Thatcher dead?

[Acidmouse]

He holds it til he dies

I don't think they can ever be removed

Of course these days, the whole baronetcy system is not used for new patronage, understandably given attitudes to hereditary privilege

Watching the documentary on BBC last night it said Maggy was shocked and disappointed at her sons behavior after being found guilty of his little African adventures. Wonder if this was the reason she spent most of her final years with her niece and kids lived abroad hardly seeing her? At least she saved our footy though

[kinboshi]

...

Least we not forget Thatcher branded Mandela a criminal terrorist and did her up most to keep SA apartheid strong. ...

That would be Mandela who started an organisation committed to blowing things up?

You justify her support of the Khmer Rouge how?

[Jon MW]

...

Least we not forget Thatcher branded Mandela a criminal terrorist and did her up most to keep SA apartheid strong. ...

That would be Mandela who started an organisation committed to blowing things up?

You justify her support of the Khmer Rouge how?

How do you get that from what I posted?

[MANTIS01]

Just seen some miners on the TV standing outside a ramshackle pit shaking their heads and saying they're glad Thatcher is dead. It's like somebody still moaning about a bad beat 30 years after it happened. There's a whole big world out there fellas, prob time to crack on and look for a different career now.

[bobAlike]

Just seen some miners on the TV standing outside a ramshackle pit shaking their heads and saying they're glad Thatcher is dead. It's like somebody still moaning about a bad beat 30 years after it happened. There's a whole big world out there fellas, prob time to crack on and look for a different career now.

It's pathetic mate.

So is this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22077072

[nirvana]

...

Least we not forget Thatcher branded Mandela a criminal terrorist and did her up most to keep SA apartheid strong. ...

That would be Mandela who started an organisation committed to blowing things up?

You justify her support of the Khmer Rouge how?

lol, about time JMW was outed

[kinboshi]

...

Least we not forget Thatcher branded Mandela a criminal terrorist and did her up most to keep SA apartheid strong. ...

That would be Mandela who started an organisation committed to blowing things up?

You justify her support of the Khmer Rouge how?

lol, about time JMW was outed

Haha, I wasn't saying he did justify Thatcher's support of the Khmer Rouge. Just that he's been trying to justify her actions whenever her comments or policies have been challenged.  Just wondered how he'd justify that one.

[bobby1]

It's a funny thing really but the ones posting on here in support of her yesterday also mostly admit she made some pretty bad mistakes in her term too. The ones that don't like her have chosen to ignore the good things and instead moan about the bad things. Bringing up her son's shortcomings as if it is in any way relevant to the job she did 30 odd years ago is just basically running out of things to say about her imo.

[Acidmouse]

Her son and his actions are intrinsically linked to her and how she conducted herself over history. Although on the flip side I do think her daughter was a very good journalist/presenter, don't mind her at all.

If the best people can do is say she had balls, she was fearless a great leader then fair enough. But the flip side is to what cost? very similar to the mess the current government are being left to deal with now. The path to recovery for the country is the key not the end result.

People cover over the 80s like it was boom times and harp back to the winter of discontent. Do they not remember the riots across the country? the working class absolutely hating her and what her government stood for? the massive unemployment? the loss of hope for the masses? The belly being taken out of entire communities?

Not that Blair did much to change this, they carried on their pretend socialist policy's.

We pointed our she was snuggled up with known dictators, favored racist regimes, made the rich richer, poor poorer, crushed industry's she didn't agree with, promoted the greed culture and me me me everyone out for themselves. So yeah plenty to look back at negatively on tbh not just her son.

When I try and look back at what she did without my socialist hat on, I think to tackle the Unions was a must, they needed the power shifting away from them, I worked for the old British Gas in 1991 and it was a solid piss take, no one did bugger all. I don't agree with it being sold to us, but it needed a complete change without question. So I assume this was the same for alot of the government owned/run industries. We needed to export more of our goods abroad, she did excellent with this, some of the arms trade to dodgy countries in hindsight (Taliban  in afghan) was not great but hey we can forgive that.

I liked the fact she gave hope to people wishing to buy their homes, council houses etc..but I can never understand why she stopped local governments from allowing them to build more council houses if so many were being privately purchases? all we end up doing is paying private landlords alot of money now to house people that should be in council houses.

