Thatcher Dead

I hope this Briggs chap could cross his T's otherwise the wfc critics will be abusing him well good.

 

As I said that is my opinion, if you think going out their way to try and ruin someones funeral is ok then that is your opinion and it is a forum and you are entitled to that opinion!

I dont know the circumstances of what Maggie did to ruin the lives of these certain individuals so I would rather not comment but we do live in a blame culture where something is always someones fault or some corporation. Is Macdonalds to blame for their litter around the town or is it the Lazy gits who cant be bothered to put it in the bins?

 

Or are they just typical of a certain type of person (the complete opposite to Thatcherism) who seem to want to blame the state for everything but not take any responsibility for themselves or their own lives?

Life isn't black and white..Thatcher did some good and also left some bad in her legacy. I'm not a fan of Blair or Brown, or the fact this country preaches that it's a democracy but still has an unelected Head of State who inherits the role by birth. Yet I'd like to think if and when any of the three of them die, I'd at least be respectful on their passing, and at least try and be fair and balanced in my thoughts and opinions.

 

Bas should stand!

 

defensive fruitifcations!

 

blame Canada..

 

Love or hate her, Maggie defended the Falklands at a time absolute scum Labour politicians wanted to sell them all up down the river. And for that single reason she deserves every person's utmost respect.

 

Is this really the place to debate right wing/left wing politics, or worse celebrate somebodies death?

Should I start a 9/11 thread so people can moan at the banking sector and celebrate 'those greedy bankers' being forced to plummet to their own deaths? Because having read this, is no different to what the first 4 pages of this thread have been belittled to. But because they know the name of the person it becomes acceptable to do so.

 

Hats off to whoever it was who managed to find and destroy all of the horcruxes.

Evil, evil woman.

 

I don't think Hornmeister (or anybody else) has an answer for that one.

 

A who?

 

It's nonsense to say manufacturing went overseas because of unionisation. It went overseas because you can super-exploit third world workers and their children. The belligerence of the unions merely mirrors the belligerence of capitalism and all its phoney ideologies of knowing your place and deserving and undeserving poor.

Thatcher was an incompetent Prime Minister who survived because she appealed to just enough of the electorate's anti-union, anti-europe and anti-modernity sentiments. Whilst a consistent 40% of the 70% who voted did so for her the majority of the country loathed her. Her only 'successes' if you can call them that - the promotion of privatisation, the unleashing of the financial sector and the selling of council houses have all proved to have stings in the tail. Anyone with any recall of the time remembers that she never looked likely to last a single term until the Falklands.

She was hopelessly wrong on a whole number of issues, from South Africa, to Hillsborough to Clause 28 which she approached with divisiveness and arrogance. She was asleep on watch when the Argentines invaded the Falklands. A thousand died needlessly for the want of a clear sign the Islands were protected.

I'm not rejoicing she is dead, but I understand the anger she generates. And it's tough ****. Choose one class over another so readily you can't really complain when the other hates.

 

Somebody may have already picked holes in this - I'm still a few pages behind. But anyway:

1. If every family lives in a nice house, the housing market does badly because nobody wants/needs to move. If nobody is moving, the house prices go down (like the last 5 years).

2. Demand makes prices go UP not DOWN! If people want something, companies can charge more for it, if nobody wants it they have to reduce the price in order to actually sell anything.

3. If everyone went to a good school and was amazingly intelligent, it doesn't mean you get better jobs! If EVERYONE does it, then we're back to square one - we can't have a nation of just rocket scientists and brain surgeons, we still need people doing the nitty-gritty jobs in order for the country to function. So in other words, it'd just mean you've spent thousands on a degree, just to go and work sweeping the streets.

I'm not saying we should only care about ourselves, I'm saying that is a completely wrong account of explaining why we should! We should care because we're human, and that's showing humanity. However, at the same time surely it's only natural that your priority is yourself, and those you encounter? Or would you happily donate every penny you have to Save The Children, whilst you and your family starve to death?

 

I've long thought that the only way true democracy would arise would be if we abolished political parties. MPs would then only be accountable to their constituents and not to their party whip.

 

Mrs Thatch was the former Di Canio

 

I'd also add I wouldnt pi55 on a politician if they were on fire. Tory, Labour, Liberal, I find it hilarious people try to differentiate between them. They are all self serving untrustworthy cahunts.

 

Here's my American leftist perspective, which probably puts me center right in England...

