I see that Margaret Thatcher has died - I suspect there are few people who will sit on the fence -she was marmite - you loved her or loathed her - however there are some opinions that are just wrong Rudebwoy will be partying he said only on Friday I just hope that whatever view most people had of her this is a tiny exception
Whilst, not agreeing with many things Mrs T implemented, i would always admire her for doing what she really believed in. It's sad that some people would rejoice in the death of a politician.
I don't know if there are many others like me on this but I actually found there were things she did that I thought were excellent - and others awful. I also think that he mannerism was responsible for a lot of the hatrde people felt towards her - if ever a politician should have read the book "how to win friends and influence people" it was her. Instead it was constant sledgehammer. I think she will go down in history as one of our most important PMs though
When you consider that the US Presidents during her time as PM were Reagan and Bush Sr, it wouldn't surprise me if she was the dominant leader in the Western world in the Cold War during that time. I was 6 when she came to power and, as I was at school, remember that it was her Government that introduced GCSEs and that there was a teacher's strike that disrupted my education, albeit slightly.
Certainly at the start of her time in office she dealt with many of the problems of the day successfully. I think that because of her failure to listen to her colleagues she did rather become rather out of touch in the later days. She proved that many of her policies were popular with the general public as she was re-elected twice. It has often been said that a strong figure is needed at the head of government and she was certainly that.
I suppose it depends how badly you were affected by her policies. I can understand why huge swathes of the north of england, Scotland, wales and northern ireland will be raising a glass this evening.
I can understand why loads of people hated her politics but would hope that even her trenchant enemies - Scargill perhaps - would be able to say something decent in tribute (but I suspect even if he did he would say something else in private )
If I remember correctly, the strike was on for about a week, and it seemed that the teachers in the unions that were on strike, were the ones for my favourite subjects.
As one of the teachers that were driven to strike, for the first time ever, out of sheer desparation, I can tell you that most of us felt completely distraught at the idea of taking action but did so anyway. Which may go some way to explaining why in some quarters she is regarded with utter loathing. Ignorant, pig-headed woman, and not mourned here one little bit. As a historian I can agree that she was indeed one of the most important figures on the British and world stages in the second half of the 20th century.
I think a lot of people are too young to know or have short memories and do not realise what a state Britain was in at the end of the 1970's Thatcher was bad medicine but for many a necessary evil. If she had not broken the Miners we would still be a strike ridden nation today. She was just so arrogant
Maybe I will view things slightly differently but my parents (one from the Yorkshire mills, one from south London) didn't have it easy and worked hard to provide, which they did. I started my apprenticeship in 1979 and can remember the problems caused by the miners before that coupled with James Callaghan's ineffectual leadership of the country. I remember after her winning the election the continuing problems caused by the miners, probably Arthur Scargill trying to be macho more than the individual coalface workers, and the power cuts as a result. Maybe I was on the lucky side of Mrs Thatcher's policies, but I was never out of work while she or her ilk were running the country, the same cannot be said about the Labour governments. Yes, Margaret Thatcher divided the nation but I think it is a better place for her vision. I know many will disagree but the alternative was going to be a pseudo-Eastern European hell-hole and I saw Ceausescu's Romania first hand, and not the "nice" resorts on the Black Sea, Zhivkov's Bulgaria in passing (not as bad as his northern neighbour, but bad enough) and I have worked in Poland, none of them very nice places - even if the people were. A sad day for British politics, perhaps the last not-corruptable leader we had.
I met her (very briefly) once when I worked in Central Government Civil Service and she came for a tour of our installation. She appeared very aloof and I think her lack of the 'common touch' contributed to her demonization. She did a lot of good and a lot of bad. But the British as a people and nation(s) have moved on since so I will neither celebrate nor mourn her passing. But you can't deny she was a historical figure.
I wonder whether if she had done the same things but with a different attitude rather than the arrogant way she did things whether people would have viewed her differently. Certainly by the time she left office she had almost become a joke figure believing herself to be supreme whilst those around her in even her own party had had enough. On a sliding scale her years of effectiveness went downhill
If you were not affected you can afford to be generous, to the average person and the less well off she was ruthless, destroyed working communities while making sure the rich made money out of poverty. Among the poor and less well of she was the most hated person this country has ever known and to see that hatred remains after all this time should show this. The last thing I saw about her was the Thatcher Trust set up offshore with £60 million in contributions and only £6000 could be traced as being paid out. An ex PM setting up an offshore account to avoid tax sums her up nicely. jck
Off track slightly, but I would raise a glass and a smile if somebody would pop a cap in the fat, spotty arse of Kim Jong Un. Not a politician perhaps though - more of a figurehead in a backward, brainwashed, backwater of a country.
Politics are all about circumstance and timing. Thatcher undeniably left the country with a better economic outlook and international standing than it had in the 1970s, albeit at too high a social price, with little or no regard to local/regional conditions. She undeniably achieved most of the things she set out to do, primarily due to her single-mindedness and refusal to compromise on her beliefs. Those same characteristics would probably have turned Britain into a third world country if she were Conservative leader in the aftermath of the indecisive election in 2010.
And we will do the same for Gordon Brown. Like France where the new socialists are hiding „their˝ money in Sviss, the revolution did not work there or Rússia, where the party were more equal than the other people and now the top party members are the new bourgoise.
