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

When they have been exposed to the never-ending TV news coverage of “the Thatcher news story”, the countless “special programmes” about her legacy, the page after page of newspaper articles concerning every detail of the soppy tart’s life, the multitude of sycophantic politicians queuing up to lavishly praise her, and the wall to wall coverage of her state funeral, then they’ll wished she’d never died.

Sorry C-G, but some wounds run deep. I respect how it makes you uncomfortable on this matter but others feel differently.

I do wonder how many people really will celebrate when she dies though.

There was a time when i dearly, dearly wanted her to die screaming, screaming so hard her throat bled.
Now she is just another old lady losing her marbles and that wouldn’t give me much satisfaction.
TBH i think i’ll just give a wry grin and drink to those men and women i met at Orgreave.

Read the first page and some of Ernie’s posts elsewhere, Ernie understands Thatcher better than most on here. As noted by someone, she did not create an ideology that was the work of others. Indeed, she was not nearly as ideological as she is made out to be, she was far too effective a political operator to be bound by ideology.

However, she was the dominant politician of her era and her dominance was complete for a decade. It is this dominance that makes her the personal target. At that point, the Tory party whose defining purpose is to be in power got rid of her because they thought it might allow them to win again – which they did.

It is difficult to imagine the 1970s. Heath, the previous Tory PM held an election to ask the country who ran the country, the unions or me? He lost. There were numerous works to rules, the three day week and blackouts. We were Greece, the IMF had to bail us out.

But some notable differences when Thatcher came to power are:

Inflation averaged 12.5%
The top income tax rate was 83%, it was increased to 98% on investment income.
VAT was 8%
There were exchange controls so any movement of money by business or individuals required permission.
The government owned a steel company, coal mines, an airline, car manufacturers, a telecom company, the electricity industry, the gas industry etc.

blimey,took me two days to get through all that.
Glad I did though,seems the overall majority aren’t thatcherites or thatcherettes.
Nor am I,I was living in london during the poll tax riots,I remember it well.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gImN5INkzRE[/video]

Ernie’s analysis is,as always,lucid.

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?

Sadly, no. He died some years back of lung cancer, as did his father and brother. All of whom had worked in the mines.

I’m conflicted; I loathed the Tory methods, but accept that something needed to be done. It just needed to be a lot more humane, and with a lot more thought. That said, I’m glad the mines are mostly gone. They were dangerous und hugely unhealthy places.

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

Not on ice, but got one in the cupboard and a rocket ready to launch

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

Some miner’s clubs have been collecting weekly subs from members to pay for the party
The club I frequent refers to it as the ‘sunny day’ fund 🙂

Ahh… They were the days! Left school in ’83 no job, no future, miss spent youth, on t’ dole/working on the side for cash in hand, hitching around the country seeing bands… not a care in the world! Thanks Mags,swine!!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI[/video]

The thing about the Thatcher years is while most of the country was being closed down city bankers seemed to be quite literally rolling in money and flaunting it.

I grew up in Liverpool and was made redundant twice by the time I was 17. I did get on my bike and rode 60 miles to West Yorkshire where I managed to find some work, although things weren’t too much better there. But leaving my family at friend at such a young age then working in mills and factories on very poor wages is not something I would like my kids to have to do . Sad days.

I did get on my bike and rode 60 miles to West Yorkshire where I managed to find some work, although things weren’t too much better there. But leaving my family at friend at such a young age then working in mills and factories on very poor wages is not something I would like my kids to have to do .

This was in the 1920’s……right ?

Is it true what they say about being able to get a proper loaf of Hovis back then ?

Well I’d like to thank her mate Norman for the excellent advice he offered to do like his dad and get on my bike. Madame joined me for the ride and we prospered.

Don’t forget that when people voted in 79 then had just lived through the Winter of discontent and the advertising agencies knew exactly what the majoirtiy aspired to:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-kmraHwPsA&feature=related[/video]

No cloth caps. I bet that Allagro had a half-eaten sandwich in the door.

That said, I’m glad the mines are mostly gone. They were dangerous und hugely unhealthy places.

Visited the National Coal Mining Museum recently, the guide chap who took us down the (former) pit was a great bloke and something he said stuck with me.
Showing us a piece of face-cutting machinery, he told us 11yrs ago the bloke driving that bit of kit could have been earning up to £1000 per week – then looked at us and said “sounds great doesn’t it? But there’s no point being the richest bloke in the graveyard…”

No-one’s mentioned the press yet have they. Thatcher was responsible for relaxing rules on press ownership and allowed an Australian who is resident in the USA to buy up a huge amount of newspapers

this got her a lot of press support, Kinnock was hammered by those papers each time. Tony Blair had to court these papers also knowing full well he wouldn’t have won a big majority without them

the press set up the PCC at the same time which suited thatcher because it was somebody else sorting out regulation on her behalf (both parties knew it would be useless, neither cared)

so these 2 events conspired to give the press an inflated sense of entitlement, they thought they could do what they wanted and this was ok – and now we have the leveson inquiry, millie dowlers phone being tampered with obstructing the course of justice

thanks Maggie

Has anyone seen or heard from emsz since this thread began?

Its a complicated questions she is researching or she may just be having a life and partying like we did when we here age.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqe5FgwPLYU&feature=related[/video]

I’d like to thank who posted the jimmy reid speech.sort of antidote to the above.

don simon – Member
Has anyone seen or heard from emsz since this thread began?

She’s probably regretting asking what seemed like a simple question, and having been bombarded with a load of passionately held/argued views, many of which are contradictory.

Still, at least we’ve all got along reasonably nicely, the thread’s not been locked, and no-one’s been banned. Top result for a controversial thread.

Emsz did make a brief appearance on page 8.

Reckon she deserves a medal.

Young girly says ‘who was Thatcher then’? And just walks away and watches the entertainment. Brilliant.

Her next question ‘Was Hitler as bad as he was painted’?