I came of age in Reagan era America, and at first only saw him as an American cheerleader. I appreciated that he got people to be enthusiastic about being an American again after some truly difficult and discouraging years after the ML King and Kennedy assassinations, the Vietnam years, oil crises and the impotence of the Iran hostage situation, but grew to hate what he brought out in those blindly "proud to be an American" types. I still do. I resented Thatcher for her much ballyhooed place in guiding Reagan's ideology. She was a fellow traveler, so to speak.

It can be said under some circumstances that a single individual can set the course of history: think Napoleon, Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander. As I studied history later in school, I came to be at reluctant peace with Reagan. In his case, I don't think 'the man makes the history', but instead that he bobbed to the surface as history was being made, that he was a result of the times around him, carried on currents and tides he couldn't have predicted but yet was inextricably linked to.

We made Reagan. Reagan didn't make us. I felt ashamed when I came to understand this. He was our fault. He was us.

I think much the same is true of Margaret Thatcher. The course she plotted was one someone sooner or later would have had to embark on because of where Britain was at. The difficulty the ordinary working joes went through would have eventually happened regardless of who was at the helm, since the economic model of Britain was changing, with or without the consent of those working people most directly impacted by it. That's the way it always works... Whalers give way to petroleum workers, and never understand why they can't make a living whaling anymore, and don't have any choice in the matter. England's industry isn't quite that cut and dry, but undoubtedly economic upheaval was underway once the global economy got back on track after the war. There is no going back in these cases, no matter what you want...you can't put the genie back in the bottle. It isn't 'right'/'wrong' but simply the way it is even when it sucks.

She definitely made blunders in her execution but for a few years, she was a visionary, and I say that most reluctantly because of the great cost in the lives of the ordinary people most affected by it, to help Britain cut through and expedite in a few years what could easily have dragged on for decades, and taken a great many more 'casualties', for lack of a better word, with them. I'm no socialist, but because of Reagan and Thatcher, because of how heavy handed many of these steps were, it was easy for me to understand why we needed people to fight for 'the people'.

it is easy for me to understand the venom people have for her who lived through those years and had to bear the brunt of economic changes in the late 70's and 80's that never gave any signs of reversing themselves because they never were going to.

It isn't fair, but no one ever promised life would be. That's not Reagan's fault, nor Thatcher's either.

 

I don't know what you said, but Thatcher would not have approved of censorship of political views.

That's Ken Livingstone, George Galloway, lefty territory.

 

All I would like to say is, that I will not be shedding any tears for that woman :-X

As for a state funeral, WHY!!!

As far as I know, no other ex-prime minister has had one, other than Churchill, who was our great wartime leader who possibly saved our country from German tyranny with his leadership and hence probably deserved one. So what did Thatcher do to deserve such an honour, nothing!!! It would also be a waste of valuable public money, especially in our current climate of austerity?

IMO it would be just a blatant Tory propaganda exercise, in a cynical attempt to bolster their current standing!!! So if that is what they want, let the Tory party pay for it, not the hard pressed taxpayer!!!

 

Newsflash: It's only a 'hate crime' when it annoys the left.

White right-wingers can be slandered mercilessly and that's okay, but don't you dare tell the truth about Islam or criticise a freeby showered ethnic minority who think we owe them the shirts off our backs.

 

I said that we imported coal from Australia and car manufacturing moved overseas. I wasn't talking about manufacturing in general. Get your facts right before you try and criticise them.

Thatcher may not have survived her first term because she was having to sort the country out, much like the government is having to do now.

I think you and a few others are conveniently forgetting the poor state we were in when she took over. We were just about bankrupt, we'd had to go to the IMF for a loan to bail us out, just like Greece has just had to do. Our "efficiency" as a nation was the worst in the western world and we were the laughing stock of Europe and the World with little credibility. Germany and France were taking advantage and "running" Europe as a little partnership and we had been letting them.

We were in a shocking state, winter of discontent, the worst industrial strike record in the world - and the rest of it. The Unions were all powerfull, they didn't reflect "us" or "the people" or "the workers" as when Thatcher took away the strike action decisions away from the highly paid and hypocritical union leaders and enforced the strikes to be voted on by the workers themselves, then the strikes stopped. I just wonder what would have happened to this country if Scargill had won and demonstrated that his power as a union leader can defeat all other forms of democracy through strikes. Of couse, you lefties should be asking why the last Labour government of a decade didn't reverse those changes that Thatcher initiated. It is because they know that the workers themselves should vote on strike action, noit just their Union leaders.

