labour government closed more pits than she did in her first 10 years in power. they closed 34 vs 28 under thatcher

http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/forum/read.php?14,7169,7173

tbh, closing them had a devistating effect, but it had to happen sooner or later - they were simply uncompetative on a global market. Could more have been done to 'soften the blow' - possibly.

Welsh/Irish/Geordie/Scouse/Manc

Should I be grateful that I do not understand politics in any way?

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

I like Maggie.

Doesn't matter how sheltered or screwed over our families were under whatever government you care to mention. Most of us just take on the political leanings of our parents. (Putting SDP leaflets in letterboxes with my dad when I was 9 here, guess what I think of her!)

My father in law had his colleagues screwed over and his whole career turned upside down by privatisation, struggled to pay his mortgage all through the 80's. He saw his two favourite things scrapped before time under the Conservatives (Vulcans and British Railways), and yet he is still Tory as ever, because that's what his dad was.

@ Junkyard, told you. 😉

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

I like Maggie.

You know hora, I've typed and then scrapped about four retorts to your 'calm down' comment. There really is no point in trying to reason with somebody with views as polarised as yours are to mine. I'm lost for words, and becoming more and more wound up by an argument on an internet forum than is good for me, so for that reason, I'm oot (of this thread I mean, this is most definitely not an official flounce :wink:.

Are you really from the North of England Hora? You can't be. Sometimes I think you're from another planet. Planet Penis

Yep. I grew up in poverty. Stark poverty. Even now I hoard and worry over money. Where I grew up there were little choice to have interms of employment so I went to the otherside of the country then London.

barnsleymitch I'll tell you about my Father one day if we meet 🙂

Edit: and sod off binners, you are from the Wirral- your not a true northerner!

I'll mourn the day. What a woman. Not like every politician since. Cameron is a bloody makeweight/wishy-washy with weak leadership.

Stop trying to troll!

He speaketh the truth though.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with her politics, at least she had the conviction to follow through on her beliefs. A world away from modern politicians, too scared to alienate any section of the electorate.

I do laugh at the anti-tory hatred spouted currently. For those who despise Cameron et al, do you honestly believe Labour or the Liberal Democrats would do anything [i]radically[/i] different if they were in charge.

The days of left, right, red, or blue politics are gone. Every party is just a slightly different shade of grey.

At least Thatcher, and the opposition at the time, backed up their beliefs with action and opinion.

hora - when there are many millions unemployed how are they all supposed to get jobs?

Doesn't matter how sheltered or screwed over our families were under whatever government you care to mention. Most of us just take on the political leanings of our parents. (Putting SDP leaflets in letterboxes with my dad when I was 9 here, guess what I think of her!)

My folks now hate the Tories and vote labour.

I still vote Tory (a pointless thing in Scotland, but still...)

hora - when there are many millions unemployed how are they all supposed to get jobs?

If you know anyone who can do pointing work let me know. Everyone I've spoken to has a 2month waiting list.

hora - when there are many millions unemployed how are they all supposed to get jobs?

If what he says is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, it is pretty amazing that he is unable to empathise with those for whatever reason that are even less fortunate than himself. Some sort of PTSD thing perhaps?

hora - when there are many millions unemployed how are they all supposed to get jobs?

I think the theory is that you have to fight your neighbour for it, winner takes all

it is pretty amazing that he is unable to empathise with those for whatever reason that are even less fortunate than himself. Some sort of PTSD thing perhaps?

I spent two years on the dole in my teens doing **** all.

I just don't agree that she was seen as the wicked witch and the source of all ills

[img] [/img]

nice shiny apple for the barrow boys (matched their braces), poisonous interior for the rest of us.

One of the saddest things about Thatcher's legacy is that people like Hora genuinely think as they do. A finer example of a shattered and dysfunctional society could not be wheeled out. 🙁

One of the saddest things about Thatcher's legacy is that people like muddyfox genuinely think as they do. A finer example of a shattered and dysfunctional society could not be wheeled out

EFA

your not a true northerner!

nobody's a true northerner unless they were born north of Perth

Even the Hovis advert was filmed down sarf (Dorset)

You're not making sense Hora - no change there then.

+1 barnsleymitch

I'll [i]never[/i] calm down about this.

I'm out. We shouldn't have such topics. Yes there will always be opposite opinions on such things. We shouldn't fall out over it.

Just agree to disagree. Peace.

You didn't even get my username right Hora.... 🙄

not read any of this thread, but i have a good idea what it will be about.
all i can say is, when she dies i for one will be a happy man and may even have a little party.

both my stepdad and grandad were miners, my stepdad was on strike the whole duration of the strike.

whole villages were ruined and left to rot because of the effect of the strike
families were torn apart cos of the strike

most of the middle class idiots on here who spurt how wrong people who despise her are, have no idea how much this woman is hated in these communities.
and also no idea about the hardships suffered in the early 80's.