Yep, lets have the country run by the Bullingdon Club so they can screw the working classes. We don't want pesky trade unions standing up for them and giving working class people "rights".
She was definitely a Marmite person. Having worked in Port Talbot steelworks in the '70s I can assure you it wasn't all roses before she came along. I saw the writing on the wall and did something about and made some life changing decisions, There are some things that she did that may have been good for the country but then she went way over the top and ruined many peoples lives.She ended up by believing she was the Queen and that she could do anything she wanted to and the Poll Tax is an example of that. I personally detested her and will not be mourning her departure but also I will be respectful that a family has lost someone.
you were taken in by here then jager?......look at the mess she left behind that we are still recovering from. and this lot who are in now are finishing off the job she started.....this country is ****ed.....unless you are rich....
Not at all I voted labour and always have! But I recognised over the years that she did good as well as bad for the country. And look at the mess we were in before she came to power, who were truly running the country before she came to power ? The unions with the backing of the communists ! I dislike the mamby pamby politicians we have now, they got voted in by running policies like opinion poles, if something is popular they go for that, they jump on the bandwagon. They have no passion, they have no vision . All they do is furnish their own nests. The whole ****ing lot of them are corrupt ****s that I hope will be voted out on the next election.
I was a member of the AEU at the time - our walk outs were usually on a Friday night - did someone say earlier on that we shouldn't call Dai names!!
some very interesting and passionate comments here, going by the 2010 election results even labour have lost the plot in Wales, BNP 3rd biggest increase in votes after tories and libdems, interesting
You talk of how it took labour 10 years to sort the mess out....... What about what labour have done in the past 10 years? Iraq, afghanistan........ Thatcher was your generation, labour ****ed it up for my generation. Doesn't mean i will celebrate Blairs.death.
Musty, labour are detested in mid Wales. When election time comes around, you'd do well to spot a labour party sign in sometimes garden.
The problem is that you cannot run a country by consensus. There are far too many vested interests to keep them all happy. The current welfare reforms are an excellent example of this. Under no circumstances should anyone be better off claiming benefits than working, yet by sticking up for those who pay in and contribute the current Government make themselves hugely unpopular with those that don't, and the bleeding hearts who think the Government should pay for everything. The economic damage wrought by "the one eyed Scottish idiot" will take generations to repair. Same with Thatcher and the unions. They needed to be broken. A country cannot function when half the workforce are out on strike because they don't like the colour that the tearoom has been painted. By taking them on she did what needed to be done whilst earning the emnity of millions. What she didn't do well enough was put in place measures to replace what was lost, be it council houses or jobs.
Lone/ Jager/ Chico. All spot on. But I understand why she's divided opinion and if you were a miner you'd see it differently. The Winter of Discontent leading up to Thatcher winning the first election in 1979 was a terrible time. People seem to forget that. The Unions ran the country, the Labour government was in their pockets and you never knew when the lights would go out. Burials and cremations were on hold and the dead were piling up. For those who weren't there I'm not joking. The economy was a disaster (Labour are really good at that) and the UK was the 'sick man of Europe'. We were a joke in the world. Something had to be done and Thatcher did it, but as Lone said, I doubt she foresaw some of the later consequences. Allowing people to buy their council homes helped the working class no doubt (my parents did this) but it's led to a shortage of social housing today. Privatising the inefficient state-run industries was right, but nobody would know we're all paying higher prices today not because of that, but because of the cartels they formed between themselves. Successive governments have turned a blind eye and that was never Thatcher's fault. On that point, it's unthinkable today that we would permit a state-run business that was failing and had had its day (the coal industry and the steel industry to a lesser extent) to continue to hemorrhage money at our expense. The Labour government was happy to do that back in the 70's. My Dad worked in Port Talbot when it had 12,000 men working there. Totally over-manned and totally inefficient. It was publicly owned for ****'s sake! It was painful to see him take premature retirement but no sane government could let that continue. It's note-worthy that successive Labour governments didn't repeal any piece of Thatcher legislation and didn't re-open a single mine. I later and happily voted for Blair (what a mistake that was!) as the Tories had had long enough in power but imo we'll never have another Prime Minister who stood up for British interests abroad and fought our corner in Europe the way Thatcher did. It was a time when America actually listened to what we had to say instead of us being their poodle, and Thatcher was instrumental in bringing down the iron curtain. I know in this part of the world I'm in a minority but Thatcher was a necessary cure to the dreadful mess left by Labour - a bit like what's happening now but on a bigger scale. Thatcher's reforms changed the way we all live and most of us live better lives than our parents because of it. A truly great Prime Minister who had more intelligence in her little finger than all who have followed. Modern day politicians can only hope to have a tiny shred of her ability. Probably the best Prime Minister since Labour PM Clement Atlee in the post-war era. I accept people will vehemently disagree - that's the nature of the subject - but to positively rejoice at the death of an 87 year old woman who was suffering from Alzheimer's and has grandchildren is pathetic - no matter what your politics are. Lots of people here have really disappointed me. I respect your political views even if I disagree with them but your morals are questionable.
It is not just about the miners, she hurt people in manufacturing as well by driving up the value of the pound.
Top post knackered, as I said I would never vote for her or the conservatives ever, they are not the party they proclaim to be. However looking back at thatcher and what she did especially to the luny left wing unions, who had far to much power for an unelected body of people with their own agenda. I'm glad she did what she did. I was listening to Neil Kinnock last night, and he mentioned that Scargill and Thatcher deserved each other, I fully agree with that, I could also see the absolute contempt he held both in, I agree with that as well. The country and the people of Britain wouldn't be the same right now without her. And before you say the country is in a mess, yes it is, but not as much as a mess as some. We in reality have it very good here there are far worse places to be born and brought up in. Have a look at what the world media thought of her, without her there would be no glasnost no perestroika, and the Cold War would have continued! If she was due credit for one thing it would have been that, her, regan and gorby changed the world http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22068284
Wow. A fan. You can see the idiots celebrating publicly today, Jager. All clutching their copies of Socialist Worker whilst putting policemen in hospital and daubing graffitti all over the place. Nice bunch.
Not to mention the wives and children etc who were forced to stand in soup kitchen lines, or the fact that a generation of workers were lost because of no investment in industrial communities. People talk about the recent recession, hell the industrial areas of Britain have been in a recession since the 1980s, hence why people all over Britain have been celebrating her death, given the suffering she heaped upon them/us.
In 1979 the Tories won 33% of the vote and had roughly 65% of the seats. That is not democracy, it`s the first past the post system which is not representative of the country as a whole. Yes you can argue that those who don`t vote, don`t deserve a say in who runs the country. It`s a shameful state of affairs when 20 - 25% of the voters can`t be bothered to turn out for a little while once every four or five years to put a cross on a piece of paper. Mind you, it was roughly the same figures when Bliar got elected, and look at the way that turned out. Just as bad as the wicked witch of the west. He tried to be a Thatcher clone with the same disastrous results.
I don't agree with first past the post either. But the public like it and supported it in the recent referendum. I suspect most didn't understand what they were voting for and just decided to keep the status quo.