I like how she took a stance on Europe, some of her methods and actions not my cuppa tea but I think in the long run it was 100% beneficial for us.

I just don't like how people harp on about she was the reason of everything good in Britain, rewriting history. Any government could have improved the country from the low point in the 70s. She had enough time to turn it around frankly. I guess it was understandable in the end she was a pale figure of the vibrant women who was first elected Conservative leader in the late 70's.

[The Camel]

I wish people would stop praising her for having courage of her conviction.

A good politician listens to arguments and experts on matters which they have little knowledge.

Then decides on the best policies after a period of reflection.

Thatcher just attacked problems like a cow in a china shop - making her mind up quickly and then refusing to back down even when she was proved to be wrong.

[kinboshi]

There's also the logical fallacy that's consistently being made, that because the UK had lots of serious problems she was the answer - the only one.

[Sheriff Fatman]

Just seen some miners on the TV standing outside a ramshackle pit shaking their heads and saying they're glad Thatcher is dead. It's like somebody still moaning about a bad beat 30 years after it happened. There's a whole big world out there fellas, prob time to crack on and look for a different career now.

Exactly the sort of myopic garbage I'd expect to read from someone with no experience of those events.

Not worth wasting more keystrokes on it though, as that's presumably what the troll attempt was intended to achieve.

[TightEnd]

after the 1970s and hypthesising Michael Foot as Prime Minister supported by the Marxist Union leaders...

what was the real alternative please?


Labour only got elected when Blair adopted Union reform, Privatisation, Monetarism etc..didn't reverse any of it...he added a social justice agenda onto Thatcherism

the idea that there was a realistic alternative at the time is left wing fiction...even many moderate Labour politicians admitted privately the reforms were corrct, merely that they could never be seen to endorse them let alone do them

[kukushkin88]

This summed it up for me, sorry if it was posted earlier in the thread-  As Boris Starling has written: "If you hated Margaret Thatcher, the time to celebrate/crow/insult was when she lost her political power, not her life"

This is the best comment in the thread.

Nearly every person I know who I consider to be intelligent and politically aware despises what she did to the country but her death is no reason for happiness.

[bobby1]

But she did rewrite political history Acid, Thatcherism isn't just a buzz word is it.

Back to my point about looking at the bad side of things, you mentioned unemployment but didn't mention lowering inflation.

You mention selling off council houses and not replacing them but don't accentuate the people that bought their house very cheaply and sold it on later to give them selves a nest egg/money to invest/spend. You give an example of private landlords, it's just looking at one side of the happenings, all the down side. Houses to buy became available down the line because people that had been allowed to buy their council homes could eventually sell.

Of those things tho breaking down the unions and privatisation of companies that improved the level to the consumers were a big success, without doing those things the economy would have continued to stand still. You admit that BG was a bit of a mess, so were lots of other firms then, she took it on to modernise them. These days you can get any amount of phone providers and it's pretty cheap, that's a legacy of the BT privatisation and a free market that was encouraged then. The example of it going bad is probably the rail service which was a shambles when privatised and hasn't really recovered but note that privatisation took place in 1993 when she was no longer in charge.

Watching the various Obituaries on TV last night there was a common theme running thru them in that whenever there was something to be handled she took notice of the experts in that field. It might not be a coincidence that one of the biggest privatisation flops took place soon after she had left office.

You have just kind of shrugged your shoulder at the end and dismissed turning around the economy and eradicating business that were well out of date but if it was that easy then I guess the last two Govt's would have sorted similar problems out easily but they haven't mate.

When she went it was time to go and the Poll Tax was a horrid idea but give me someone that does a lot of good things and some bad things than the current lot who think getting spin doctors to give them quotes full of air or getting their picture taken buying pasties in Greggs is governing.

I remember a story years ago tho when the Tories were trying to appear more in touch with local communities and sent some of the parties heavierweights to various towns and cities around the country. In one of them, with photographers in full flow they wanted to capture one particular Tory in a fish n chip shop photographing him eating fish n chips with the locals. With it all in place he went to the counter and in is lovely posh voice said
'Could I have fish n chips please'
'anything else sir'
' err yes could you put me some of that Guacamole on too' he said pointing at the mushy peas.

Job not done.