What the left conveniently forget is that the miners dispute happened because Scargill wouldn't ballot the workforce. Even during the dispute something like 25% to 33% of miners refused to strike. Even the mining community were divided about the best way to go. That is why Scargill refused to ballot them. If Scargill had the miners interests at his heart rather than his own ego, the closure of mines may well have still happened as they were so uneconomical, but it would have happened in a far better managed way, over a much longer period of time, thorugh the introduction of local enterprise zones in affected areas, for example.

I dont agree with everything she did, but we needed a strong leader to get us back to being a workable and functioning nation, that was again respected throughout the world.

What Thatcher did to put things right - had to be done then, otherwise we would have become a total failure as a nation. It was not about left v right, labour v conservative, it was about right v wrong.

Yes, my thoughts are on the right of centre, but I pay my staff well above the average I could "get away with" and they think I am a fair boss. I believe that treating my staff well is good for the business, good for me and good for them. But I also know that if I pay the staff more than the business can afford, or the staff become so obstructive through "demarkation" etc, that they are affecting the profitablility of the business then we will ALL lose, and the Country will receive less tax from me, my business and my staff and will have to pay them benefits instead. Being on the "right" doesn't mean that workers are exploited. But being on the "left"seems to mean that workers have the right to be jealous of success, envious of others possessions and that everything possible should be done to reduce the gap between the top and bottom of businesses and society as a whole.

One of the issues we have in this world is that across the spectrum of, say, British society, there will be many that are content with their lives and are happy just doing what they are doing. "Normal jobs" and "normal lives". There will also be a few that just aren't bothered and are happy collecting benefits. Then at the other end of the spectrum, there are those that work exceptionally hard to a better lives for themselves. And of course, there will be every shade of the spectrum in between. If you think about that, then the natural evolvement of this natural spectrum, will be that the gap between richer and poorer will tend to increase, but that the gap will also increase between those that are content and those that are not and want to work harder - that is inevitable. I believe that should be allowed to take it's natural course. If tax was kept at reasonable levels then it would return more tax to look after the poorer or less fortunate in society. The "left" don't agree, as they want to stop people succeeding, reduce the incentives to succeed and end the natural spectrum that I have just spoken about. That is fighting against human nature - and just will not work. That is why there are no examples of a long term successful socialist nation.

It isn't about left v right, it's about common sense.

 

Once again, someone left leaning, ignores the truth and complains about an untruth. She is not having a "State Funeral". Why don't you lot get your facts right.

 

That's not really true. She had a very limited view of 'Freedom'. There was a massive censorship of information from the Falklands. Subsequently there was a toughening of the secrets act and the rules surrounding GCHQ to ensure no whistle blowing and to control journalists. The voices of Irish Republicans were censored and there was Clause 28 designed to render gay people invisible.

She'd have had views about murdering people and disposing if corpses you probably wouldn't approve of either.

 

Superb article, wonder how many lefties on here actually employ people and thus helping the economy instead of draining it! Most the lefties I know have never employed anyone but think they know more about it then the people who do! Anyone who runs a business whether it is state owned or not can not be good in the long term if it continues to make a loss (Unless it is a footy team).

Do the lefties hate our owners? They admit they are here to make money? will they moan when they sell some of our players for profit and pay themselves a nice Dividend?

 

Since when do `state owned` businesses make profits ?

 

A nation is on the road to ruin when they're running at a huge loss.

 

Hell of a lot of sweeping generalisations on this thread'!!! Dangerous dangerous territory.

 

Personally my chosen cheese of choice is Brie.

 

What a stupid post. The "censorship" around the Falklands was to protect our troops that were trying to win back part of our Country on the other side of the world. What would you expect? IT WAS A WAR!!!

Then, why on earth would you not want to tighten security around the Irish situation. She had narrowly missed being assassinated and two of her closest friends had been murdered by bombs and 00's of civilians were being killed by bombs on the mainland. Are you totally stupid?

Regarding Clause 28. that wasn't her initiative. But even if it was, it wasn't to render gays invisible as you so incorrectly state, it was to stop local authorities actively spending money in the promotion of homosexuality. That isn't censorship of a POLITICAL view as you say it was. The government felt that the public money spent would be better spent on birth control advice in a time where AIDS was a major concern. It didn't even create an offence against the law. You have to put these things into context, it was only a few years earlier that homosexuality was an offence per se - and most of the government ministers and MP's had been brought up in that world. It isn't any wonder that such views were expressed. In any case, the clause was repealed after 6 years of the labour government, in 2003.

You really ought to get your facts right and start employing a little common sense in your arguments.

 

Bring back Section 28 I say.

I don't want my kids being shown diagrams of two blokes buggering each other as part of their sex education curriculum.

 

That's a sweeping generalisation.